Sunday, March 8, 2015

Study: Conservatives and Liberals About Equally "Anti-Science"

That title is a bit misleading.  It might be better to say that conservatives and liberals are about equally distrustful of scientific claims that they hear reported in the media, according to The Christian Post.  Excerpt:  
Interestingly, liberals, moderates and conservatives were all less trustful of the science that was related to political debates compared to the ideologically neutral science. In other words, conservatives were less trustful of science related to fracking and nuclear power, though not as distrustful as liberals, compared to science related to ideologically-neutral astronomy and geology findings. And liberals were less trustful of science related to climate change and evolution, though not as distrusful as conservatives, compared to the ideologically neutral science.
 Conservatives and liberals were not equally likely to reject the science that was dissonant with their ideology. Conservatives were more likely than liberals to be distrustful. The authors attribute this to media coverage of the debates.
There has been much coverage of the scientific debates over climate change and evolution. By comparison, there has been little coverage of the scientific debates over fracking and nuclear power. Respondents, therefore, would be much more aware of controversies over climate change and evolution than fracking and nuclear power.
The researchers also found higher levels of anger associated with the distrust over climate change and evolution than the distrust over fracking and nuclear power.




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