This seems to be the study or survey, that I'd heard about (not that I'd looked at it):
Researchers Identify Groups Hesitant about COVID-19 Vaccine [cmu.edu]
I can't say that I'm really impressed by it. Perhaps they are right but PhDs are an odd group, which is considerably narrower than the tertiary educated, so I don't know that one can read too much into it. I find the hesitancy amongst medical professionals much more interesting, presumably because they are at the interface of both the response to covid and the medical industrial complex (eg. big pharma).
The researchers themselves don't seem to understand the vaccines:
I think the PhD thing is legit. While they are a narrow group in the survey, there were over 5 million respondents.
People with high school educations don't understand advanced concepts easily and tend rely on common sense and instinct, people with bachelor's understand advanced concepts but typically aren't smart enough to see if they're bullsh1t or not, while people with doctorates both understand advanced concepts and see though them if they are bullsh1t.
So what you have in terms of vax hesitancy (and the same thing can be loosely said for Trump supporters) is a coalition between the low-educated common sensors and the high-educated bullsh1t detectors, with the somewhat-educated people who are in the middle belonging to the other side. And a big source of the somewhat-educated group's cohesion is a common disdain of the low-education group for ego purposes, while being blind to the higher-educated group above them.
I found some interesting comments in the source publication reflecting this. Naturally there are a bunch of reflexive and watery dismissals of the data that claim the survey respondents are lying about having PhD's, which may be true to an extent, but the dismissals generally don't attempt to consider why this (vax hesitancy by PhD's) may be true. Reflexive, rather than reflective, reactions for the most part.
Objective To understand COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Methods January 6 through May 31, 2021, 5,121,436 US adults completed an online COVID-19 survey. Weighted data was used to evaluate change in vaccine intent and correlates of May vaccine hesitancy. Results COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy decreased...
www.medrxiv.org
"The PhD finding is not surprising. Given how most PhDs live their lives the difference in getting the vaccine vs not getting it may be viewed as negligible. That pro vaccine "arguments" broadly fall into one of three logical fallacies there is reasonable skepticism as to the motivation behind them. The three basic fallacies used are: appeals to authority, appeals to sentiment and ad hominem attacks.
Additionally, those with PhDs are hopefully trained to not be fooled by logical fallacies and those that have no university "education" have not been brain washed to mindlessly find them compelling (at least that's what 10 years enlisted in the military showed me).
Those with PhDs in the sciences are more likely to understand that science is a process and cannot "say" anything and is only "followed" by fools. This is similar to David Hume's idea that "you cannot derive an ought from an is". How the world operates tells us nothing about what we ought to do in any situation including whether any particular individual "ought" to get vaccinated, or wear a mask.
Those with PhDs in non STEM related fields are in my opinion, as one with a PhD in the physical sciences, much more likely to see science as a social instrument and probably support vaccine promotion and even coercion. Unfortunately, too many people, in general, ignorantly see science as an instrument with which they can bludgeon their political adversaries. This is willful ignorance that results in people being treated as means towards an end and not as thinking people with their own ends in mind.
I not only have a PhD, but I left Academia and have worked as a Registered Nurse for over 15 years. As to whether I personally believe in vaccines is of no importance because the disagreement is actually not over vaccines, or masks, but over the millenia old tension between individual autonomy and the collective "good". I fall squarely on the side of individual autonomy and against arguing by logical fallacies regardless of any view on whether I ought to get a vaccine. That I, on occasion, actually take care of COVID positive ICU patients is not a factor most people need to consider."
"Well i would say when you have low education you have more instinct and self preservation, you know when someone is trying to invade your territory and restrain your liberties and impose things on you. While when you get education, you have to get into the norm, the less you stand out, the best you are to succeed. You have to learn to agree with the consensus. But when you do a PhD you are more aware of how "science" works, that it is very "humane" corruption and high stakes may make people rush tjings. You also known how the consensus is made. You must also be more prone to contradict the consensus and make discoveries that may go against your expectations."
"I mean its pretty straight forward - A) They are the group which should be least likely to fall for the propaganda B) Should be the group most likely to know about repurposed drugs to help avoid the vaccine. C) Knows the risk by covid is very low and if you already had it then you shouldn't get the vaccine, since it provide only risk and no reward then."
