acknowledge / recognize

Topic: Can 'acknowledge' and 'recognize' be used interchangeably in the sentences below?
Copied from title. Cagey, moderator

1. It took people quite a while to acknowledge/ to recognize climate change as a serious problem.

2. People used to recognize/acknowledge homosexuality as a mental illness.

3. The problem is that people don't acknowledge/recognize how serious this is.


As far as I know and according to my dictionary (Oxford Advanced learner's dictionary 10th edition), they are truly synonymous.

To me, "acknowledge" carries a greater suggestion of doing something to publicly declare it in some way, but in the absence of any context indicating how you're recognizing/acknowledging these things, that's just just an impression.

DonnyB said:

To me, "acknowledge" carries a greater suggestion of doing something to publicly declare it in some way, but in the absence of any context indicating how you're recognizing/acknowledging these things, that's just just an impression.

But it's not incorrect to use them interchangeably, is it?

Ikk said:

But it's not incorrect to use them interchangeably, is it?

I would hesitate to endorse the idea of using them totally interchangeably, but in the majority of contexts it probably wouldn't make much material difference.