This year, KSAU "Primorsky Research Center of Sociology" conducted a survey among residents of the region to find out how much Primorye people believe in anti-scientific myths and the supernatural. The study involved 400 people. Most of the respondents admitted that they believe in the existence of psychics and a secret world government.
The questions were structured as follows: people were asked to choose how much they believe in a particular phenomenon, and to answer whether they consider the statement to be true or false (in whole or in part) or find it difficult. The questions covered a fairly broad topic - from ancient pyramids and psychics to reptilians (lizard people) and Nostradamus. Overall, over 50% of those surveyed expressed skepticism about supernatural phenomena, at least most of them. However, the study has revealed some phenomena that most people believe are plausible.
First of all, this concerns the belief in the existence of people with supernatural abilities and a secret world government. So, it turned out that 73% of respondents believe that psychics exist - more or less likely. 22.5% are sure that there are no people who can read minds. 4.5% of the respondents abstained. In second place is the statement that there is a secret world government that imposes its will on the leaders of different countries. 53.5% of the respondents believe in this. 37% do not believe. 9.5% abstained.
They are followed by statements that have already received less than half of the respondents' votes - that the ancient predictions of Nostradamus came true, and astrology is a science that can predict the fate of a person, 46% and 36.5% of respondents believe, respectively. Then there are the following opinions in order of decreasing people's confidence: “pyramids and a number of other world architectural monuments were built by extraterrestrial civilizations or with the help of extraterrestrial technologies” (32% agree); “Our ancestors possessed technologies superior to modern ones and could fly into space” (27.5%); “In Dalnegorsk there is an anomalous zone, where in January 1986, at an altitude of 611 (in the center of the city), a UFO crashed” (25.5%); "The real goal of vaccination is to reduce the population on Earth, vaccinations can lead to infertility and cancer" (21.5%).
19% of respondents believed that there is no convincing evidence that the Earth is round, and 17.5% are sure that extraterrestrial civilizations have long established contact with world leaders.
The most untrustworthy statement among the respondents was that "the world is ruled by an alien civilization of human lizards (reptilians)." Only 5.5% of the respondents agreed with this (to one degree or another). 86.5% believed that aliens were aloof from politics, and 8% refrained from answering.
“The topic of the research is anti-scientific myths widely circulated in the media: belief in the supernatural, contact with aliens or such a dangerous myth as the harm of vaccination. Similar studies are regularly carried out by our federal colleagues from VTsIOM, - commented Konstantin Lunev, public relations specialist at the Primorsky Research Center of Sociology. - Alas, the results of our research show that anti-scientific myths are widespread among the inhabitants of Primorye. This, in turn, may signal an insufficient level of scientific education of the population, as well as shortcomings in the field of education and the quackery industry that is gaining momentum. The belief that the Earth is flat can make a person refuse to travel around the world. But refusal to vaccinate on the basis of anti-scientific myths about its dangers is already leading to outbreaks of diseases that have long been considered defeated in the civilized world."