A social doxastic model

How are facemasks - seemingly innocuous artifacts of the biomedical industry - currently embroiled in cultural wars? What motivates popular rejections of scientific consensus and messaging about the reality and consequences of anthropogenic climate change (Hornsey & Fielding 2017; Kahan et al. 2012, Kahan 2015, 2016, 2017; Hornsey et al. 2016) or the COVID-19 virus and vaccine (Shepherd, MacKendrick, & Mora 2020; Pivetti et al. 2021; Hornsey et al 2020)? Given that we all have an interest, ceteris paribus, in forming true climate and health beliefs - since climate change and COVID-19 present collective threats, irrespective of group membership1 - we might reasonably expect a corollary motive for people to form true, epistemically rational beliefs based on the most accurate models available, irrespective of political affiliation or cultural worldviews. Or we would expect people at least to desire experts to accurately assess the reality of collective threats like climate change and COVID-19 for the sake of finding effective solutions (since, for most, their individual beliefs about climate change or COVID-19 are of little import, either to research or policy making).2 In the face of collective crises, we all have ＂skin in the game＂ and are all ultimately vulnerable to bearing the costs. It is therefore in everyone’s rational interest, in the face of commons-style threats, to get things right and strive to form true climate and health beliefs about climate change, COVID19, and vaccine safety and efficacy