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Merged US conservatives' trust in science has fallen dramatically since the '70s

Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
I wonder how performance on a standardized test of basic science would relate to political orientation. The Pew Center found Republicans better informed than Democrats on current events. I read somewhere that skeptics of the AGW/CO2 theory were better informed about the science than were believers. It's radical egalitarians, not free marketeers, who deny the plausible inference from evolutionary theory that the brain is an evolved organ and that geographic varieties of human may differ systematically in nervous system function. It was a D member of Congress who imagined that moving troops from Okinawa to Guam would cause Guam to capsize.
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I notice you have no links here. I suspect you have false memories and/or bad sources of information.

I recall a study that after knowing one was exposed to false information, later the false information is recalled as true information. I happen to have an actual source.

This phenomenon, known as source amnesia, can also lead people to forget whether a statement is true. Even when a lie is presented with a disclaimer, people often later remember it as true.

With time, this misremembering only gets worse. A false statement from a noncredible source that is at first not believed can gain credibility during the months it takes to reprocess memories from short-term hippocampal storage to longer-term cortical storage. As the source is forgotten, the message and its implications gain strength.
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Travis said:
I do find it rather disturbing that so many liberals are also not trusting in science. It makes me wonder about how all the questions were worded.
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I'm hypothesizing here, and I haven't got evidence one way or the other, but the woo believers on the left are currently just a smaller minority while the woo believers on the right have actually been recruited and their woo beliefs purposefully egged on to create a pool of single cause voters.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
What's that supposed to prove? I know all about the Libertarian fiscal conservative that now after Bush is gone claim they never really supported his excessive spending and government growth. The trouble is these Libertarians decided to call themselves Republicans long ago.
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My only point was that the differences between the two parties when it comes to big government are getting smaller and smaller. (Big business, and big government all go hand in hand, and neither want to curb consumption)

There is no true conservative party. Politics has become just a place you can spend tax payer dollars.

Otherwise I agree! I think politicians in general have a very poor understanding of science, and really from this perspective there is no incentive to understand it.

Rhetoric does not require grounding in a reasoned argument.

I do not favor either group, I see their motivations as less than admirable, and almost no redeeming qualities which are not a front.
 
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johnny karate said:
Cool story, bro. I read somewhere that deniers of climate science were all sexual deviants with silly haircuts.
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Here.
Abstract:
The conventional explanation for controversy over climate change emphasizes impediments to public understanding: Limited popular knowledge of science, the inability of ordinary citizens to assess technical information, and the resulting widespread use of unreliable cognitive heuristics to assess risk. A large survey of U.S. adults (N = 1540) found little support for this account. On the whole, the most scientifically literate and numerate subjects were slightly less likely, not more, to see climate change as a serious threat than the least scientifically literate and numerate ones.
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Now, where's your support, liar?
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
I notice you have no links here. I suspect you have false memories and/or bad sources of information.
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Pew Center, a week or so ago. Here.

I would prefer that you request additional information in a more civil fashion. Does every discussion have to become combat? Why not just write "Cite?", instead of personalizing the discussion?
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
Here
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It just goes to show that conservatives tend to be more scientifically literate and numerate than liberals. Not exactly earth-shattering news, although I am sure some heads will start exploding around here.

ETA: Note as well that the LA Times article announcing the study makes the same point:

Confidence in scientists has declined the most among the most educated conservatives, the peer-reviewed research paper found, concluding: "These results are quite profound because they imply that conservative discontent with science was not attributable to the uneducated but to rising distrust among educated conservatives."
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(Bolding added for emphasis)

BTW, while I trust science, I am significantly less trusting of scientists than I used to be. Some of that may have to do with my recent exposure to people like Steven Jones and Neils Harritt among the Truthers.
 
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Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
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I would prefer that you request additional information in a more civil fashion. Does every discussion have to become combat? Why not just write "Cite?", instead of personalizing the discussion?
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It was tongue in cheek. You made unsupported claims so I made an unsupported claim. :rolleyes:
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
Here. What do you want to bet this dope swallows AGW without question?
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Do you really want to get into a pissing contest of which politicians have made the most ignorant comments? A majority on your side doesn't believe in evolution and one of them thinks the Internet is a system of tubes.


And I'm pretty sure Michelle Bachman by far tops the list of most incredibly ignorant comments.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Do you really want to get into a pissing contest of which politicians have made the most ignorant comments? A majority on your side doesn't believe in evolution and one of them thinks the Internet is a system of tubes.


And I'm pretty sure Michelle Bachman by far tops the list of most incredibly ignorant comments.
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Hard to top that Guam comment. I would not mind at all counting Congressmen's science-related degrees (i.e., no lawyers). As Gary Gilmore said: "Let's do it."
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
Skeptic Ginger said:
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
The Pew Center found Republicans better informed than Democrats on current events.
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I suspect you have false memories and/or bad sources of information.
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Pew Center, a week or so ago. Here.
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That appears to be a "March 17-20, 2011 Weekly Survey". It hardly seems like a definitive study.
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Moving the goalposts. How 'bout "Sorry. Thanks for the link".
btw, Republicans normally do better on these Pew surveys.
 
Brainster said:
It just goes to show that conservatives tend to be more scientifically literate and numerate than liberals. Not exactly earth-shattering news, although I am sure some heads will start exploding around here.
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Then where do all of the right-wing Creationist whackadoodles come from?
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
It was a D member of Congress who imagined that moving troops from Okinawa to Guam would cause Guam to capsize.
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He was speaking metaphoricly to some swabby who seemed to think that he could put limitless facilities on a little island without the infrastructure to support that large an increase in population and compared it to overloading a boat, which might finally get through the man's thick skull.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
Moving the goalposts. How 'bout "Sorry. Thanks for the link".
btw, Republicans normally do better on these Pew surveys.
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To review: You made unsupported claims.
I asked for your citation.
[sidetrack] You tried some smoke and mirrors complaining about the way I worded my request.
I told you you missed the joke.[/sidetrack]
You posted the supporting citation.
I looked at the citation and noted my criticism. It was too narrow to support your original broader claim.

So what goal post moved here?
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
To review: You made unsupported claims.
I asked for your citation.1[sidetrack] You tried some smoke and mirrors complaining about the way I worded my request.2I told you you missed the joke.[/sidetrack].3You posted the supporting citation.
I looked at the citation and noted my criticism. It was too narrow to support your original broader claim.4So what goal post moved here?
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1. #1. Where's the "?"?
2. #2 I objected to the sarcasm and inuendo. Plainly.
3. #3. What joke? You sure are stupid. Ha Ha Ha.
It's not funny.
4. I wrote "The Pew Center found Republicans better informed than Democrats on current events." This is the fact. I supported that claim.
 
Brainster said:
It just goes to show that conservatives tend to be more scientifically literate and numerate than liberals.
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Oh, sure. You bet.

Slate said:
Source
It is no secret that the ranks of scientists and engineers in the United States include dismal numbers of Hispanics and African-Americans, but few have remarked about another significantly underrepresented group: Republicans.

No, this is not the punch line of a joke. A Pew Research Center Poll from July 2009 showed that only around 6 percent of U.S. scientists are Republicans; 55 percent are Democrats, 32 percent are independent, and the rest "don't know" their affiliation.
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Boy, I bet heads will explode over that one. 6%? Wow.
 
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