A Ray of Hope For Americans and Scientific Literacy?

An anonymous reader with a snippet from Politico: "A finding in a study on the relationship between science literacy and political ideology surprised the Yale professor behind it: Tea party members know more science than non-tea partiers. Yale law professor Dan Kahan posted on his blog this week that he analyzed the responses of more than 2,000 American adults recruited for another study and found that, on average, people who leaned liberal were more science literate than those who leaned conservative. However, those who identified as part of the tea party movement were actually better versed in science than those who didn't, Kahan found. The findings met the conventional threshold of statistical significance, the professor said. Kahan wrote that not only did the findings surprise him, they embarrassed him. '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.'" More at the Independent Journal Review.

Comments

Re:Not Surprising

[NotQuiteReal]

You spelled "know" incorrectly. Besides, it is the opposite political philosophy from the Tea Party crowd that have "magical thinking" about how things work. Mostly they just want centralized government to do less.

You like your computer networks decentralized, why not your government? Local is better.

actual "platform"

[NotQuiteReal]

Here is the actual Tea Party platform

Feel free to argue any of those points, but don't just make up stuff. Far too often (if not "always") there is no debate on the issues... just "but what about the children/unborn". Whatever.

Re:actual "platform"

[Arker]

"Exactly what are "excessive taxes"?"

Taxes in excess of those required to fulfill constitutional mandates. Easy.

"Because once you start cutting revenue you have to start cutting programs. And once you start cutting programs you run into the problem that SOMEONE thinks that that particular is not "excessive"."

Yes indeed, this is how dirty politics works. Everyone votes for the whole pile of pork in order to keep the one program that actually benefits them personally. The weight of all the unproductive expenditures drags down the economy as a whole and makes the nation poorer, but the 'elite' who are already rich and well connected will still manage to get richer by diverting the lions share of those expenditures even while the rest of us struggle to keep our heads above water.

The only solution is to kill all the pork in one swipe. Most people will give up their own slice, as long as everyone else does the same simultaneously. But no one is going to willingly give up their slice, however pathetic, without getting a refund on the rest of the pork at the same time.

Re:actual "platform"

[Anonymous Coward]

And Romney and Bush pioneered Obamacare. Neither of the sister parties shy away from massive deficits and government waste, those truly calling for cutbacks are going to be the "radical fringe"

Re:actual "platform"

[StephenThomasKrausJr]

900,000 furloughed. WIC/Food Stamps/NIH/NASA/CDC and many many others furloughed. And taxes, right now, are rhe lowest in half a century. Especially corporate but also income taxes. Guess what doesn't go away without revenue? Debt. Guess what doesn't work like your household debt? Government debt. Government debt is not all bad, a lot of it is actually healthy. Oh, and we kept spending during the shutdown, so it wasn't even a good cost saving measure.

Re: actual "platform"

[maccodemonkey]

There's also the basic problem with your understanding of how a law is determined to be Constitutional. Laws are only unconstitutional if the Constitution disallows for something. The Constitution doesn't have to specifically allow me to write a blog (and it doesn't). Rather, if a law was made that no one could write blogs, that law would be found to be unconstitutional because the Constitution outright bans that sort of law.

You've flipped the argument, which isn't how the Constitution works. You're arguing that the Constitution is a document which allows laws, instead of being a document that bans laws. You're trying to argue that the Constitution says nothing about allowing social security and therefore social security is not a valid law, but in fact the burden of proof is on you to find where the Constitution bans social security. That's how the legal system in this country works, and is how the Constitution is observed.

Re:News Flash: Partisan Caricature Found Incorrect

[StephenThomasKrausJr]

Nobody is saying they ALL are, but their vocal majority is pretty awful, so guess what? If your vocal majority and the ones in control are batshit crazy and off the wall kooky especially when it comes to civil rights, climaye science, public education, taxes, and immigration, you MIGHT get lumped in their with them. I'm sorry, the Tea Party has made it pretty clear that they have gone off the deep end?

Re:What other variable were examined?

[Frequency Domain]

Why should you control for that? Where do non-white people and non-male people think science knowledge comes from?

Because of the potential for Simpson's Paradox.