Yale Professor Dan Kahan says in a forthcoming paper that he finds that skeptics score slightly better than believers on climate science questions.

From FOX News–

The study asked 2,000 respondents nine questions about where they thought scientists stand on climate science. On average, skeptics got about 4.5 questions correct, whereas man-made warming believers got about 4 questions right.

One question, for instance, asked if scientists believe that warming would “increase the risk of skin cancer.” Skeptics were more likely than believers to know that is false.

Skeptics were also more likely to correctly say that if the North Pole icecap melted, global sea levels would not rise. One can test this with a glass of water and an ice cube – the water level will not change after the ice melts. Antarctic ice melting, however, would increase sea levels because much of it rests on land.

Climatologists who are skeptical about the extent of man-made global warming say the results don’t surprise them. “It’s easy to believe in the religion of global warming. It takes critical thinking skills to question it,” Roy Spencer, a climatologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, told FoxNews.com.