Tea Party vs Republican Comparison on Opinions of Science/Environment

[Hayabusa Rider]

That is the definition of "willful ignorance." Generally, the smarter someone is, the more they realize their own ignorance about a particular subject and will defer to experts who have studied it in greater detail. Remaining willfully ignorant but insisting you know more than the experts is almost exclusively done by stupid people who are unable to gauge their own level of intelligence with regards to an issue.

I submit there a large number of willfully ignorant, however why and who they are isn't always apparent.

As an entirely non partisan I don't have introduced bias subverting my judgement. Instead I've gone to primary sources about this and then examined that. Having done research I know that bias is something which is often a problem even among the ethical and intelligent informed. It's a very hard thing indeed. Obviously not everyone has the inclination or is able to approach these subjects in such a way, which increases the potential for bias again. Note that it does not automatically result in an erroneous conclusion however I believe that it is nevertheless important to consider. After all, who are the "experts"? The ones who make the news? The one's who believe as we? The enlightened? How does one quantify who they are in a sea of misinformation and "bubbling".

Anyway my curiosity leads me to ask these questions about what is vs what seems to be.

 

[fskimospy]

A good survey question covers all reasonable answer choices. If I believe that both human activities and natural forces are both significant factors affecting global warming and can't say with any degree of certainty that human activities or natural forces constitute the majority or the warming we've observed....then how should I answer this question?

There was an option for 'I don't know/none of the above'.

Seems like those "researchers" knew what they were doing, right?

 

[Retro Rob]

So what's your point? That we shouldn't trust science?

Don't recall saying that. I'm must be a "denier" now since I'm not tripping over myself to join the masses of followers.

Basically, I'm at the point to where I take a wait and see approach since everything nowadays has become politically black and white...you're either for it or you're "anti-[insert branch of science/social issue here].

Your first question to me "that we shoulnd't trust science?" shows just how unwelcome difference of viewpoints are.

FWIW, I'm on board with climate change and I also believe human play a large role in it with mismanagement and pollution.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

There was an option for 'I don't know/none of the above'.

Seems like those "researchers" knew what they were doing, right?

Like I said...a good survey question covers all reasonable answer choices.

 

[theeedude]

I think most people simply accept whatever the science currently supports...blindly, mind you.

People believed the earth didnt move, because the science of the day supported it. People belived continents were always static, because the science of the time supported it.

All we really care about is being on the "popular" side of an opinion, lest we risk looking like "idiots". Objective reasoning hardly ever plays a part in that.

It's not perfect, but believing in science sure got humanity a lot further than the alternatives.

 

[fskimospy]

Like I said...a good survey question covers all reasonable answer choices.

This is definitely not true if you're trying to get at preferences on an issue. The point is that if someone is going to express an opinion on the causes of global warming to have the person to make a choice one way or the other. In this case they gave them one science backed option and one ideology backed option because they wanted to see the difference.

When you tried to malign the research before by putting it into scare quotes you claimed this was an attempt to skew the results. Not only is there zero evidence for this, but your objection seems to come from not understanding the purpose of the question.

It's very interesting that literally every time a poll comes out that tells people inconvenient things they declare the poll invalid due to some quibble with a question's wording. I guess that falls into line with people's tendency to work hard to avoid information that is at odds with what they want to believe. In this survey and in others the results strongly indicate that the more conservative one becomes, the less willing they are to accept science on climate change, evolution, and some other topics.

 

[fskimospy]

I believe that CO2 and natural factors are both highly significant reasons for climate change. However, I also believe that we can't say with high confidence that either are these are the absolute major driver of current climate change at this point in time. Recent studies are showing much lower sensitivity to CO2 than previously estimated. We've had a significant lull in global warming the last 2 decades that was not predicted by the climate models which suggests a huge gap in our understanding of this very young science. Here's a few of the many explanations for the lull that you may find humorous. Enjoy.

I think as we've covered in previous threads this description of climate science is pretty disingenuous, but all that aside this has nothing to do with the poll. You simply could have selected 'none of the above'.

Instead, Tea Party people explicitly chose the non-scientific option at very high levels, and these levels only increased as they became more educated. Them's the facts.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

I think as we've covered in previous threads this description of climate science is pretty disingenuous, but all that aside this has nothing to do with the poll. You simply could have selected 'none of the above'.

Instead, Tea Party people explicitly chose the non-scientific option at very high levels, and these levels only increased as they became more educated. Them's the facts.

Disingenuous? How so?

 

[Fern]

I see no reason not to suspect that being wrong about very accepted and widely known facts is a pretty good indicator of their overall scientific knowledge. If someone doesn't believe that 2+2=5, it doesn't matter how good they are at doing, say, a geometric proof. I'm still going to consider them to be bad at math.

I don't believe that "2+2=5" and I consider myself pretty good at math.

You teach public school, huh?

Fern