Conservatives' Trust In Science Has Fallen Dramatically Since Mid-1970s 1128
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."'"
This article isn't about science (Score:4, Interesting)
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)
Trust?? (Score:5, Insightful)
"The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.” -Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Re:Trust?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Trust?? (Score:4, Insightful)
The point is, that we don't have to trust in science, if we make use of the technologies that have come out of that science.
I mean, we can certainly test that if you throw a rock into the air, it comes back down.
But any time you make use of a technology, you're testing the science behind the technology and demanding that it work well enough so the technology will function. If you boot a computer, order for the microchip to function it needs electricity to behave in a certain way around semiconductors, which means the quantum physics has to be reasonably close to accurate. Same story with taking medication - you're testing, by taking the medication, whether the science is good enough that the medication will do what scientists think it will do (and sometimes finding the scientists were wrong). And every time you start up your car you're testing that the chemistry that makes an internal combustion engine work does in fact work the way we think it is.
Re:Trust?? (Score:5, Insightful)
>There is no "trust" in science - there is nothing to "believe."
Close, but you're missing the point. Science is not the natural laws of the universe, science is the study of those laws, and it's scientists (in the mind of conservatives, think of them as 'people who claim to know more than the rest of us') that conservatives don't trust. In order for someone to believe you're telling the truth, they have to trust you. If they don't trust scientists to tell them the truth, then science itself becomes untrusted. In the Conservative vs. Liberal wars, we have two camps that each consist of leaders and followers. Followers follow the leaders, not because they always agree with them, but because they **trust** them. Is that trust misplaced? Possibly, on both sides.
Want to know why self-proclaimed Conservatives oppose things like the health care law? It's not because they won't benefit (obviously they will benefit in far greater numbers than more wealthy liberals), it's because it's been successfully branded 'Obamacare', and they simply do not trust Barack Obama to do anything that won't hurt them. His image, to them, is that of a subversive radical Muslim (who wasn't even born here) who is trying to take over the country, and must be stopped at all costs. It has nothing to do with the fact that they can't get insurance, can't get healthcare, whatever. The issues don't matter, it's the image that counts.
Trust in the scientific method (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Somehow, I do not think that it is conservatives (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Somehow, I do not think that it is conservative (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Mod me down and I shall become more powerful..... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Token Slashdot conservative here (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Seems reasonable (Score:4, Insightful)
'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.
This has been going on (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Trust on Science? (Score:5, Insightful)
Prior Art (Score:4, Informative)
Wait a minute. Hasn't this been going on at least since Galileo?
Religion is why (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
They like science when their life is in danger (Score:4, Insightful)
"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.
Fact vs. Opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Thoughts From a Conservative Engineer (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
I don't think so. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Insightful)
Simpler than that.
"Conservatives" have begun to distrust science since 1970, which is the point at which Nixon began the GOP's running with the "Southern Strategy" and the GOP began to asymptotically approach definition as a collection of religious wack-jobs and robber barons. Religious wack-jobs distrust science because they believe their cult's book trumps science, and robber barons don't really distrust science, but they dislike when its conclusions lead to government policies stopping them from making a quick buck by destroying the environment and the lives of the general population.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps you missed certain liberal ideas, like freedom of speech, voting for the common man and not just the wealthy, women's suffrage, women having the right to divorce, abolition of slavery, end of sodomy laws criminalizing homosexuality.
And you seem to have missed certain conservative (libertarian) ideas like right to keep and bear arms, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection from illegal search and seizure, and the all important 10th Amendment which is supposed to guarantee the rights and freedoms of the individual states and people.
It's funny when groups like the ACLU claim to stand for the Bill of Rights and then conveniently ignore then ones they don't like.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:4)
That isn't the biggest liberal idea.
Prohibition of slavery is.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:4, Informative)
After Reconstruction, the people we would recognize today as libertarians had won, and those same people proceeded to forge America into a middle-class society and industrial superpower. They tore down the fascist/feudalistic society, and repurposed its components within just a few decades. The legacy they left us with has lasted for almost 100 years (since the fascists struck back with the installation of the Central Bank).
What the dividers either don't understand, or don't want others to understand is that D and R are both fascist parties. There is no significant difference in the policies implemented when one part or the other is in power, and with each passing administration things just get worse and worse and worse.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I don't think so. (Score:4, Informative)
We could go on and on, but you get the idea. Virtually every single initiative that has improved the lot of the average citizen has been advanced by those with liberal or "progressive" ideals.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Insightful)
What was that Republican President's name again? Hmm...it's on the tip of my tongue.
That's because it wasn't always the case that Liberal -> Democrat. Yes, Lincoln was a Republican. He was also liberal. Deal with it.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't think so. (Score:4, Insightful)
He didn't "free the slaves". Southern Slave owners started acting like spoiled children and had a temper tantrum about not getting their way all the time. It was the south that pressed the issue and brought matters to a head.
It's the idiot fire eaters that are ultimately responsible for the demise of slavery.
It was something very much along the lines of "suicide by cop".
The north would have settled for the old status quo if the situation had allowed for it.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Informative)
You missed the biggest liberal idea. Prohibition of alcohol.
That was certainly NOT a liberal idea. It was pushed by the evangelical Protestant churches. It was accomplished with help of the "drys" - The Prohibition Party. You should educate yourself on what "liberal" means. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_liberalism_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Insightful)
You (and the GP) missed the point by a mile. This isn't about funding, it's about accepting (and having trust in) the output of scientific research and the conlusions drawn up by them.
Science is not a reliogion. It is the difference between trusting and believing - as in some people believe what is written in a 1600 year old book, but doesn't trust their contemporaries distilling the truth of our physical realm. Really, a sad state.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Funny)
Science is not a reliogion. It is the difference between trusting and believing - as in some people believe what is written in a 1600 year old book, but doesn't trust their contemporaries distilling the truth of our physical realm. Really, a sad state.
I hate to disagree, but from what I've seen people treat science like a religion too. I'm referring to the average man on the street. How many people outside of /. know how their computer works on a fundamental level? How many know the intricacies of quantum theory, but have read a Brian Greene book? The fact of the matter is, the vast majority of non-scientific people have to take science on faith. It's similar in the IT realm, I honestly believe that if I started cutting the heads off of live chickens every time I did work in the datacenter, but made a decent enough Star Trek-esque technobabble explanation, my department head would simply shrug and requisition more poultry.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:4, Insightful)
Note that word - duplicate.
And no, I don't "doesn't trust their contemporaries distilling the truth" - period. If I can't fact check your work, I have no reason to believe you.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Insightful)
"If you believe trust has anything to do with science, you are sadly ignorant."
Think about it twice.
Are you an expert -and I mean a postdoc-level expert, about, well, everything?
I know I'm not and I know that due to this I have to trust the scientific community to do their job.
One thing is the scientific method which, yes, has nothing to do with trust, and a different thing is science which, really, is all about trust. It is me (and you) trusting that the scientific method is a valid process, both in theory and in practice because the way it works and its included checks and ballances, to gain knowledge about the physical world.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Insightful)
You (and the GP) missed the point by a mile. This isn't about funding, it's about accepting (and having trust in) the output of scientific research and the conlusions drawn up by them.
More specifically, conservatives distrust scientists because of the technocrat angle. A lot of the attitude is rebellion against the idea of rule by the "cult of the expert". And while this rebellion has really gotten steam in the past few decades, it's been building longer than that. Everyone is aware of Eisenhower's famous warning against the military industrial complex, but people have forgotten that later, in the same speech, he also warned about about the dangers of technocratic rule by the scientific-technological elite [youtube.com]. And rule by the administrative state has indeed grown tremendously as Congress dumps their responsibilities onto an ever growing legion of alphabet agencies that rule our lives, agencies that we have no say over, with officers we don't elect. Conservatives think science is increasingly politicized because scientists have indeed become more politicized.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Informative)
Between 1974 and 2010 the demand for immediate practicality in order to obtain funds for scientific research has dramatically increased in all government and private sector funding agencies.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Insightful)
Pollster: Do you believe that the government should fund a $500 million grant to a group study whether noise pollution from road work crews affects bird mating behaviors?
Conservative: Um, I don't really think that's a pressing issue. And $500 million seems like an auful lot of money.
Pollster: So, you're against the spending of that money that way?
Conservatve: That's right.
Pollster tallies one more conservative who doesn't believe in science
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Informative)
It's called push polling. They didn't give a shit what you thought, they just wanted you to hear their framing of the question and believe it was true.
Push poll [wikipedia.org]
Re:I don't think so. (Score:4, Insightful)
Recent stories of faked data [slashdot.org] in other fields don't help.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:4, Interesting)
If conservatives are so skeptical of faked data, then please explain the blind adherence to their religious texts.
American conservatives are not that simple. We live in a two-party system and going independent essentially erases your voice, so most people pick a label and form sub-groups. Under "conservative" you have libertarians, (far more than are in the Libertarian Party, mind you) the religious right, the log cabin republicans, most of wall street :p, and a whole slew of other conflicted groups who only really agree on economic policy a little. (one of the drums beat during Tea Party movements was to put social issues on the back burner, though the candidates have been somewhat contrary to this -- especially Santorum) Liberals also have libertarians, socialists (both authoritarian and "legalize everything"), people who want free stuff, etc. People on both sides hold their nose and pretend some of the people on their side don't exist. Third parties can't prosper because then the "other side" will have a supermajority, and "all hell will break loose".
That said, it's a bit of a blanket statement to make that assumption. Cable news is all about getting ratings from people who are generally unemployed and can't find something better to do than sit in front of the TV. I've been going along with the right for the last few years (and believe me, my nose is bleeding from how hard I've held it) but I'm as interested in interacting with the religious right as I am with the free stuff left. My argument isn't about liberals and conservatives, it's about politics and science. Missteps like the claimed exclusion of the medieval warm period from presentations made to the public [google.com] may have been the biggest political blunder related to climate change.
If you're going to convince the public to do something extremely inconvenient, you have to be honest. It doesn't matter if you're right, it matters that the public believes you are.
If you look at it this way, how would you -personally- go about verifying all the data and conclusions about climate change? That's the heart of the problem.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Insightful)
Explain then how the conservative rejection of evolution has anything to do with regulations. Or their rejection of sex education. See, it's not that conservatives are against regulations. They're against regulations that don't promote their fairy tales.
It's the antiscience that comes first, otherwise they'd have to ask themselves whether there was a scientific basis to reject regulation. The idea that regulation in itself is bad is itself a fairy tale. The same people who argue for tough on crime legislation for individuals argue against any sort of restraint on the part of the most powerful, and therefore most dangerous institutions. These people have no grip on reality whatsoever.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Insightful)
What does your story have to do with anything? Really, that seems like a complete non sequitur.
Are you trying to equate the pervy behavior of one teacher 20 years ago with the central tenet of the conservative movement (unquestioned deregulation). And then you're wondering why I call conservatives stupid?
I could concieve of making statements about conservatives without inherent slander, but then they would not honest statements.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think anyone argues that IQ differentials exist between different races. The point in question is to what extent does IQ measure anything resembling generalized intelligence. The science that exists suggests that intelligence is not a scalar quantity at all. So claiming that a value like IQ is directly related to generalized intelligence is not a scientific claim at all.
Yet another example of how conservatives misunderstand science. Can anyone come up with a single typically conservative position that has a sound basis in science?
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Informative)
That's pretty much exactly what IQ measures, by design, and often weighted to account for cultural differences.
That's exactly what some IQ researchers wish to claim that IQ measures, but that's not the same as IQ actually measuring that. What IQ actually measures is a long standing topic of debate in the field. Less than a year ago this study [pnas.org] was published showing that motivation plays a big role in the outcome of IQ tests. Or look at the work or Richard Nisbett, whose research shows the exact opposite of your claim that IQ differences persist after controlling for societal factors.
This is an excellent example of how conservatives misunderstand science. They take a statement like "IQ measures intelligence" as fact, and don't question the evidence behind it.
Stupid fucking conservative.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:4, Insightful)
To put it more directly, conservatives see science as both theoretically and empirically telling them that unbridled capitalism, and all that it brings (the pollution, the stripping of resources and all the other impacts on both environment and climate) are not sustainable. That eventually, it has to end.
This they cannot tolerate. And since they can't refute the data or the facts, they attack science as a whole and cast disparities on its practitioners and methods. They make huge shows of the few scientists who attempt to fake data and results, and the peer review system as a whole (all the while ignoring the fact that it is almost always that same peer review system that finds the bad eggs).
Conservatives in power probably know full well that climate change is real and that we're running out of resources. But to keep their supporters fat and happy, they have to keep the flow of consumer junk and cheap energy flowing.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:4, Informative)
I would argue liberals tend to believe there is finite wealth which still would be enough to support everyone.
Meanwhile conservatives also believe there is finite wealth but feel those who do not "deserve" it should not have access to it. (ie there should never be enough wealth for everyone).
>Its that liberals believe there's finite amount of wealth to be had, and that's just not true.
I for one would love to hear the converse of this statement. Can you please explain to me how there is infinite wealth in our closed system?
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Insightful)
I cannot speak for other liberals, but I do not believe that there is finite wealth to be had. But, I do believe that wealth disparities decrease the amount of wealth that can be created. The way I see it, wealth is like growing food. You can get much better performance out of a small garden for a family (on a food produced per acre measure) than you can out of a large farm. But, it would take more man-hours per unit of produce. The difference is, though, that most people have enough extra free time at home so that the man-hours are essentially free (especially since gardening can be a stress-reducer and so actually be a value-add activity regardless of whether it produces vegetables). Or, at the very least a man-hour on a farm costs society more than a man-hour in a home garden. And, I feel that wealth is similar. Millionaires and Billionaires do produce more wealth with their wealth, but I believe that if that $250,000 in wealth each for 40 people will produce more wealth for society than $10,000,000 from one person. The reason is that those 40 people are more likely to use that wealth effectively by starting their own businesses, or investing in businesses in their community (both are investments in small businesses) while the one person with $10,000,000 will probably invest with a manager in the stock market. Now, don't get me wrong, that person will probably invest $250,000 of the $10,000,000 in local ventures as well (or maybe $500,000), but not as much will be invested personally as if 40 people did it.
I am not an advocate of communism, either. I think that there needs to be a monetary incentive to work hard to get the maximum productivity out of society. And, I think that someone who earns their money is much more likely to use and invest it wisely. But, income disparity is getting worse. Our current society is redistributing wealth from the lower and middle classes to the upper class. I think that we need to adjust our economic and government systems to stop the redistribution of wealth to the wealthy, because that is decreasing our potential for creating wealth. The easiest solution I see is to raise taxes on the upper class while reducing taxes on the lower and middle classes, so that the people that benefit the most from our current system pay more towards maintaining that system. (but I only care about reducing the the rate at which income inequality is growing. As far as I care it can be income-neutral to the government, or even income-negative) But, if there is a better solution to my stated problem (that doesn't involve "redistributing wealth" as you would probably name my solution) then I am all ears.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Insightful)
It is definitely a problem with mixing science and politics.
No one is against science that tells you how to build an airplane so it stays in the air.
The problem is then several fold.
1. Flaky science is given the credibility of 'real science'. This is especially true in areas such as economics or the social sciences. This is especially true at the university level...
2. A religion of science has developed. At the core of science is the scientific method. A very good process to get to the 'reality'. But science can never tell you what to do about anything. Nuclear science can be used to provide clean power or slaughter a million people.
At the core of this problem is a problem with the scientific community. For example, science might tell you that too much C02 is resulting in global warming. But that is where it should stop. Science doesn't infer that you should therefore have a carbon tax or even even if you should do anything at all.
The problem with scientism as a religion is mixing science and policy and assuming that disagreeing with policy means you're disagreeing with the science.
This of course has led to a reaction on those who disagree with policies to then distance themselves from the scientific community.
3. Similar to 2, but it is the use of science with implied goals. For example, a scientist might come to the conclusion that wearing bicycle helmets saves lives. That might be very good science. They then become an advocate for a policy of mandatory bicycle helmets. Disagreeing with them on that policy means you are against science or ignorant.
But much like 2, this is not science. Science is goalless and valueless. What the scientific community generally refuses to acknowledge is that they have values and ideologies. They don't want to lower themselves to that level of discussion... but it is ignorance not to.
In this simple case of the bicycle helmet. This scientist values the health of an individual over the freedom of the individual. You can disagree or agree with that all you want, but you must acknowledge your value judgment. That is all it is. It is no most based in science and no more valid than anyone else's belief.
And most often, it is not as simple as that. When you really get down to values, they often conflict and feed on each other.
Do you value more healthcare and paying more taxes and working harder to support it? Or would you rather have less healthcare and more leisure time? These are real ideological questions.
The problem is that scientist in charge of healthcare only sees healthcare and thinks if you disagree with his policy you are disagreeing with science.
Of course if we had a scientist in charge of leisure, he'd be pushing his field to have us work less.
Should the scientist of leisure ever encounter the scientist in healthcare and the scientist in economics... they'd be disagreeing on ideological lines just like regular Joe Six Pack.
It is unfortunate, but people who think science in government is empowering science are mistaken. It will corrupt science as politicians pick and choose their experts to write a report on what they want. Scientists will advocate policies in the name of science and those disagreeing with those policies will then be against those scientists.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Insightful)
The other side of that argument is that science is telling folks that no, you can't use more than we've got forever, and yes, what you do is impacting other people. And some folks want any excuse to say, "So what. I only live once, screw the next generation, I want it all. Now!"
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Insightful)
Science merely reports. Scientists can make suggestions. What do you want scientists to do, just say "Sludge kills people", but not offer any solutions like "Get rid of sludge."
What strikes me about this is that commercial interests, who basically use Conservatives as their bitches, want to keep producing sludge and spend as few resources as possible mitigating sludge effects, so you get commercial-backed "think tanks" like the Heartland Institute, which talk a conservative talk, advocating for sludge, casting dispersions on any scientist who dares condemn sludge production or state that health problems arise from sludge.
You don't want scientists, you want ideologues who will suppress or ignore any data that in any way impinges on your world view. No bad news for me, thank you very much, I want to do what I've always done and if you tell me the universe is going to stomp on me eventually, well fuck you, I'm an American, and in America the laws of physics mean only what we want them to mean.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Funny)
Really? Says you. But if I'm going to believe in something that berates and impugns, and is a tool used by people looking to control others, I think I'll go with science over what the religionists are pushing. At least science requires reproducible results for proof.
Science says: "This sludge is toxic because it contains these toxins. We determined this by following this procedure. Our colleagues have reviewed our procedure, and have found it to be sound and accurate. Using the procedure as described, these colleagues have found identical results. We invite you to examine our procedure for error, and follow it on your sample of sludge and report your findings.
Also, we know these toxins are harmful, because we tested them on living creatures. So did our colleagues, using the exact same procedures we did. Their living creatures were also harmed."
Conservatives say: "We can't afford to make sure the sludge is either not produced, or is less toxic. If we do that, we won't make as much money as we possibly can. Also, that would make our workers safer, and, well, you know our policy towards workers: pay them as little as we can get away with, and if they get injured on the job, fire them for being less productive.
Besides, I prayed on it, and Jesus says the sludge is harmless, and it only harms those who are in cahoots with Satan. I can't prove any of this, you just have to have faith. Jesus wouldn't lie to you, and since I speak for Jesus, you know I'm not lying to you. Anyone who doesn't believe what Jesus says is a America-hating-commie-fag who lacks faith. And let's pray that that person who doesn't believe the truth of Jesus spoken through me dies from the Satan sludge."
Re:I don't think so. (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't even know what you mean by the "public face of science". Most scientists don't particularly have a public face. If you're talking about populizers and science journalists, by and large I have little time for them. But I don't think you're talking about them at all. I think you're just looking for some easily identifiable group that says things like "We're using too many fossil fuels and it's going to screw us over" and using them as a whipping boy for your frustration. You prefer science to be your ideological dog, or at least to stay in sufficiently rarified circles as to not intrude upon you too much. Sort of a Sunday morning newspaper version of science "Look at that dear, they've found a new kind of neutron star", but science has always been more than that, and in the past when it collided with comfort zones, well, you had events like the Scopes Monkey Trial.
Re:I don't think so. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I don't think so. (Score:4, Insightful)
The first response on TFA is
The whole article is about a study or poll (it's hard to tell which one) that indicates conservatives don't "believe" in "science". Yet there is nothing in the article that illustrates what types of questions were asked to come to this conclusion, nor is there any indication what the margin of error was or how different responses were based on political leanings.
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.
There is no basis for you conclusion (Score:5, Informative)
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 [unc.edu]. 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.
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
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."
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [spacecoast...vative.com] 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."
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Funny)
Reality doesn't care about your ideology at all, actually.
Don't anthropomorphize reality; It hates that.
Re:Obvious (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Sneering = lose (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Sneering = lose (Score:5, Informative)
It's not just AGW where conservatives are unwilling to face reality. It's economics, where faith compells them to continue cutting taxes on the rich in the face of ever growing inequality. Or health care, where conservatives cannot face the reality that we have the highest health care costs in the West and some of the poorest outcomes. Or contraception, where conservatives continue to push for abstinence only education, ignoring countless studies which prove it ineffective. I could go on...
Essentially you can turn on the news and find any conservative pushing any typical conservative wedge issue. Their position will be completely based in fantasy. This is why there's no liberal equivalent to Rush Limbaugh. We don't need to listen to blow hards make shit up for us to believe. We just listen to the news and decide for ourselves.
Re:Sneering = lose (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly the kind of idiocy I was talking about. Of the items listed, only 1 and 5 have any sort of factual content, and what factual content is there is entirely irrelevant to the point. Let's look at the quality of thought that goes into these typical conservative positions.
1) This is the same as saying "Lightning can cause fires naturally, so I can never be convinced of arson"
2) "A biphasic curve exists, therefore we are always on the right hand side of the curve"
3) Somehow single payer health care wouldn't reduce tort costs and eliminate money wasted on insurance company profits?
4) "LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" [slashdot.org]
5) If you're not properly educated about it, it's not really a choice. If you want to reduce abortions, you have to provide and encourage, cheap (preferably free), stigma free contraceptives to everyone. Being both anti-abortion and anti-sex ed is exactly the kind of stupidity that characterizes the conservative.
Re:Sneering = lose (Score:5, Interesting)
Perfect example of the style of bad arguing used by the deniers, who, sadly, are for the most part also conservatives. You just start ranting away about the consequences of something you think and fear is so obviously true that you don't have to bother stating let alone proving it. Your problem is, the assumption isn't true. So your whole rant is founded on nothing, and is just a bunch of hot air.
In this case, the assumption seems to be that anthropogenic global warming is false. You evidently find it more likely that the entire consensus about global warming is wrong, or is a big lie and plot to get more funding. You think that thousands of independent scientists running thousands of independent tests and checks have all gotten this wrong, and wrong in the same way? You think that every single scientist is too incompetent or biased to collect good, honest data and to come to some honest conclusions based on that data? And that there is no competition between scientists that would very quickly expose problems? That the entire community of very diverse individuals would or even could collude? And that organizations with an interest in the status quo, such as Big Oil, haven't tried to discredit the idea and even science itself for patently obvious reasons? Do you really believe any of that?
Big business tells whoppers like no one else does. Everyone thinks of politicians as the incurable, pathologic liars, but big business makes them look like pikers. Big business is so much more professional about lying, employing entire departments known as "marketing" to handle routine, accepted lying, and funding nominally independent think tanks and setting up fake research groups to engage in less accepted forms of lying. One of Big Tobacco's few honest moments was when they said "doubt is our product", admitting that their object is NOT to do good science, but just the opposite. They purposely hinder discovery and confuse the public. Exxon is notorious for applying the same dishonest techniques to arguments over global warming. The Creationists saw what they thought was a good thing, and adopted similar techniques to argue that evolution is controversial and in doubt when it is not, and to try to present their own wishful thinking as solid science when it too obviously is not. Funny how you give "doubt is our product" a pass when you are so quick to take and interpret every least little thing as more signs that scientists are just a pack of whining, conniving, greedy, politically motivated hacks.
Re:Obvious (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
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)
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
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. :)
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Informative)
"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 . [wikipedia.org]
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.
Re:Obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just factually incorrect. No liberal I have ever met wants that. We want the smallest effective government possible.
Re:Obvious (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Obvious (Score:4, Informative)
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.
The opposite is true as well... (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Re:The opposite is true as well... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, good comparison that: those who decline vaccines, a fringe movement, with those who deny the effects of CO2 on global climate or the health effects of cigarette smoking, big think tanks with massive funding. Surely these are equivalent.
As for insisting on organic produce, what's wrong with that? There are perfectly rational reasons for not wanting to pump even more insecticides into the biosphere.
Mart
Re:The opposite is true as well... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, most squirrels I know are in favour of Rick Santorum which makes them conservatives.
Apparantly, squirrels like nuts.
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
It stopped being funny when everyone realized it was true. Because the other side decided to depart from reality.
Re:How convenient (Score:5, Interesting)
1974 was the year that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders removed homosexuality as a category of mental disorder.
Re:Twisting science for political or financial gai (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Twisting science for political or financial gai (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, no.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Niigata+Minamata+disease [lmgtfy.com]
Re:Twisting science for political or financial gai (Score:4, Interesting)
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?
Re:Twisting science for political or financial gai (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:How convenient (Score:4, Insightful)
About that time (mid seventies) "science" or people purporting to be science started telling us that everything caused cancer. Then they said, "oops never mind". Then they said "wait...yes it does". Look at the saccharine scare, the whole thing about silicon breasts implants (where lawyers hijacked science), etc. etc. etc.
I'm pretty sure you're getting "science" confused with "the media". Scientists were legitimately studying things like saccharine and breast implants, often coming up with inconclusive results and findings that are different levels of grey, and don't really fit on a pretty headline. Then the media would take some study that says "CANCER CANCER CANCER!".
Or, in picture-form: http://xkcd.com/882/ [xkcd.com]
Re:Communion (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Communion (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
"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.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
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?
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Scientists are conservative (Score:4, Insightful)