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Conservatives' Trust In Science Has Fallen Dramatically Since Mid-1970s
An anonymous reader writes "While trust in science remained stable among people who self-identified as moderates and liberals in the United States between 1974 and 2010, trust in science fell among self-identified conservatives by more than 25 percent during the same period, according to a study by the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. 'Over the last several decades, there's been an effort among those who define themselves as conservatives to clearly identify what it means to be a conservative,' said the study's lead author. 'For whatever reason, this appears to involve opposing science and universities and what is perceived as the "liberal culture." So, self-identified conservatives seem to lump these groups together and rally around the notion that what makes "us" conservatives is that we don't agree with "them."'"
1974 was the year that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders removed homosexuality as a category of mental disorder.
but the neo-conseravatives. There are many conservatives that do not subscribe to the following of reagan and W. Basically, it is these 2 and their followers that fight against science, logic and facts. You will find that nearly all support the concept of creationism, fight against the idea that Global Climate Change is cause by man.
They will argue that Russia is enemy #1 and claim support for private enterprise, but then push for the Space Launch System (in which CONgress, mostly neo-cons designate WHICH companies will provide WHICH parts for a shuttle derivative and costing us 60 billion), push for us to be reliant on Russia for another decade of rocket launches and works to destroy private space.
Likewise, they will argue that Corporations should be ONLY for making profits and have absolutely no conscience, but then want them to be able to lobby, influence congress, and some have said that they want to give them a vote. Yet, at the same time, they scream that society is broken morally.
This lack of logic continues over and over and over. It has become a broken record with the no-cons.
OTOH, many conservatives and real republicans fully support science, logic, etc. and what can be learned from it. Sadly, they are now a minority of the republican party. Many of them are driven out with the neo-cons screaming that those ppl are RINOs and are actually liberals. Sad that America has sunk this low.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That's false. I am a fiscal conservative. It simply means that we want ppl to handle a checkbook responsibly. Sadly, the neo-cons scream fiscal conservative, but they account for most of the debt. In addition, other than FDR handling GD and WWII and O handling the current mess, dems have shown far more fiscal conservationism than has the republicans ever since the neo-cons took over the republican party.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I'd dispute that. There is trust in science; more accurately, there is trust in scientists. I can go into my garage, and replicate all sorts of experiements. Tyson had a wonderful essay, called something like 'stick in the mud science' about all of the things you can figure out with a stick, a string, and a rock. However, I can't go into my garage and duplicate most particle physics. Genetics. Medicine. All sorts of stuff. That stuff, I have to take on trust. Note, I don't say 'faith.' I prefer to use the term 'confidence.' One has faith in one's god, one has confidence in scientific consensus.
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I'd say it was Regan who invited the social conservative Christians into the Repblican party, creating the rise of the "religious right". This group as a whole seems to demand that they be "right" and everyone else be wrong, so it's natural for them to seek consensus on what a "true conservative" means, and they're quite willing to morph their beliefs to gain consensus. It's not that they trust science less, it's just that these people, who blindly believe in Genesis rather than any science, now identify themselves as "conservative", not that they've warped the meaning to their liking.
The term "conservative" had a very different meaning in the '70s. Those conservatives would have cringed at the phrase "true conservative". Here's a decent definition of the term. They blindly believe not just in the common ground between social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and military hawks, but they believe in the super-set of all three, creating the strangest set of widely held blind beliefs I've ever heard of.
So, it's now Christian to promote war, fiscal conservatives abandon rational though when it comes to science, and the desperately poor rally to causes to help the rich. It's "I'll believe what you want me to believe if you believe what I want you to believe." Scary. Understanding science is simply one of those things they brokered away. I love how the definition above claims true conservatives don't believe in various science issues like Evolution, because "they do the research themselves."
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It really is; I for one have already done that. The "social conservatives" are causing the Republican Party to eat itself, exactly as Goldwater predicted.
fiscal conservative social liberals are employing a non-optimal strategy.
I think that's at least in part because your Republican party is winning a propaganda war. They're spending gobs and gobs of cash trying to convince people that they're the fiscally responsible ones, and that the Democrats are the ones pissing away money. (irony, much?). When you look at the numbers, it's actually been the inverse: the deficit has consistently increased year over year under Republican presidents, and decreased under Democrats.
Unfortunately, however, they are spending more money trying to propagate the myth that they're the ones saving money, and people are buying into it. Personally, I don't see how the idea of fiscal responsibility is incompatible with progressive social ideals.
In fact, if I were to tell you where I stood on social matters, most Americans would probably call me a communist.... I believe that the justice system should be focused on mending recidivism rates, and that this means spending money on education and apprenticeship programs for offenders to equip them with the skills they need to find a productive job upon their release. I also think that this means that education on the whole should be a main target for money. I believe in publicly accessible health care, because I know that early detection of health problems means that they're *far* cheaper to treat in the long run. I believe in social welfare programs in general, because while there's some people who abuse them, society as a whole benefits from not letting people fall through the cracks. I believe that we should be taxing bad behaviours (environmental practices), and rewarding good behaviours (subsidizing solar installations, for example). I believe that these sorts of environmental rules should extend in to other areas of industry as well... make it too expensive to run your business badly, and business will stop doing things badly (regulated but mostly free market). And I believe that the tax rates on the wealthy and corporations should be set at a level they can bear... there's no excuse for a corporation to be able to post a $1bn profit for a year when they've used tax loopholes to not pay a dime in corporate income taxes (again, sustainable market growth, but make sure that the corporations contribute their fair share to the economy). All of these ideas are very socialist... enough that McCarthy would have called me a communist sympathizer, but I also believe, quite firmly, that the government should never be allowed to run deficit spending, unless it's extenuating circumstances (such as an economic crash), and that for such circumstances, it should require a 2/3 majority in all levels of government to pass.
If I were in the US, I'd probably be trying to make a difference in the Democrat party.... as it is, I actually belong to the Green party in this country, and have been quite active in trying to get certain policies set.... the Greens are, in most of the world, socially liberal while being fiscally conservative... a very good compromise, IMO. :)
Some did, some didn't. Dixie Democrats were definitely one the driving forces in maintenance of the status quo on slavery, no doubt. It is more than a little disingenuous to think that party politics from the early to late 18th century haven't changed at all. One of the big reasons Southern Democrats didn't want slavery to end was that their constituencies were almost entirely white southern men who felt that keeping blacks down was key to their ongoing power and success.
Remarkably that is the exact same demographic so widely courted by Republicans today. I think you'd be amazed at the parallels between a Dixie Democrat platform of the 1850s and modern Republican platform in any Southern state. Replace "Black Slave" with "Illegal immigrant" as the focus of hatred and ire and they're basically the same.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of good people in the south. There are plenty of good people who are southern conservatives. I lived in the South most of my life. As a statistical class though Republican voters in the south are poor white men who lack an education and are easily led by fear. To fair, they're easily led by fear because they exist at the edges of society that was designed to keep them there. Those are the exact same people with the exact same statistical properties that elected pro-slavery Dixie Democrats 150 years ago.
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