> . For instance, among their "objective scientific knowledge" questions asked whether, "The novel coronavirus was unleashed in a laboratory in Wuhan and spread from there." Another was "The numbers of people that have died from COVID-19 are artificially inflated."

This is an incorrect reading of the paper. Those are statements intended to determine whether a participant has anti-consensus beliefs, but do not occur on the objective measure we're talking about.

Then participants were asked to bet on their ability to pass a middle-school level science test. People with anti-consensus beliefs bet higher on their performance and did worse on the test compared to people without those anti-consensus beliefs.

These are the test questions they were asked:

1. True or false? The center of the earth is very hot: True

2. True or false? The continents have been moving their location for millions of years and will continue to move. True

3. True or false? The oxygen we breathe comes from plants: True

4. True or false? Antibiotics kills viruses as well as bacteria: False

5. True or false? All insects have eight legs: False

6. True or false? All radioactivity is man made: False

7. True or false? Men and women normally have the same number of chromosomes: True

8. True or false? Lasers work by focusing sound waves: False

9. True or false? Almost all food energy for living organisms comes originally from sunlight: True

10. True or false? Electrons are smaller than atoms: True

11. True or false? All plants and animals have DNA: True

12. True or false? Humans share a majority of their genes with chimpanzees: True

13. True or false? It is the father’s genes that decide whether the baby is a boy or a girl: True

14. True or false? Ordinary tomatoes do not have genes, whereas genetically modified tomatoes do: False

15. True or false? Sound moves faster than light. False

16. True or false? The North Pole is a sheet of ice that floats on the Arctic Ocean. True

17. True or false? The ozone layer absorbs most of the sun’s UVB radiation, but not UVA radiation. True

18. True or false? Nitrogen makes up most of the earth’s atmosphere. True.

19. True or false? Antibodies are proteins produced by the immune system. True

20. True or false? Pathology is the study of the human body. False

21. True or false? The skin is the largest organ of the human body. True

22. True or false? Ligaments connect muscles to bones. False

23. True or false? All mutations to a human’s or animal’s genes are unhealthy. False

24. True or false? Uranium is an element found in nature. True

25. True or false? Radioactive milk can be made safe by
boiling it. False

26. True or false? The process of splitting uranium or plutonium atoms to create energy is called nuclear fission. True

27. True or false? Venus is the closest planet to the sun. False

28. True or false? It takes 24 hours for the earth to orbit the sun: False

29. True or false? A “Red Dwarf” is a kind of planet. False

30. True or false? The universe is expanding. True

31. True or false? Earth is the only place in the solar system
where helium can be found. False

32. True or false? Gravity is the theory that serves as the foundation for modern biology. False.

33. True or false? The earliest humans lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. False

34. True or false? “Survival of the fittest” is a phrase used to describe how natural selection works. True