Yale Professor Surprise: Tea Party Supporters More Scientifically Literate than

[Wilikon]

http://www.ijreview.com/2013/10/87474-yale-professors-surprising-discovery-tea-party-supporters-scientifically-literate/

Remarkable was the professor’s reaction on the Yale Law “Cultural Cognition Project” website:

    I’ve got to confess, though, I found this result surprising. As I pushed the button to run the analysis on my computer, I fully expected I’d be shown a modest negative correlation between identifying with the Tea Party and science comprehension.

    But then again, I don’t know a single person who identifies with the Tea Party.  All my impressions come from watching cable tv — & I don’t watch Fox News very often — and reading the “paper” (New York Times daily, plus a variety of politics-focused internet sites like Huffington Post & Politico). 

    I’m a little embarrassed, but mainly I’m just glad that I no longer hold this particular mistaken view.

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[pedrog]

Well, this is a surprise indeed!

Aren't the Tea Party people the guys trying to push Intelligent Design into the science classes?

[Wilikon]

Well, this is a surprise indeed!

Aren't the Tea Party people the guys trying to push Intelligent Design into the science classes?

Not really no. A bunch of them are atheists too. I believe this was the surprise that this Yale Professor is talking about among many things. Getting your stereotyping from the main stream media always crumbles when scientific facts are used. Look at how Bitcoin was described by that same MSM.

[Lethn]

Depends on which Tea Party folks you're talking about, I know that the Tea Party movement used to be Libertarians but of course now you've got the stupid neo-conservative hijacking the movement again and getting all the air time so that means that everybody thinks they're all religious crazies.

[pedrog]

Well, this is a surprise indeed!

Aren't the Tea Party people the guys trying to push Intelligent Design into the science classes?

Not really no. A bunch of them are atheists too. I believe this was the surprise that this Yale Professor is talking about among many things. Getting your stereotyping from the main stream media always crumbles when scientific facts are used. Look at how Bitcoin was described by that same MSM.

Yap, and they always choose the nut jobs for the interviews, by doing this they pass the message that the all group is/thinks like them.

[Wilikon]

Well, this is a surprise indeed!

Aren't the Tea Party people the guys trying to push Intelligent Design into the science classes?

Not really no. A bunch of them are atheists too. I believe this was the surprise that this Yale Professor is talking about among many things. Getting your stereotyping from the main stream media always crumbles when scientific facts are used. Look at how Bitcoin was described by that same MSM.

Yap, and they always choose the nut jobs for the interviews, by doing this they pass the message that the all group is/thinks like them.

But the tea party is not really a party as much as the bitcoin foundation does not really control bitcoin. In this case it did not matter to this professor as he believed exactly that about the nut jobs and the data proved him wrong, to his own dismay looking at his own data...

[RodeoX]

I'm surprised also. But in science we look at data rather than check our gut feelings. Assuming the study was valid, the results are what they are. 

[ibminer]

Well I'm not surprised... mainly because I supported the tea party movement, in the beginning stages of it. I wouldn't claim to be the brightest academic in the world, but I am told I have a scientific mind.

Unfortunately some racist groups started speaking out in favor of the tea party, combined with media misinformation & bashing... which seemed to destroy the party and everyone was afraid to even associate themselves with the tea party. Either that or most of them ended up in bunkers because they can't deal with the stress & anxiety our world now brings us and have decided to just leave our society entirely.   

[pedrog]

Well I'm not surprised... mainly because I supported the tea party movement, in the beginning stages of it. I wouldn't claim to be the brightest academic in the world, but I am told I have a scientific mind.

Unfortunately some racist groups started speaking out in favor of the tea party, combined with media misinformation & bashing... which seemed to destroy the party and everyone was afraid to even associate themselves with the tea party. Either that or most of them ended up in bunkers because they can't deal with the stress & anxiety our world now brings us and have decided to just leave our society entirely.   

Wasn't the entire GOP hijacked by preachers and Bible thumpers?

[cryptasm]

Wonder how much money the Koch brothers bankrolled into this 'analysis'? 

[FirstAscent]

Doesn't prove much. You can know a heck of a lot about physics, mathematics, and logic, and still be woefully dumb about important issues that are scientifically important.

[ibminer]

Well I'm not surprised... mainly because I supported the tea party movement, in the beginning stages of it. I wouldn't claim to be the brightest academic in the world, but I am told I have a scientific mind.

Unfortunately some racist groups started speaking out in favor of the tea party, combined with media misinformation & bashing... which seemed to destroy the party and everyone was afraid to even associate themselves with the tea party. Either that or most of them ended up in bunkers because they can't deal with the stress & anxiety our world now brings us and have decided to just leave our society entirely.   

Wasn't the entire GOP hijacked by preachers and Bible thumpers?

I realize you may or may not be joking with this comment... but I am going to respond anyway! 

Some of the GOP media seemed to start heading in this direction after Glenn Beck started getting decent ratings and started down that path.  Towards the end of his run on fox news, it was bible thumping & preachers almost every day, and I think it carried on a bit after he left... haven't really watched anything recently, been a little busy with life and can't deal with the idiotic political system we have. 

In the end, its all perception... most people accept the perception that is given to them through whatever media channels they watch or read or whatever groups they associate themselves with & hang around.

If the media started airing stories of several [insert party name here] party members that were seen playing candy crush during 'working hours', and they could produce a few pictures of this... the perception may be that nobody in that party is doing their job. The media could have everyone programmed right now to make comments like 'Wasn't the entire party too busy playing candy crush'
(I probably could have thought of a better analogy)

People shouldn't change their beliefs when the media/news stories entice them to. At least, I know I don't. I have an understanding that there are millions of people involved in each party, and the talking heads we see on TV, writing in papers, and the financial supporters that support them are a very small percentage of the 'people'... so I take everything they say with a grain/bag of salt and look towards the actions of people themselves to provide a larger statement of what 'the people' believe in or want.

In addition, most reporters/media outlets are attempting to 'entertain' as well as provide actual news... and anytime a dramatic spin can be put on something, it will, no matter what perception the dramatization or entertainment causes to people watching, sometimes intentional perception is created, sometimes not. If there is something they can do (or leave out) to the story to support the message of a particular party they lean towards, they will also do this. Whoever gets their story/message out first usually grabs the perception of people as the original factual story. Or, for those that stay with only one news organization, thats the only perception they may ever get... (narrow-minded).

All sides seem to like selectively leaving out parts of the story to suit their message or intent. It typically depends on who gets their message out the loudest and who does a better job at presenting their 'case' to the people about a story/event/person... the best stories are the ones with not much evidence or information, good time to bring 'speculation' into the picture and spin it whatever way you want to.
*Reminds me of the scene from Black Sheep when Mr. 'my friends call me cash' gets pictures of Chris Farley setting a building on fire, when in reality he was trying to put it out... just depends on which pictures they wanted to pay for and which ones made it to the 'media'.

This is why every time I see a news story (especially on TV), I have a series of questions before I can come to any reasonable conclusion over what actually happened. Even on the internet, I have to see multiple stories from multiple sources to try and establish a full picture of what happened before I draw my own conclusion.

They just want you to accept what they are saying and not ask questions. So, in the end, you can say the entire GOP was hijacked by preachers and Bible thumpers... but in reality, I am sure there are plenty of people that associate themselves with republicans that are not bible thumpers/preachers. The media turned their spotlight to these Bible thumpers/preachers

I really don't care if they are bible thumpers or atheists, I just want the opinions of each party on a specific situation/issue/event and be able to draw my own conclusions about which direction to support. If those opinions entail character attacks/name calling/etc, its not useful to me. The media likes to put simple labels on organizations or individuals, to give ammunition for all of their party drones to repeat and use against opposing party members. The labels are usually based on what their 'party' has determined to be true, based on their party's opinions & "research".

Can't tell you how many times I got called a bible thumper & racist for casually mentioning I supported some of the tea parties principals, and I have maybe read about 10% of the Bible. Although, I do plan to at some point, because its knowledge I want to have.  By the way, these same people couldn't tell me anything about the tea party or even list one belief held by the tea party... just that they were 'bible thumpers' and 'racists' who cannot handle having a black president.   DRONES!          (..... If only they knew I voted for Obama)

Sorry for the rant, nobody will probably read it... and I may have even made some ignore lists, but I feel better typing it.   

[RodeoX]

Ya know, the day the Tea party and Occupy wall street figure out they are fighting the same people is the day entrenched power collapses.

Word

[Carlton Banks]

Aren't the Tea Party people the guys trying to push Intelligent Design into the science classes?

Wasn't the entire GOP hijacked by preachers and Bible thumpers?

This is what I'm partly trying to describe in the thread about political affiliations. The two different ends of the spectrum have been contaminated with extremism, if you throw one set of freedom advocates in with a set of people in favour of restricting behaviour on your artificial political spectrum, then it makes it easy to dismiss, for instance, US Republicans as racist, insular, bible crazed creationists.

But how do you sell that to the potential Republican voter? You need to present a more rational, grounded prospectus to your grass roots, as the extremists are actually in the minority. When you look at the arguments made in favour of moderate Republicanism, it sounds like common sense good values. Except that they're better at talking about these principles than practicing them, as once the Republicans get into office, the Tea Party freedom oriented rhetoric goes out the window and the crazies take over. Happens the same with the Democrats too, the principles are sound (with the major exception of their promotion of the whole government concept), and when they get elected, it's all about spending a huge amount of money that does little tangible benefit to the public, but great for the corporate contractors who implement it.

And really, the American system is a simplified version of what happens in all election cycles the world over. The principle sounds just great, "what a smart set of ideas as an alternative to what we have now". Then they win, and "circumstances mean we have to do all this authoritarian, uh, I mean necessary stuff". Again and again, it happens each and every time.

[Carlton Banks]

Ya know, the day the Tea party and Occupy wall street figure out they are fighting the same people is the day entrenched power collapses.

Word

+1.

Remember in the Life of Brian when all the freedom fighters spend more time fighting each other than the Romans? "Brothers, we should be coming together to fight the common enemy!" "The Judean Peoples Front?" 

[Rassah]

I wonder when the actual survey was taken. I live near DC, and saw some of their protests. They also get reported on the local news. When the thing started, a whole lot of their members were atheists, agorists, objectivists, libertarians, etc. Though that whole lot maybe accounted for half of all of them? I don't know. I know a lot of members quit the party in disgust, and don't want to be associated with it (they're still libertarians, agorists, objectivists, etc), but the party has moved extremely to the right into bible-thumping, "Obama is a secret muslim nazi" territory.

I would say that maybe it's a lesson for the next party of people like agorists, objectivists, and libertarians to take into account, in case they want to set up an actual grassroots movement (instead of astroturfed one) to fight for economic freedom and liberty...
But then I remembered that most of those types aren't for the silly government things anyway. Let them steep and brew and fight. We'll just step back and opt-out with bitcoin and other tech 

[Nancarrow]

Ya know, the day the Tea party and Occupy wall street figure out they are fighting the same people is the day entrenched power collapses.

 

In the main, the people the Occupy movement are fighting against are the people who are bankrolling the Tea Party. So, no.
Now, if you're talking about the Tea Party realising that they SHOULD be biting the hand that feeds them... well, that's a different story.

Meanwhile, to the study itself: it does indeed have something to say about how people's preconceptions colour their interpretation of data. But not what everyone is saying. On the contrary, it's all rather meta, the interesting thing is how people are trumpeting this study that really DOESN'T say anything useful at all.

Here's why I say that:

r=0.05

Ahem. In case you didn't catch that,

r=0.05

That's practically noise, and the p=0.05 doesn't really mitigate that. (Actually I dismiss p=0.05 for completely different reasons - it's a long story, but the TLDR version is I'm a Bayesian).

[Rassah]

On the contrary, it's all rather meta, the interesting thing is how people are trumpeting this study that really DOESN'T say anything useful at all.

Here's why I say that:

r=0.05

That's practically noise, and the p=0.05 doesn't really mitigate that. (Actually I dismiss p=0.05 for completely different reasons - it's a long story, but the TLDR version is I'm a Bayesian).

Actually, even the noise says something, which is that the idea that "All Tea Party types are morans who need to get a brain" is false, as the survey does not show that, and at best shows that they're just scattered all over like everyone else.

[Carlton Banks]

the party has moved extremely to the right into bible-thumping, "Obama is a secret muslim nazi" territory.

Another classic in the political subversion toolkit, exaggeration of the extremists.

It's kind of reminiscent of tactics in manipulating financial markets; there's more to be made from the wildest swings, as long as you've got a good track on where the true mean and the true trajectory both lie.

[pedrog]

@ibminer, Carlton Banks

Thanks for taking the time.

I'm not a US citizen, but I follow US politics as much as I can, it is much more "entertaining" than my country, everything seems a major battle in US, here gay marriage was approved, some minor religious groups protested, and Catholic Church, but everything went smooth and life goes on, in the US is/seems an ongoing battle.

I understand what you described about mainstream media, I stopped watching TV a few years ago.

But, and again about GOP, somethings I recall from memory, obligatory vaginal ultrasound, ongoing battle against abortion, "legitimate rape", "honest rape", "gift from god rape", 10 commandments in public places, "marriage is between a man and a woman like god intended", isn't/wasn't Michelle Bachmann a very important figure in the party and her husband was a cure gays with faith preacher?

I'm can't remember more stuff, but I'm pretty sure the Intelligent Design/Creationism people are right wing.

I do understand that these people don't represent the all pie, but they have power and are very vocal about this stuff.

Plus this quote from Barry Goldwater:

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.