Tea Party members have better scientific comprehension

[Warren Dew]

What are the actual statistical correlations between Tea Party identification and scientific comprehension? Turns out the correlation is positive:

Professor Dan M. Kahan of the psychology department at Yale says he was surprised to discover a positive correlation between science comprehension and members of the Tea Party:

"Identifying with the Tea Party correlates positively (r = 0.05, p = 0.05) with scores on the science comprehension measure."

"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."

http://cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/matt-vesp ... EWuIe.dpuf

Which also contains a link to the professor's blog entry.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I suppose it depends where you have your scientific comprehension measured. If it's at the Whole Faith Bible University, Dead Coon, Arkansas, then your average teabagger would probably score very highly.

[Warren Dew]

I suppose it depends where you have your scientific comprehension measured. If it's at the Whole Faith Bible University, Dead Coon, Arkansas, then your average teabagger would probably score very highly.

This was at Yale. Looks like it applies across the board.

I can understand why the scientifically illiterate non-tea-party folks would be in denial about it, of course!

[cronus]

Doesn't surprise me. Believing in religion is rather like believing in black swans. There's that study from way back where mathematicians had a greater belief in god than most too. If you take away the religious aspect I should say the Tea Party types with their prepper attitude, interest in money etc are more rational than the democrat 'fairness and niceness' brigade.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Doesn't surprise me. Believing in religion is rather like believing in black swans. There's that study from way back where mathematicians had a greater belief in god than most too. If you take away the religious aspect I should say the Tea Party types with their prepper attitude, interest in money etc are more rational than the democrat 'fairness and niceness' brigade.

I think it's just down to them being rich and getting a decent education. That they choose to believe Hebrew mythology over what they are taught says more about them than how much attention they paid in science class.

[Audley Strange]

What are the actual statistical correlations between Tea Party identification and scientific comprehension? Turns out the correlation is positive:

Professor Dan M. Kahan of the psychology department at Yale

"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."

Professor Dan M. Kahan of the psychology department at Yale

I wonder who he blew to get that job.

[Svartalf]

Doesn't surprise me. Believing in religion is rather like believing in black swans. There's that study from way back where mathematicians had a greater belief in god than most too. If you take away the religious aspect I should say the Tea Party types with their prepper attitude, interest in money etc are more rational than the democrat 'fairness and niceness' brigade.

There ARE black swans, they are just pretty uncommon in Europe.

[Audley Strange]

Doesn't surprise me. Believing in religion is rather like believing in black swans. There's that study from way back where mathematicians had a greater belief in god than most too. If you take away the religious aspect I should say the Tea Party types with their prepper attitude, interest in money etc are more rational than the democrat 'fairness and niceness' brigade.

There ARE black swans, they are just pretty uncommon in Europe.

Scrumple, behold the lord your god!

[mistermack]

If this study was done of Yale students, then it's hardly representative.
I wouldn't be surprised if those studying more arty subjects were less right wing. What redneck is going to study Russian literature?
Leaning towards science isn't a measure of intelligence.

[PsychoSerenity]

http://cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/matt-vesp ... EWuIe.dpuf

Which also contains a link to the professor's blog entry.

Where the professor says "the relationship is trivially small", and it also becomes apparent that due to the small sample size this correlation has less significance than the one that shows science comprehension decreases as political outlooks move in the rightward direction.

So why didn't you link directly to that rather than the quote-mining article?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

http://cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/matt-vesp ... EWuIe.dpuf

Which also contains a link to the professor's blog entry.

Where the professor says "the relationship is trivially small", and it also becomes apparent that due to the small sample size this correlation has less significance than the one that shows science comprehension decreases as political outlooks move in the rightward direction.

So why didn't you link directly to that rather than the quote-mining article?

[piscator]

I suppose it depends where you have your scientific comprehension measured. If it's at the Whole Faith Bible University, Dead Coon, Arkansas, then your average teabagger would probably score very highly.

This was at Yale. Looks like it applies across the board.

I can understand why the scientifically illiterate non-tea-party folks would be in denial about it, of course!

Yale? Boola Boola!


Moving on, it's interesting to note that in the same summation linked from the CBS article, the author does say,

In this dataset, I found that there is a small correlation (r = -0.05, p = 0.03) between the science comprehension measure and a left-right political outlook measure, Conservrepub, which aggregates liberal-conservative ideology and party self-identification. The sign of the correlation indicates that science comprehension decreases as political outlooks move in the rightward direction--i.e., the more "liberal" and "Democrat," the more science comprehending.

And some of the statistically literate readers here may note the [negative] r-value and p-value of that study are slightly stronger than the same measures of the Tea Party study...


As an aside, I've had some of the best pizza of my life in New Haven, Connecticut. I recommend Pepe's or Sally's if you're in the area!


On Edit: I see that PsychoSerenity beat me to it, darnit.

[Ian]

Give Warren a break, guys. The teabaggers are having a very rough day. They need to grasp at something to get their spirits up, even if it's bogus.

[piscator]

So I guess it's outside the scope of this thread to bring up Ron Paul's relationship with Christian Dominionists/Reconstructionists like North and Rushdoony?

[Svartalf]

Completely, but please create a thread on that subject