Pew Survey Documents Gaps Between Public and Scientists 278
PvtVoid writes: A new Pew Research Study documents an alarming gap between public perception of scientific issues and the opinions of the scientists themselves, as measured by a poll of AAAS scientists. Even worse, the gap is partisan, with clear differences between Republicans and Democrats, and between conservatives and liberals. For example, while 98% of AAAS members agree with the statement that "Human beings and other living things have evolved over time", only 21% of conservatives agree, compared with 54% of liberals. Global warming, similarly, shows an ideological gap: 98% of AAAS scientists agreed with the statement that "the Earth is getting warmer mostly due to human activity", compared with 21% of conservatives and 54% of liberals. Encouragingly, almost everybody thinks childhood vaccines should be required (86% of AAAS members, 65% of conservatives, and 74% of liberals.) Go here for an interactive view of the data.
Makes sense. (Score:5, Funny)
In order to succeed as a scientist, one must be of above-average intelligence.
The opinions of above-average people, on issues that require above-average intelligence to really understand, will naturally be at variance with the opinions of merely average and below-average people.
I am sure there are plenty of average people who would disagree with me on this, however.
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In order to succeed as a scientist, one must be of above-average intelligence.
Could not one of average intelligence yet above-average perseverance perform an experiment building on another's experiment and be called a "successful" scientist. You did not show that above-average intelligence is a necessary condition for success as a scientist.
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Maybe, but they still have to write it up and get it published, and that's where the above-average intelligence comes in. There are drones in science, like in every field, but they don't get "successful" without publishing. And often that means working with others, and working with others requires above-average intelligence.
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It might be possible to get a Ph.D., that way, but building a career in science requires more than managing to do something original enough to convince a thesis committee.
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He wasn't a scientist, he was a manager.
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I think it's safe to say that in any SHTF event, it's the people who believe themselves to be smart who will suffer the worst.
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To be fair, there is a vast difference between intelligence and wisdom; an intelligent and man may know/deduce everything there is to know about thunderstorms, but may not be wise enough to get his ass in out of one.
Re:Makes sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
You are implying that ones political stance is an indicator of their intelligence?
There is a huge group of people who's opinion is based on what the party says, I am a loyal Democrat/Republican so my stance will match what they say. There is no attention of the detail of the message nor any attempt to challenge the notion brought up. So the Democrats say Global Warming is a problem, people will blindly follow. If the Democrats say GMO foods are bad, they will blindly follow. Intelligence isn't the issue, it is just the current polarized nature of the two party system which will normally make one side right and the other wrong (assuming one side is right)
Now the Democrats vs Government view on funding. Democrats prefer more of a blanket funding in scientists, So Scientists who are funded via the Democrats policies have invested interests in that party, so they are making a living off of researching climate science due to Democrats funding, so they will be friendly to that party, and in turn that party will listen to their studies. The Republicans will more likely fund Military or Energy science. Where there is less science and more engineering. Thus you will find a lot more Right winged engineers. As their main means of living is due to Republican policy. So the Republicans will more likely push ideas of a new Military Technology or Energy Extraction technology.
It is interesting on how your political views change depending on where you are living and who is controlling your purse strings.
Now they are crazies on both sides. You got the Leftist hippie type who wants to change everything to match their utopian vision where everyone is all happy because they follow one idea of a perfect life. Then you got the Far Right densest who thinks we should go back to the "Leave it to Beaver" life style, that he fondly remembers as a child (too young to realize the pressures of the world). These guys can often get into the House or Representatives thus get enough media attention to direct "The I have to do what the party says" people.
Re:Makes sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
You are implying that ones political stance is an indicator of their intelligence?
That is the clear intention of the article summary, because it highlights only those issues where Democrats are more likely to agree with scientists than Republicans. A more honest summary would have also brought attention to the subjects where Democrats differ from scientists: nuclear power, pesticide use in foods and animal research, for example.
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I know that doesn't translate to claiming that 46% are creationists, but still, that's hardly grounds for all the stone throwing at conservatives over it.
FWIW, I identify as a very moderate conservative, (with several things on the right I don't agree with) and even I don't dispute evolution.. nor for that matter, believe in the Biblical god except as a complex mythology, like so many m
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You are implying that ones political stance is an indicator of their intelligence?
What!? I'm sure both parties are equally likely to use words like "intellectual", "elite", "professor", "educated", "scientist" as disparaging or insults.
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You are implying that ones political stance is an indicator of their intelligence?
There is a huge group of people who's opinion.
.
You had me until "who is opinion". The word you're looking for, I believe, is "whose", and please report back to your grade-school teacher for remedial work and a spanking.
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Congratulations A/C. That's the most successful troll that I have seen since.. well.. since the article itself!
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I guess the public modded this funny. It's bang on the button.
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If only there was some sort of reference that we could use to find such a definition...
or...
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Re:Makes sense. (Score:5, Informative)
If controlled for social factors, IQ is by far the best prediction of your future educational performance. So the chance of becoming a scientist is directly correlated to your IQ.
The original IQ test, as invented by Alfred Binet, was created to determine in what class to put children who started school. In 1882, France introduced compulsory education, but many children in France had no or questionable birth certificates, and when they were about to start school, it was not clear what their real age was and which class would be suitable for them. And then there were the children who required special care, and until the beginning of the 20th century, it was up to the subjective judgement of the respective teachers to determine which children should get it. Thus Alfred Binet and Théodore Simon developed a test to more objectively assess the educational potential of a child, the Binet-Simon-Test, which was to calculate something called the "intelligence age" of a child, and which was used as a criterion in what class to put a child.
It should thus be expected that the IQ as measured by the Binet-Simon-test (and the later development Stanford-Binet-test and all subsequent IQ tests) is quite predictive for your educational career, because that's what they were invented for.
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a) do you really trust any measure of intelligence?
Yes. I trust no claim of a 100% accurate measurement of intelligence, but trust that many measurements of intelligence are at least able to measure large differences in intelligence. A standard deviation is a big difference, so I do believe a 15 point difference in IQ is going to have a great deal of predictive ability regarding someone's ability to learn and understand information.
b) do you really think that scientists have higher intelligence?
Yes. I have worked with PhD students and professional researchers, and I have worked with "average" people, and there is a big
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And here's somebody who doesn't think solipsism is utterly pointless and nihilistic philosophy, and actually thinks researchers should adopt it.
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Actually, anybody who disagrees with me very probably has a lower IQ than I do. As well as anybody who agrees with me. There's lots of people out there with a higher IQ than mine, but vastly more with lower ones.
Correction (Score:5, Informative)
The correct figures for the Global Warming question are: AAAS members 87%, conservatives 29%, liberals 76%.
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Yeah, the similarity of figures between the two did strike me as suspicious.
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You realize I'm the one who wrote the summary, right?
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I would think that a link to their fucking web page counts as a definition of the acronym. YMMV.
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Which organization is that? You forgot to include the website this time.
Very sorry. I forgot to include the links too! I meant conservatives [theblaze.com] and liberals [cpusa.org].
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These are scientific issues where there is more of a controversy among people in general than among scientists. I doubt most people care about dark matter, most generally accept that the Theory of Relativity (which one?) is true because Einstein was smart, most don't understand genome mapping or P vs. NP.
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I'm curious - why are "Scientific Issues" in these stories, code words for "man-made global warming" and "evolution vs. creationism"?
Are there no other "Scientific Issues" in the world right now? Do Republicans and Democrats share opinions on the existence of dark matter? On the Theory of Relativity? On mapping the human genome? On P vs NP?
Those are two areas that have generated a lot of controversy in the general public so they get a lot of attention. The other areas that get a lot of attention would be in medical research and human health. Most other scientific issues are way under the radar of public attention so most of the public doesn't have an opinion on them one way or the other.
Shocker... (Score:4, Insightful)
A segment of the population has views that are different from the average of the entire population.
Do the same thing with investment bankers and you'll see lots of gaps as well.
Do it with politicians versus everyone else... gaps.
Do it with police officers versus everyone... gaps.
Look at our little community here on slashdot. Are our views analogous to the general population? Nope. Lots of gaps.
So... I don't quite get the point of the survey. There have always been gaps between scientists and the general public and always will be just as there are gaps between any sub group and the whole and ALWAYS will be.
Meaningless.
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There have always been gaps between scientists and the general public
I think the value of the study is showing how political ideology is strongly predictive of the gap.
This is obviously not a new idea, but the study provides hard data to back it up.
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This. Furthermore, the questions are primarily policy related, so they are especially meaningless. I may agree with you on climate change factually, but utterly disagree with you on what policies we should adopt regarding them. Of course "AAAS Members" don't agree with Joe and Jane Six-Pack, they don't work where they work, they don't live where they live, and so on and so on.
Sheesh. I wish Pew had done a better job here.
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This. Furthermore, the questions are primarily policy related, so they are especially meaningless.
I don't know about you, but I personally would like to see science applied to policy much more often than it is.
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Its just another mastrabatory progressive poll where some collection of halfwits want to claim intellectual superiority by asking a set of cherry picked questions under controlled circomstances and then strip out all context.
Really? Somehow, I suspect that you'd have an entirely different critique if the answers weren't such an embarrassment to those who fit into the "conservative" camp.
The really glaring thing here, to me at least, is that the non-scientist sample is so far off from the scientist sample. Do some research into why the non-scientists believe the stupid shit they do. Come, on, less than half of all laymen believe evolution is a thing? That's scary.
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A segment of the population has views that are different from the average of the entire population.
You don't get a "view" on conclusions that are supported by an overwhelming weight of facts and data. You are also not entitled to a "view" that comes from a coordinated and deliberate effort to mislead by news outlets with a political agenda.
It boils down to the simple reality that one side of the debate thinks they're entitled to their own facts.
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Exactly, the real world doesn't give a damn what your views are. It just is what it is.
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I don't quite get the point of the survey. There have always been gaps between scientists and the general public and always will be just as there are gaps between any sub group and the whole and ALWAYS will be.
It's an ad populum argument, and appeal to authority in survey form. Rather than waist time trying to construct a valid argument just state a majority of experts believe different than you. You should change to match these experts. Useful of backing up bad arguments, and to inform politicians how to pander to the largest group.
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And, never state your hypothesis, we might comb through your results and point out embarrassing places where the data contradicts you.
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All truth is socially constructed, so the real fools are the one who think data could contradict TRUTH. /sarc
The fact is that those that believe facts are socially constructed have a bad case of 'Science Envy', hence they phrase their religious dogma with sciencish terms. They deserve to be kicked square in the crotch and ignored.
They should also not be allowed anywhere near hard science. Look at the mess they've made of the 'social sciences'.
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Ignore the data, accuse climate scientist of nefariously altering data without addressing the well documented reasons and techniques used for those alterations and you could be a Climate Science Denier.
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The only significant group that doesn't approve of it are evangelical creationists and they're not numerous enough make that claim.
What is more the survey is conflating POLITICAL positions with scientific positions. What someone will "say" on a survey to show political affliation is not the same thing as "what I ACTUALLY believe".
The accuracy of these surveys is undermined by a long list of issues.
Sample selection. Sample size. Question phrasing. Whether people LIE to pollers... look election polls prior to
One of these is not like the others. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One of these is not like the others. (Score:5, Funny)
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Perhaps, but it is certainty a topic for scientists to make very strong recommendations about, recommendations that good judgement says policy makers should listen to.
Alarming Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that kind of the point of living in a free country? We're all entitled to our own beliefs. Why is it "alarming" or "even worse" that one group doesn't agree with another on a particular topic?
Re:Alarming Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
because the topics mentioned aren't opinions, they are facts - there is no room for someone to have an opinion on whether "the Earth is getting warmer mostly due to human activity" for instance. Either it is, or it isn't, and facts overwhelmingly point to yes. By denying those facts we are totally fucking ourselves in the ass, pardon my french.
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"the Earth is getting warmer mostly due to human activity"
I think you don't quite understand the subject.
Let me break it down for you.
- The earth is getting warmer... Fact (well, depends on the period you look at and time scale... but generaly yes)
- How much warmer... Debatable (statistical error for "global average temperature anomalies" are LARGE)
- Are humans responsible by way of CO2... Somewhat and debatable (Climate sensitivity from a double of CO2 is constantly being revised, currently at around less
i'm going with 98% of the scientific community tnx (Score:3)
not you, random internet guy.
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I love your post. It demostrates how much blind trust you have for infomation that is pro-climate change.
I'd be willing to bet that any anti-climate change info you read, you do the same lack of research and simply assume it's a lie from Big Oil.
You blindly believed and quoted (without any independent research) the summary of a slashdot article.
The article itself gives a different number and submitted mentioned that the 98% was a typo.
http://news.slashdot.org/comme... [slashdot.org]
That number made sense to you because i
what are your qualifications? (Score:2)
please share with us, where did you receive your advanced degrees in environmental science and climatology? it was probably somewhere really prestigious!
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The named people are repeating the consensus of the scientific community. You are repeating half-remembered nonsense. If your readings have not convinced you that AGW is a serious threat to humanity, then either you haven't read enough, you haven't understood what you've read, or both. You also haven't seen most of the world's glaciers evaporating, or the shrinking polar ice caps. Do you have any comprehension of what a cubic kilometer of ice is like? Even small glaciers are of a scale that dwarfs all human
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Re: i'm going with 98% of the scientific community (Score:2)
Ok let's say that only 60% of experts agree that man is the primary cause of the current trends. A number that I pulled out my anus, and is surely way too low.
I'm going to go with 60% of the experts.
Incidentally, those are the 60% that aren't on the payroll of the oil or coal industry.
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The numbers above are from the IPCC (albeit from memory, correct some of they are wrong).
Correct in the last part: some of them are wrong.
The actual IPCC documents are here: http://www.ipcc.ch/publication... [www.ipcc.ch]
An interesting graphic comparing various sources of climate change is here: http://www.bloomberg.com/graph... [bloomberg.com]
Source (Score:2)
Besides, it has been shown to be wrong.
You seen to think that by just saying that you will make it true.
As for linking to the IPCC... well that was more than useless.
Since you said you were quoting numbers from the IPCC, I would suggest that linking to the IPCC reports would be relevant. Since you now say it is "more than useless" to link to the source that you claimed to have based your post on, I'd say that your post is "more than useless."
I haven't seen anything to make me think you have actually read any of the IPCC reports-- I suspect your poorly-remembered data is something you poorly-remembered fr
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You stated in a reply to Geoffrey Landis that you have indeed read the IPCC reports. If that is true then cite where you saw the following statements in them because I don't believe you.
- Climate sensitivity from a double of CO2 is constantly being revised, currently at around less than 1C
- CO2 has only started affecting our climate since the late 70s
- Humans are responsible for little more than half of that warming by way of CO2
There are a couple of different kinds of climate sensitivity but I've never heard any sensitivity for a doubling of CO2 being less than about 1.75C.
CO2 has always had an effect on climate over nearly the whole history of the Earth. It's probably true that before the 2nd half of the 20th Century that human caused increases
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Regarding sensitivity the IPCC AR5 Summary for Policy Makers [www.ipcc.ch] says:
The equilibrium climate sensitivity quantifies the response of the climate system to constant radiative forcing on multicentury time scales. It is defined as the change in global mean surface temperature at equilibrium that is caused by a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration. Equilibrium climate sensitivity is likely in the range 1.5C to 4.5C (high confidence), extremely unlikely less than 1C (high confidence), and very unlikely greater than 6C (medium confidence)16. The lower temperature limit of the assessed likely range is thus less than the 2C in the AR4, but the upper limit is the same. This assessment reflects improved understanding, the extended temperature record in the atmosphere and ocean, and new estimates of radiative forcing. {TS TFE.6, Figure 1; Box 12.2}
The range given is 1.5C to 4.5C so your statement that it was "currently at around less than 1C" is wrong. Even the page you cited at landshape didn't show anything less than about 1.5C.
You will find in D.3 though:
"It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. The best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period. {10.3}"
Of course the last sentence of that quote implies that the warming since 1951 is around 100% due to human causes.
Figure SPM.5 [www.ipcc.ch] from the SPM gives the forcings found for different causes of radiative forcing. Notice most of the change in forcing is due to anth
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And also, those people vote and act within society. When denying climate change becomes a politically beneficial platform, that's a problem. When teaching the basic biological facts of evolution becomes controversial, that's a problem. When vaccine preventable diseases start to make a resurgence because people think vaccines are dangerous, that's a problem. I work in plant science, and I can't help but mention that the very first thing in the survey relates to the gap in acceptance of genetically engine
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So, which fact is it?
+1, pedantic (Score:2)
congratulations, you correctly identified that not everything in the list was a fact. here's your cookie.
the OPINIONS of the people on that list were ultimately formed based on facts, either real ones or fake ones doled out by alarmists, quacks, or fox news. my point stands.
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I always laugh when I see someone cite the satellite data as more pure than surface temperature measurements. Satellite data is far more manipulated and massaged* than the surface temperature records and they don't even measure the same thing.
*That doesn't mean I think the satellite data is invalid, just that it takes a lot of math to transform the measured microwave emissions of O2 in the atmosphere to a temperature record.
Re:Alarming Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
They are free to believe what they want, but they are not free to consider their beliefs as factual as actual facts.
Re:Alarming Freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not alarming for people to have different opinions.
What IS alarming is that scientific peer-reviewed information and the expertise of those who have had the intelligence and focus to get top-level credentials in a field of study is not valued higher than the opinion of those who have only casually looked into a matter without any rigour.
I'm sorry, but everyone's opinion, on some specialized factual question amenable to scientific investigation, is not of equal worth.
It is basic civility to listen to everyone's opinion. But opinions should be weighed rationally, according the opinion-stater's probable level of knowledge, demonstrated ability to reason, and freedom from self-interest on the particular topic.
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Fortunately, when it comes to public policy, everyone's opinion is of equal worth.
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Democracy should not mean that one person's ignorance is equal to another's expertise. I certainty wouldn't want issues like medical regulations, environmental welfare, or food safety determined by popular vote, prone to the misinformation of professional activists or corporate ad campaigns, why would these topics be any different? Do you really think that in a technical or scientific topic like, for example, proper surgical guidelines, everyone should get equal say? I sure don't. I want a team of exper
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Fortunately, when it comes to public policy, everyone's opinion is of equal worth.
“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.'”
Isaac Asimov
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Isn't that kind of the point of living in a free country? We're all entitled to our own beliefs.
But you're not entitled to your own facts, especially when they contradict objective reality.
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It's called a "push poll". It's a fancy way of asking questions to make some people seem stupid. It's grown-up name calling. That's all.
A push poll uses manipulative or loaded questions. Like asking "Do you like Obamacare" while not specifying if you think it goes too far or not far enough. A quick glance at these questions doesn't reveal any loaded or manipulative questions to me.
Someone people seem stupid because they are, not because a poll is being manipulative.
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Sometimes people seem stupid because they are, not because a poll is being manipulative.
Fixed it for myself. Sometimes people need to proofread better so they don't seem stupid.
but we knew that already ! (Score:2)
An authoritative, expensive survey to affirm what we already know. What's remarkable is that few will argue the results. You might think that conservatives would be embarrassed to see that their kind don't believe in evolution, but since they are conservative they probably agree. It's difficult to see who benefits from this exhaustive study.
Biased summary (Score:5, Interesting)
Aside from pointing out the glaringly obvious (people who identify themselves as Conservative gave responses consistent with what you would expect from people who identify themselves as conservative, same for LIberals), /. the summary ignores far more interesting points.
1) There is a much smaller difference between Republicans and Democrats than there is between Conservatives and Liberals, e.g. the Evolution question goes from 21% versus 54% (Ideology) to 57% versus 72% (Party Id).
2) Several of the questions show a fairly small difference between Republicans and Democrats (pesticides, animal research, world population, vaccines, manned space programs, bioengineered fuel, and space station).
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It's also a biased poll. It's well known that liberals tend to hold some unscientific beliefs such as astrology, but they conveniently omitted any questions on them.
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Funny I saw this poll the other day (Score:2)
http://dailycaller.com/2012/04... [dailycaller.com]
Amazing how this sort of thing works.
quod erat demonstrandum (Score:2)
I love stories like this one, which are proven conclusively in the comments section under them.
issues with liberals and scientists as well (Score:3, Interesting)
However, Liberals, like conservatives, put their head in the ground and ignore the fact that new gen IV reactors can NOT have the issues that we seen in these gen II and gen III reactors.
Gaps between Public and Economists (Score:2)
Indeed, there also is a large gap between the viewpoint of the public and economists [econlife.com].
For example, few economists (11%) agree with the statement "'Buy American' has a positive impact on manufacturing employment", whereas 75% of the public feel that way.
94% of economists feel that NAFTA was a good idea, only 46% of the public agree.
One man's facts are another man's opinions (Score:2)
opinion
[uh-pin-yuh n]
noun
1.
a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.
To most people, both supporters and opponents, evolution and global warming are a matter of opinion because they don't know enough for certainty. I suppose a lot of them could argue that it's actually a
fact
[fakt]
noun
4.
something said to be true or supposed to have happened:
The facts given by the witness are highly questionable.
While evolution and global warming are both definitely questions of fact rather than of preference, there are very few who could make that determination themselves rather than trust someone else's judgement.
That's why decent PR is needed (Score:2)
The site needs to be authoritative, and widely known as the single source from the community, so if anyone ever has a doubt, they know where to go to understand what the scientific community really think about a certain iss
Repubs Liberals (Score:2)
", with clear differences between Republicans and Democrats, and between conservatives and liberals. For example, while 98% of AAAS members agree with the statement that "Human beings and other living things have evolved over time", only 21% of conservatives agree, compared with 54% of liberals. "
I hope PEW wasn't equally sloppy about conflating the republican/democrat axis with the conservatives/liberal axis.
Re:Acronym AAAS means what? (Score:4, Funny)
Assholes as a Service
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Assholes as a Service
Man, they're putting everything in the cloud these days!
Re:Chicken Little (Score:5, Informative)
Take, for example, Global Cooling back in the 1970's. That was refuted with Global Warming in the 2000's
It was refuted in the 1970s, not the 200's. It was never a popular theory. No one should doubt Global Warming on the basis that the scientific community switched its stance. It never did: the majority of scientists were saying it was warming all along.
now it's simply Global Climate Change
It has been called "climate change" since before 1988, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed. Today, people act like the name is some kind of knee-jerk defense against the switch between "global cooling" and "global warming" when in fact, there was no name change at all, nor was there ever a switch.
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It has been called "climate change" since before 1988, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed. Today, people act like the name is some kind of knee-jerk defense against the switch between "global cooling" and "global warming" when in fact, there was no name change at all, nor was there ever a switch.
Especially as the gist of the theory is: anthropogenic global warming leading to climate change. (And the shift is sensible. If the global average temperature increase didn't lead to climate change, we wouldn't be that concerned with it).
That we don't use that mouthful all the time is no different than you lot calling para-acetylaminophenol [wikipedia.org], acetaminophen, and we calling it paracetamol. The full thing is just too much. It's just basically a name. The underlying "thing" is still the same. In both cases.
Re:Chicken Little (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hard to trust anyone who's work is disseminated by the government or media today.
That's an assertion that's hard to challenge in the libertarian atmosphere of slashdot.
Research and reports are spun mercilessly for the gain of whoever needs it.
Indeed, it's always wise to track down the actual original data, and actually look at the data and see what we know, and how well we know it, rather than to trust the media interpretations.
It may not be scientist's fault but when you hear something like "the sky is falling" and then hear it refuted over and over, one starts to take things with a grain of salt.
The media does like to run doom and destruction stories-- they are more of a story than talking about things like "slow increase in temperature over a time scale of decades."
Take, for example, Global Cooling back in the 1970's.
OK, let's take it for an example. There was never a scientific consensus about global cooling in the 1970s. The American Meteorological Society did a review, trying to look for the origin of that. http://journals.ametsoc.org/do... [ametsoc.org] They summarize: "There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age. Indeed, the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer-reviewed literature even then.
That was refuted with Global Warming in the 2000's
It was not really "refuted" per se, since it was never a scientific consensus in the first place.
and now it's simply Global Climate Change which seems to be a catch-all.
"Global Climate Change" was the term coined by the (first) Bush administration.
I don't deny GCC but I certainly want to see the data.
Excellent! That's the difference between deniers and skeptics: deniers will make any possible excuse to avoid looking at data. As it turns out, there are literally terabytes of data.
I will suggest starting with the Working Group 1 report, The Physical Science Basis of Climate Change, which summarizes what is known and how we know it. I'm most familiar with the 4th report (www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/contents.html [www.ipcc.ch]), from 2007, but you might want to go directly to the more recent update, the 5th: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/... [www.ipcc.ch]
From there, dive into the data from whichever source you prefer-- I'd suggest possibly the Berkeley Earth data, which does an interesting job of comparing alternative hypotheses against the temperature data: http://berkeleyearth.org/summa... [berkeleyearth.org]
What's the old adage that Regan grabbed from the Russian's; "Trust but Verify" I think was it.
Excellent. Much better than the denier's motto: "Never trust, never verify, never look at the facts."
No alternative once you eliminate thr alternatives (Score:2)
"anyone who's work is disseminated by the government or media today"
The only other category is "people I've never heard of". Hard to trust them either.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't deny GCC but I certainly want to see the data.
I suppose the big questions is: beings as you are here, writing about climate change, why the fuck haven't you ALREADY looked at the data as it's been available for a while now?
Re: (Score:2)
How ironic.
Re:Superstition and mysticism (Score:4, Interesting)
What I see is people turning more and more away from learning, actual knowledge, and truth, and turning back towards religion
Where do you see that? Church membership per capita [demographia.com] is way down in the US.
Also keep in mind the the Pew Trust is notoriously liberal, especially related to environmental issues. It isn't a surprise that their survey pushes their agenda. They're also known for sending their own employees (and having them claim to be from the general public) to attend congressional hearings so it appears there's more grass root support for their causes than there actually is.
Re:Research studies are for cows. (Score:5, Funny)
Strange, but I'm finding I agree with this.
You clicked on the wrong button (Score:3)
Take another look at the numbers for Republican vs. Democrat. They are much closer than the summary (mis)led you to believe by quoting the Conservative vs. Liberal numbers.
Also notice the subtle wording of the AGW question: "The earth is getting warmer mostly because of human activity". The word "mostly" is clearly there to bias the answers. They didn't ask "Is the earth getting warmer?", or "Is human activity contributing to the earth getting warmer?"
Re: (Score:3)
Agree complete: I *would* agree with the phrasing "The earth is getting warmer because of human activity" (i.e. it's a contributing factor). I would even agree with the phrasing "The earth is getting warmer primarily because of human activity" (i.e. it's the *biggest* factor). Saying it's getting warmer "mostly" because of human activity means there's very little *else* contributing to the trend, which I'm not at all sure we have proof of, nor is it even particularly relevant. I caught that right away. I'm
Re: (Score:3)
It was conservative religious nut jobs that push concepts of flat earth and witchcraft.
Scientific method came about in 17th century. [wikipedia.org]
But hey, do not let facts get in your conservative religious nut job approach.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm sure there was a time when 9 out of 10 scientists would have said the world is flat
The earth as a sphere has been known for something between 2400 years and 2600 years. Its size was calculated about 2250 years ago, with amazing accuracy for the time. The only major publication whose words could be twisted to reference a flat earth would be the New Testament in Revelations 7:1 (four corners of the earth).
Re: (Score:2)
OTOH, rape does nothing of the kind.
And if you are opposed to it, please go to Somalia. They will not require it.