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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."'"
Or in other words, around the time that science started suggesting reasons why economic progress can be bad, instead of just helping it along?
First off - scienceblog - light grey on white is NOT a good colour scheme for text.
Have you been to Reality lately? It's dog eat dog. Literally.
I don't think Reality has a "liberal bias". More like "liberals" are more willing to use science as a means of "validating" their positions.
While "conservatives" are more willing to use religion to "validate" their positions.
There's a difference between social conservatives and fiscal conservatives.
interactive hologram, or it didn't happen.
Reality doesn't care about your ideology at all, actually.
That being said, we all know how religious forces took over the Republican Party since the 1970s, and you have a lot of these religious folks who call themselves conservatives. Is this news? The key phrase here is "self-identified conservatives."
It's this sneering trope -- "reality has a well known liberal bias", a quote of Stephen Colbert, whose work I generally admire -- that gets hauled out every single time this subject comes up. And its point, so far as I can tell, is actually to stifle debate on legitimate politicization that the left has done, particularly with anthropogenic global warming, especially within the scope of the IGCC. When "scientists" start playing politically-minded games with data, engage in semantic and legalistic games to prevent its dissemination, and then complain that they are being treated unfairly or for political reasons -- well, they only have themselves to blame.
Dog is my co-pilot.
This article is about conservatives trying to brand themselves.
They want to find out what liberals support, and be the opposite. Since liberals seem to like science, and it seems to conflict with religion to some people(*), conservatives are rebelling against that.
What "science" actually is has nothing to do with the conservative view, or the liberal one(+).
The real problem that conservatives face here is that their strategy is silly. Defining yourself by what your enemies do will not work. It leaves you open to manipulation and getting backed into a corner. I think that's what is happening here.
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* - I don't think this is true at all. Religion is metaphysical poetry, science is its physical counterpart.
+ - I don't believe that "reality has a liberal bias." Reality has a reality bias. It's pointlessly combative to claim that all conservatives are detached from reality (or all liberals)
They DO declare their belief in science by asking to be treated by a modern medical facility. If they really didn't believe it would work, they wouldn't bother.
They're not stupid, they're hypocritical, and lying to themselves about what they believe as much as to anyone else.
There is no 'i' in team, but there is in fiasco...
Good luck with the whole science pledge thing. I don't know how many times lately on Facebook I see someone thanking the Lord (I assume he has a Facebook page) for miracle that saved cousin Fred-Bob. Of course on further questioning, Fred-Bob had a heart attack and someone used a cell phone to call the ambulance, which arrived quickly because the highly trained paramedics had a laptop GPS and maps on it. They used a portable defibrillator and drugs to keep him alive until they got the the hospital where a high trained surgeon used a heart catheter to fix the problem. Of course, praying to Jesus was what really did the trick, No need to thank the scientists who invented all that stuff or the doctor who used science to do the healing.
There is no "trust" in science - there is nothing to "believe." Science is just the application of logic and reason to help explain the world around us. So what this article is really saying is that "Conservatives view of the world has dramatically departed reality since 1970." Which sounds pretty plausible to me.
"The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.” -Neil DeGrasse Tyson
giggity
Or in other words, around the same time that people started using science to justify their political cause. Science used to be about progress, but now it's about power. It's not that conservatives don't trust science, it's that we don't trust the scientists: their motives, their interpretations, or their solutions.
No matter the problem, the solution is always to transfer money or power.
"liberals' use of science as a religion has increased dramatically since mid-1970s".
How in the world do you infer *that* exactly? Seriously, I hear this sort of thing from conservatives and there must be some kind of logic chain that led you to make this conclusion. I'd just like to know what it is, explicitly.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
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.
âoeThere is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.â
Isaac Asimov
"It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so."
Will Rogers
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it."
Upton Sinclair
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
Stephen Colbert
I have a little something I call the parable of the investment opportunity. Dick has the option of investing in this exciting new product that promises to double his money in twelve months. Jane is skeptical. The two can jawbone back and forth all day long.
Jane explains that it looks like a bad idea, resembles many other bad ideas, the person presenting the opportunity has a history of failed schemes, and the whole thing looks too risky.
Dick feels she's being too negative. She's not embracing opportunity. He has a prospectus printed in full color on expensive paper and the pitchman has such a nice haircut, really looks like someone you could do business with.
It's impossible to know how the investment will turn out until it's made, even if anyone watching the two of them argue will more than likely have a strong opinion before long.
Dick makes the investment. Twelve months later, he's lost all his money. Not only that but he's lost it in exactly the way Jane predicted, for the reasons she listed.
Now for most people, this would be some pretty compelling evidence. Not so for Dick! Perhaps it wasn't a bad idea, he just didn't apply it with enough vigor. Perhaps there was an external factor that sabotaged what was otherwise a sound idea. Does he reevaluate? Does he reexamine? No, he'll double-down. And Jane is still an ignorant slut.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I'd identify myself as conservative, and at least in my case my trust in science has not decreased. That said, my trust in the scientific community has certainly decreased in the last decade or two. Of course, I could say the same about humanity as a whole. I wasn't even born by the 1970s, so most of my decreasing trust could probably be attributed to simply growing up and realizing that the world is filled with people on all sides who have agendas.
'conservative' means different things to different people, but checking the dictionary gives this definition: "disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change."
I think most people agree science is a driving force for change, whether through application of new knowledge or development of new technology. So, at least based on the definition above, science directly opposes conservative goals. It's not surprising for people to distrust something that actively threatens their ideology.
It's not that reality has a liberal bias, it's that conservatives in the US especially have a 'not intended to be a factual statement' bias which they seem to have developed since the 70's. This means that on the rare occasion democrats in the US aren't proverbially shooting themselves in the foot there is a small possibility that they may align with facts, for no other reason than it being bound to happen occasionally. Conservatives have institutionalized support for things that aren't factual, and an overt rejection of anything that is factual.
I'm not really sure how that happened and you'd think it would have cost them more business support, after all, businesses can't function unless things they buy, people they hire etc all deal primarily in facts. You can't 'not believe' in Liquid crystals existence, you can't just 'believe' parts from china aren't counterfit etc. 'trust but verify' (popularized in english by Reagan) requires you to do the verification part honestly.
This has been gradually leading up for a century and more. Conservatives have always been doubtful of science, preferring to believe what they had been told in their youth. For them, it is easier to believe in the mad ramblings of an old book than a system of thought that has borne the fruit of progress for four centuries. There is no fundamental difference between the Catholic Church's assaults on Giordano Bruno and Galileo and the Evangelical assault on Evolution in schools. (For people who condemn Popery so strongly, this is especially amusing.) That there was ever an embrace of science on the conservative side only reflects the reality of the world as was discovered in the Second World War. That is to say, even the most stupid of Evangelicals must acknowledge we are better off with atomic bombs and ICMBs than without. Of course, it might be acknowledged that this is only an extension of the conservative love of spreading doctrine through violence rather than rhetoric and scientific persuasion.
Yes, the ones who call themselves liberals have their own problems with science. The stupid stupid lies of postmodernist thought destroyed a generation and a half of potential scientists, but the important thing is that science is pulling away from that abhorrent clap trap.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
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.
Obligatory xkcd - http://xkcd.com/154/
Wait a minute. Hasn't this been going on at least since Galileo?
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
We all know the "reason" for this... Religion. Lets just call it like it is. The Judaeo-Christian worldview is by-and-large anti-science. I don't think it set out to be that way though, but more as a reflection of 1st millennium B.C. thinking. Nothing unusual in the stories from the Old Testament, when taken in the context of their times. However, Mankind(and Man) has learned and experienced quite a lot since 1000 B.C. The interesting thing, in a terrifying way(Al Qaida, Iran, Evangelical Christians, etc;) is that even with the benefits of science staring them in the face, people still take these Iron Age myths as The Truth.
Your typical liberal has more of a "critical thinking" worldview, maybe not much more, but enough to tip the balance away from "Doctrines and Covenants" that require a suspension of dis-belief, require blind faith.
So the question is, why are conservatives NOW so anti-science, when even a generation or two ago it wasn't like that? Well, we all know the answer to that as well, which is a combination of Right-Wing Media, the ease of dis-information via The Internet, and a Republican party that has poly morphed into something very different from the Republican party of even the 1980's.
Another key ingredient is that conservatives in general have a "good old days" mentality. They seek to attempt to go back to how things used to be, when things "appeared" simpler, when there was "order" in the world, etc;. We all know that is utter bullshit, and there is no "going home" as it were. Liberals are more apt to embrace change and understand we had to adapt to the changing world, not get the world to adapt to us.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Of course it doesn't. That's why it's funny. The truth that makes it funny is the reverse. Liberals have a bias towards reality, whereas conservatives base their opinions on ego and fairy tales.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
People trust in science because it's self-correcting, and regardless of what you seem to assume, the peer-review process is bloody strict. It's not blind faith, but simply using logic.
To be fair, it tends to be more like "University professors and researchers tend to be more liberal since 1974, likely due to social and cultural changes on campuses that started in the 60's. This has led to others conflating scientific progress with liberalism. That has caused conservatives to view the pronouncements of people in those fields with more skepticism than they would have in the past when practitioners of the scientific method tended to take a more neutral, or even conservative view."
In short, all this says is that a bunch of academics are liberals now, and the conservatives are unhappy with science being turned against them as a tool. The result has been that science itself ends up becoming an issue when it shouldn't. Of course, having read some opinions here and hearing some otherwise intelligent people talk, its clear that blame is definitely a two-way street here.
Actually, most squirrels I know are in favour of Rick Santorum which makes them conservatives.
Apparantly, squirrels like nuts.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
"Conservatives" sure do seem to trust science when they get cancer, or need an operation. Then all of a sudden, there aren't enough medical advances to suit them. They'll shell out tons of cash to extend their lives just a wee bit more.
Dick Cheney just had a heart transplant, and the donor was probably some guy he shot in the face. Tell me Dick Cheney doesn't "trust science" when it comes to keeping him alive.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Right, because all those guys who pointed out that burning coal releases mercury that shows up in your can of tuna, or the Day the River Burned Down was due to water pollution, were heavily invested in windpower companies and alternative methods of manufacture. Actually, turns out they were like the 'agenda-driven climate alarmists' of today: mostly university professors.
Believing that science has an agenda is to believe that thousands of independently-working and independently-paid researchers are all part of a vast conspiracy. That's practically the DEFINITION of 'The Paranoid Style in American Politics', which is actually not inherently right-wing at all (think most Kennedy theories), and goes back for centuries (the original essay traced it back to Illuminati fears in the 1700s).
But the paranoid style has steadily taken over the right wing in recent decades, until fact-based, or at least fact-conceding, old conservatives can hardly be heard (or found) any more. It's the paranoids among them that are anti-science, not the whole group.
You have just demonstrated the most dangerous attitude possible. It's what gets people and America (and other countries) into more problems than anything else. It's the "I'm one of the good guys, so what I believe in must be true."
Reality has, repeat after me, zero bias.
Liberal and conservative are arbitrary viewpoints on a multitude of subjects that change constantly. Reality doesn't give a damn what you, I, or anyone else thinks. The belief that one's viewpoint is inextricably linked to reality is magical thinking.
It's fine to think you are a good person. But it becomes dangerous when you start believing that your beliefs are correct because you think you are good. The corollary is that those who disagree with you are bad (or ignorant, or stupid). To be disregarded. That leads to some extremely stupid decisions.
Classic examples:
"But think of the children!"
"The science of communism will solve all economic problems!"
"Saddam has nukes!"
These were sentiments expressed by a lot of people who ingnore(d) contradictions because they believed they were on the side of right, so the beliefs must be true.
If liberals continue to say "Reality (or truth) has a liberal bias," they are going to end up believing it and doing some really stupid things some day. Time to stop holding that gun to our heads.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Umm, no.
It is possible to NOT claim to be conservative, and still vote conservatively.
Which makes "self-identified conservative" a subset of "conservative", but not the whole thing.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Which is why the fiscal conservatives should join the democratic party, and make an effort to get more fiscally conservative social liberals winning elections. It's the only path to sanity.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Social liberals only want to support people who think like they do, and fiscal liberals only want to fund people who think like they do.
Still reads as true, doesn't it? I see the republican party as swinging more extremist at the moment, but let's face it: both sides want their policies passed.
And on the OP, I see a lot of anti-science and distrust on the liberal side as well. Homeopathy isn't restricted by political bias, but I have a distinct impression that those who resist vaccines and insist on buying organic tend to be more on the liberal side. All the 'food X' is good/bad for you based on the science of the week, etc...
Still, you have evolution, global warming, and support for junk(in my opinion) social science on the conservative side. I can accept the evolution as a number of loud religious nuts who have to have a literal reading of their holy book be true. Global warming, I'd have more respect if their disputes were more along the nature of the economic damage from controlling CO2 being higher than just accepting the sea level rise. A vaccine to prevent a cancer causing STD will encourage promiscuity? Really?
I don't read AC A human right
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."
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
It stopped being funny when everyone realized it was true. Because the other side decided to depart from reality.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I dislike tobacco. I don't like the smoke, I don't like the spitting, I don't like the spent butts littering the roadway.
All of that is personal opinion, no different from disliking the appearance of people chewing gum or getting it stuck on my shoe.
Neither is enough to permit me to get my dander up and start banning this and that. I could ask someone not to smoke upwind of me and that's just a question of common courtesy.
That's all anyone could say about tobacco for a number of years. Doctors suspected health effects but it took time to properly substantiate those suspicions.
Of course, the people making money from tobacco had a great interest in keeping the controversy alive. It's not good for business to admit that your product, when used as directed, will kill people. The only way a smoker won't die of smoking-related causes is if he dies of something else first.
As someone who tobacco to begin with, now science is on my side. How far can I push with regards to tobacco? If we consider that a person has a right to do what they want to their own body, up to and including suicide, then who are we to argue as to how they do it?
At the same time, we know that advertising works. Billions of dollars don't get spent on marketing if it doesn't influence decision-making in the human animal. So are these people really making a choice for themselves?
I'm not a supporter of the way the temperance movement operated back in the day. I like having my wine and beer. Temperance crusaders can point to the dangers of alcohol consumption. I could argue that you can drink in moderation with no ill effects whereas there's no safe level of tobacco consumption but that could sound like rationalization.
I think as far as my own opinion goes, the tobacco companies deliberately prevented their customers from making an informed choice. They did their best to cloud the discussion with bad science, bad data, and deliberate lies and bullshit. They prevented a rational discussion from ever occurring because it would be bad for business.
Look at the current scientific "controversies" and you will see the same thing happening, parties interested in the status quo doing their best to create uncertainty where there is actually a great deal of scientific certainty.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Scientists check and recheck and recheck their results. They are very conservative and guard against over interpreting their data. And then, the results get reviewed by other conservative scientists. The problem is not the scientists. The problem is the political conservatives not liking the results. It is a matter of wishful thinking on their part.
It's also the downfall of a 2-party system. In the rest of the world, with multi-party democracies, the fiscal conservative social liberals (like me) can join or found their own party and have a reasonable chance of getting in. (and in fact, have gotten in in several countries in Europe)
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.
The idea behind the joke was that there were well-known conservative positions at the time Colbert said it which specifically countered by reality. For instance, conservatives were proudly proclaiming that Iraq had chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons capable of reaching the United States and that the Bush tax cuts increased revenue.
I am officially gone from
The meaning of "reality has a liberal bias" is only that conservatives like to call very solid facts and well-established science biased, rejecting reality. Agree or not, that's the meaning. See: Conservapedia.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
There is also a third conservative; a practical one.
Take a software development shop doing security sensitive code. One type of conservative would fire the developers and offshore everything, hiring a H-1B for anything that needed done on US soil, only later to find that their business is compromised. Another type would fire the senior developers and hire people at min wage, firing anyone too good so they don't have to give pay raises.
A practical conservative knows that morale is important in the company, and knows that payroll is a relatively small fraction of accounts payable. They give the developers competitive pay, and morale is high. The result is that security policies are strictly followed because people rally behind the company's banner (as opposed to just going there for a paycheck.) Result, no leaks or security intrusions, and employee ideas add further revenue.
Similar with government. A practical conservative considers part of national security the welfare and morale of citizens. Better pay for good schools now than pay for long prison stays later.
"fiscally conservative social liberals" is an oxymoron.
Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton ALL come to mind. Every one of them decreased our debt relative to GDP. And all but Carter decreased the total debt .
It was under ALL 8 years of reagan, 3 years of Poppa Bush, and 7.5 years of W that massive increases in deficits/debt came about.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
To filter it a down a bit more, you have a lot of these "religious folks" who consider themselves followers of the actual religion. Once again... "self-identified".
Though I'd disagree with him on a broad range of issues, Bill Maher is dead-on when making his criticisms of quasi-religious political movements that directly contradict the founder's directly-stated principles. How we get to the current "conservative" pro-rich, pro-war, anti-compassion stances from anything Jesus said, is beyond me.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Uhm - nope. You are confusing Fiscal Conservatives with Republicans...that isn't the same thing!
In this case let's call them all US Politicians and agree that they LOVE spending our money exponentially. Doesn't matter which party.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
If liberals continue to say "Reality (or truth) has a liberal bias," they are going to end up believing it and doing some really stupid things some day.
You do know where it is coming from, right? Yes, it is important to remember that this was a dig at a Republican president who clearly substituted feelings for rational analysis. But at the same time, it brilliantly encapsulates how a lot of people feel any time a conservative talks politics or science (is there anything left? Maybe grocery lists): that they make up their own reality, and that they call anyone a dirty liberal if they dare to point out the complete lack of facts in their position.
The quickest way to let that phrase die is by having conservatives stop embodying it.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Reagan - Democratic Congress
Bush 1 - Democratic Congress
W - Most if the debt racked up after getting a Democrat Congress.
BTW...Clinton - Most of his decrease came after getting a Republican Congress. And he had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into fiscal conservatism.
Guess who taxes and spend? Don't know? Ask your mamma.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
There *is* trust in science, i.e. that the scientific method is valid. We say that if a experiment is repeatable enough times, that we have a valid test of truth. We assume that nature isn't completely capricious and random. i.e. If Zeus were throwing the lightning bolts around, he might avoid the buildings with lightnings rods just because he wants to, but still occasionally blast one or two just because he was feeling ornery.
We have trust in Occam's razor. "other things being equal, a simpler explanation is better than a more complex one." Most of the time that works for us, but as H. L. Mencken is quoted: "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
Recently there was a astrophysist that suggested that billions of years ago some scientific constants like the charge on the electron were subtlely different. If these constants drifted in a consistent fashion, we might be able to develop a theory that properly describes the universe. This is one explaination why there's no detected life far away, it just wasn't possible until now.
If, on the other hand, right after the Big Bang, the various universal constants bounced around, then there's not much hope we could ever properly describe what happened or predict what will happen.
For now, we trust the scientific method because it works better than praying to Zeus. If something comes along that works even better than science, we should switch to it. (But I'm sure some people will stick with science for awhile)
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Uh no. Not actually. I "trust" in science because science is a way of testing a theory until you know it's really, really reliable at predicting behavior in the physical world. Historically, it's worked out pretty well as evidenced by the fact that the lights come on when I flick the switch and my car actually works.
So what I don't get is the "science as religion" part of your statement. Epistemologically, science is the exact opposite of Abrahamic religions that rely on faith. The process of scientific method is what you do when you have no faith at all. You just empirically see what happens again and again when you apply your theory, to see if the theory holds up.
So, can you explain to me how you equate science and religion?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Really? I'm pretty sure you don't understand what each of the words mean.
1) Fiscally conservative: don't spend what you don't have. Spend money on things with an ROI. Do not spend money on shiny baubles.
2) Socially liberal: don't judge people for how they like to live, as long as that life doesn't directly impact me. That means homosexuals can do whatever heterosexuals do, that what you do in the privacy of your own home is your own business, and that the only time the government gets involved in the personal life of people is when they start coercing others to do things they don't want to do.
Notice how there is no overlap between 1 and 2.
On the other hand, what is an oxymoron is being fiscally and socially conservative. Being socially conservative requires you to spend government money on enforcing your personal beliefs on others, regardless of whether there's an ROI on it or not.
It is therefore not surprising that pretty much all social conservative ideas and politicians have directly lead to an unbalanced budget.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I always love hearing that scientists are somehow not trustworthy because they have agendas and are getting paid for their opinions. The alternatives are, as you said, politicians, think tanks and joe's on the street who are either only paid to say what someone else thinks, or who don't get paid for their opinion because they don't research their opinion.
In other words, it's the chunk of coal calling a slightly used pot black.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
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.
This. Technically, I should vote republican every time. I believe in a balanced budget, frugal spending priorities, and a limited government. However, what I get from republican candidates is God, wars on xxx, politically motivated spending projects and the attitude that if you're not with us, you're a terrorist.
No thanks.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Reality doesn't care about your ideology at all, actually.
Don't anthropomorphize reality; It hates that.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
It seems clear that this article was a title first, and then they crafted the article around the title. No research or poll was done.
And you reached that conclusions without going to look at the actual study by Gauchat in "American Sociological Review". Admittedly it is a forthcoming publication, but here is the author's bio. I am sure that you can read the article in April if you like, and then take up any issues with the author.
I study the anti-science movement in both conservatives and liberals, and the although they are both equally anti-science in their own way, the conservatives have a powerful anti-science champions in fox, the evangelical movement, Beck, Limbaugh, and pretty much every conservative think-tank that I can think of.
All that propaganda has an effect.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
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. :)
As you claim to speak for all conservatives, would you mind providing a reason for not trusting scientists? Sure I can see why you don't trust scientists working at Philip Morris to tell you about the harms from smoking tobacco products, but "scientists" is a large category to mistrust for any single reason. I am a scientist, do you distrust what I post here because I am a scientist? If so why? What are your reasons.
I totally agree that the politicalization of science has been a detriment to both science and society. That we as a nation should remove politics from science. However you cannot remove science from politics. Our nation should not make policy decisions based on gut feelings when a rational understanding is available.
Simply stating that you don't trust scientists without providing a reason is a great analogy for the current problem as I see it: many people FEEL that they KNOW what the answer is and when evidence contradicts that they ignore it, when evidence validates it they claim victory. In reality very little is ever that cut and dry. Science will (in fact must) be wrong at times. There are many reasons for that but the number of times that it has been due to scientific misconduct are minuscule when compared to the number of times it was just a statistical fluke or experimental error. So what evidence do you have to support your distrust of scientists as a group?
That's just factually incorrect. No liberal I have ever met wants that. We want the smallest effective government possible.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
The conservative Christopher Buckley, son of William Buckley, traces the problem to a misplaced war on intellectualism by the right. His thoughts on this is that for the last half decade or so, conservative intellectuals had a tendency to go to Wall Street after college while liberal intellectuals had a tendency to go into higher education. Over time, colleges and universities had a more liberal personnel influencing future generations of students. Many conservative intellectuals like his father warned about this liberal intellectualism influence. The problem was the less intelligent members of the right would ignore the "liberal" part of the warning and the right grew to distrust all intellectuals regardless of their ideological views. People like Sarah Palin almost revel in their lack of knowledge portraying intellectuals as "elitists.". This is a very dangerous stance according to Buckley as it hinders progress and science.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The headline doesn't surprise me at all, but I think some of the conclusions about why stem from speculation on stereotypes rather than a comprehensive understanding of conservatism. As a practicing catholic, I accept the teachings of the church in the Bible; however, I also accept the theory of evolution based on my studies of bioinformatics related subjects. My interpretation of the Bible does not stand in conflict. For instance, the Bible says God created Earth in seven days. Since so much of the Bible's teaching comes in the form of metaphors, I interpret seven days a metaphor for people of ancient times with no access to education so they could easily relate concepts they understood to the formation of a planet. Many of my fellow catholics and conservatives express their beliefs in similar fashion.
In coming to where the distrust of science arises, I consider several data points. First, Left leaning thinkers dominate most of academia. Polls show this overwhelmingly, and I'm pretty sure most reading this don't disagree. Second, causes of environmental extremism frequently only present a partial view of science to justify an agenda. Consider the claims that man made CO2 emissions are causing the planet to warm. Much of the research upon which scientists have based these claims is not public. They have taken steps to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests, even to the extent that a frustrated whistleblower dumped a series of emails that blew up into the scandal now known as Climategate. For instance, proper simulation analysis undergoes a process called Independent Validation and Verification (IV&V). This involves third parties reproducing results against known outcomes, and anyone wishing to challenge the assertions may openly participate. However; this is not what's happened. Rather than openly engaging skeptics, even those with scientific backgrounds, the proponents tarnish, ridicule, and exclude such people from the process. Given the substantial financial gains some stand to make with the implementation of CO2 emissions policy, conservatives not welcoming such changes will naturally express a high degree of skepticism. Efforts such as capping CO2 emissions, elimination of DDT, etc. span back as early as the 1970s. Third, it's natural for conservatives to distrust anyone with the power of public policy making. There are exceptions, but not many.
On the other side, I think some of my fellow conservatives sometimes fail to look at the whole picture of an issue. For instance, the US energy sector stands to gain a great deal of efficiency with the implementation of SmartGrid technology. However, it has an Orwellian aspect to it in that a central office can manipulate the amount of power applied at the point of consumption. Conservatives, myself included, don't want somebody in a central office controlling what happens within their homes, and this sentiment sometimes overshadows the other benefits of SmartGrid technology, such as synchrophasers. So rather than simply opposing the single invasive aspect of SmartMeters, they oppose the entirely of all SmartGrid technology.
Lastly, I think that scientists naturally tend to drift towards Left leaning ideology because of their problem solver mentality. When an engineer builds something, a car or rocket or software application, he/she aims to develop it in such a manner that it functions in the most optimal way possible, time and money permitting of course. The building blocks are mechanical parts, 0's and 1's, or other types of inanimate objects. They don't have consciousness, feeling, dreams, desires, or rights. When science enters the realm of public policy, however, those building blocks are individual persons. I think it's too easy for scientific based public policy makers to forget that and consequently dehumanize the problems they are trying to solve. That's what I consider the essence of conservative based skepticism of science in today's world.
Yeah, no.
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I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.