Yale Study: Tea Partiers Hate Science Are More Scientifically Literate Than Non-Tea Partiers

Only by a little bit, but still.

There's probably an ideological reason for this: Many members of the public, especially the Liberal Arts Left, simply think of science as either an ersatz religion which gives meaning to their lives and issues them fatwas and dogmas about the proper role of Man in the World, or as just another Community Organizing institution devoted to politics and advancing the leftist agenda.

I happen to have enough respect for science that I recognize it as neither religion nor Democrat lobbying group. I imagine this respect is widely shared... but not by the left.

More: From Politico's coverage of the article:

“I’ve got to confess, though, I found this result surprising. As I pushed the button to run the analysis on my computer, I fully expected I’d be shown a modest negative correlation between identifying with the Tea Party and science comprehension,” Kahan wrote.

“But then again, I don’t know a single person who identifies with the Tea Party,” he continued. “All my impressions come from watching cable tv — & I don’t watch Fox News very often — and reading the ‘paper’ (New York Times daily, plus a variety of politics-focused internet sites like Huffington Post & Politico). I’m a little embarrassed, but mainly I’m just glad that I no longer hold this particular mistaken view.”

I'm glad he admitted his cognitive bias, but is he actually aware of his deep cognitive bias?

Will he now do a study to document the cognitive biases of the left, their tendency to demean as nearly subhuman all those who disagree with them?

I doubt it. This is, for any behavioral scientist, obviously an interesting line of inquiry, and certainly one that has very little inquiry into it.

But having found that he himself has been Cocooned by a steady diet of bias-confirming self-selected sources which engage in a nonstop demonization of The Other, he will simply move on to his next hypothesis about the degenerated brains of Tea Partiers and attempt to confirm his own biases.

Thanks to @rdbrewer4.

posted by Ace at 01:58 PM

| Access Comments