We have often argued that efforts to communicate science in order to realize political objectives rarely work and sometimes backfire. This is of course a critique of the so-called “deficit model” of science communication.

Here is another example from Kellstedt et al. from the journal Risk Analysis (PDF), with implications for all of those efforts to educate people about the science of climate change:

Perhaps ironically, and certainly contrary to the assumptions underlying the knowledge-deficit model, as well as the marketing of movies like Ice Age and An Inconvenient Truth, the effects of information on both concern for global warming and responsibility for it are exactly the opposite of what were expected.
Directly, the more information a person has about global warming, the less responsible he or she feel for it; and indirectly, the more information a person has about global warming, the less concerned he or she is for it. These information effects, while striking, are
consistent with the findings of Durant and Legge(47) with respect to genetically modified foods, and with those of Evans and Durant(48) with respect to embryo research. Thus, we contribute another parcel of evidence that the knowledge-deficit model is inadequate for understanding mass attitudes about scientific controversies. . .

. . . despite the overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming and climate change are real phenomena that create risks for the earth’s future, among the mass public, the more confidence an individual has in scientists, the less responsible he or she tends to feel for global warming, and the less concerned he or she is about the problem. Perhaps this simply reflects an abundance of confidence that scientists can engineer a set of solutions to mitigate any harmful effects of global warming.13 But it can not be comforting to the researchers in the scientific community that the more trust people have in them as scientists, the less concerned they are about their findings.

Of course, if my point is to educate you about the futility of education, then I’ve gotten myself into an interesting paradox, haven’t I?