ArticlePublic understanding of science (Bristol, England)2021
The Dawkins effect? Celebrity scientists, (non)religious publics and changed attitudes to evolution.
Article in Public understanding of science (Bristol, England), 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Recognizing Compatibility, but Hesitant about In-Class Discussion: Nonreligious Biology Graduate Teaching Assistant Perceptions of the Relationship between Religion and Evolution.CBE life sciences education · 2025Article
- Our changing information ecosystem for science and why it matters for effective science communication.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Undergraduate Biology Students' Climate Change Communication Experiences Indicate a Need for Discipline-Based Education Research on Science Communication Education about Culturally Controversial Science Topics.CBE life sciences education · 2025Article
- Exploring Black Undergraduate Students' Communication and Biology Education Experiences about COVID-19 and COVID-19 Vaccines During the Pandemic.CBE life sciences education · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The role of science popularization remains relatively under-explored in research on contemporary public acceptance of evolution. In this study, we analyse national survey data to interrogate the role Britain's best-known celebrity scientists David Attenborough, Brian Cox, Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking may have played in changing public views of evolution, as well as the role of two creationists: Ken Ham and Harun Yahya. We investigate how well known these public figures are, what their views of religion are perceived to be and, drawing on social identity theory, whether they exert different effects on attitudinal change to evolution among different religious and non-religious publics. Binary logistic regression analysis shows that among Muslim and Pentecostal Christian publics, those familiar with Dawkins as both a scientist and as someone who holds negative views of religion are more likely to have become
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.