Yale Study -Tea Party correlates positively with science comprehension (1 Viewer)

[Rove!]

http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2013/10/15/some-data-on-education-religiosity-ideology-and-science-comp.html

But if you do, then maybe you'll find this interesting. The dataset happened to have an item in it that asked respondents if they considered themselves "part of the Tea Party movement." Nineteen percent said yes.

It turns out that there is about as strong a correlation between scores on the science comprehension scale and identifying with the Tea Party as there is between scores on the science comprehension scale and Conservrepub.

Except that it has the opposite sign: that is, identifying with the Tea Party correlates positively (r = 0.05, p = 0.05) with scores on the science comprehension measure:

more: http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2013/10/19/congratulations-tea-party-members-you-are-just-as-vulnerable.html

Actually, the measure did correlate negatively—“r = - 0.05, p < 0.05”—with a scale assessing one’s disposition to identify one’s ideology as “conservative” and one’s party affiliation as “Republican.”

I noted that, and pointed out that this association was far too trivial to be afforded any practical significance whatsoever, much less to be regarded as the source of the fierce conflicts in our society over climate change and other issues turning on decision-relevant science.

But anticipating that politically motivated reasoning would likely induce some readers who identify as “liberal” and “Democratic” to seize on this pitifully small correlation as evidence that of course politically biased reasoning explains why those who identify as "conservative" & "Republican" disagree with them, I advised any such readers to consider the correlation between science comprehension and identifying with the tea-party: r = 0.05, p = 0.05.

Anyone who might be tempted to beat his or her chest in a triumphal tribal howl over the practically meaningless correlation between right-left political outlooks & science comprehension could thus expect to find him- or herself fatally impaled the very next instant on the sharp spear tip of simple, unassailable logic.

I figured this warning would be clear enough even for "liberals” (it's sad that our contemporary political discourse has so compacted the meaning of this word) at the higher end of the “science comprehension” scale (ones lower in science comprehension would be even less likely to draw politically biased inferences from the data), and thus deter them from engaging in such an embarrassing display of partisan unreason

so can we put this to rest?

 

[DiStefano]

This was reported back in October. Looks like Tea Party people are not the rubes that liberals take them for.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/tea-party-science-98488.html

 

[timschochet]

It's long been a Democratic mantra that grass roots conservatives were racist and stupid. (And this goes back way before the Tea Party movement started.) Personally I've never believed this. Most of of the Tea Party people I've encountered are extremely bright, and I've yet to meet to a racist one. They also tend to be very knowledgeable about politics and the information about science comprehension doesn't surprise me one bit.

My problem with Tea Partiers is not their intelligence nor their identification of political problems: it's that, IMO, their proposed solutions tend to be stringent and worse than the problems themselves. In addition, of course, they are a populist movement, and I don't think such movements generally produce positive results. But I would never question their ability. If they were as stupid as some Democrats paint them to be, they wouldn't be nearly as dangerous as they are.

 

[joffer]

What are we putting to rest?

 

[jon_mx]

It's long been a Democratic mantra that grass roots conservatives were racist and stupid. (And this goes back way before the Tea Party movement started.) Personally I've never believed this. Most of of the Tea Party people I've encountered are extremely bright, and I've yet to meet to a racist one. They also tend to be very knowledgeable about politics and the information about science comprehension doesn't surprise me one bit.

My problem with Tea Partiers is not their intelligence nor their identification of political problems: it's that, IMO, their proposed solutions tend to be stringent and worse than the problems themselves. In addition, of course, they are a populist movement, and I don't think such movements generally produce positive results. But I would never question their ability. If they were as stupid as some Democrats paint them to be, they wouldn't be nearly as dangerous as they are.

Oh come on Tim. If there is one person on this forum who constantly beats the drum that Tea-partiers are anti-science, it is you.

 

[Clifford]

This is a rather odd intro to a, well, whatever this is cause it's not a study.

[SIZE=120%]No, this blog post is not a federally funded study. It's neither "federally funded" nor a "study"! Doesn't it bug you that our hard-earned tax dollars pay the salary of a federal bureaucrat too lazy to figure out simple facts like this?[/SIZE]

 

[timschochet]

It's long been a Democratic mantra that grass roots conservatives were racist and stupid. (And this goes back way before the Tea Party movement started.) Personally I've never believed this. Most of of the Tea Party people I've encountered are extremely bright, and I've yet to meet to a racist one. They also tend to be very knowledgeable about politics and the information about science comprehension doesn't surprise me one bit.

My problem with Tea Partiers is not their intelligence nor their identification of political problems: it's that, IMO, their proposed solutions tend to be stringent and worse than the problems themselves. In addition, of course, they are a populist movement, and I don't think such movements generally produce positive results. But I would never question their ability. If they were as stupid as some Democrats paint them to be, they wouldn't be nearly as dangerous as they are.

Oh come on Tim. If there is one person on this forum who constantly beats the drum that Tea-partiers are anti-science, it is you.

No I beat the anti- science drum. Global warming, sure. And I have certainly criticized Republicans of all stripes for being skeptical of GW. But I have not singled out the Tea Party on this issue.

 

[NCCommish]

“Tea party members are like everyone else, as far as I can tell, when it comes to science comprehension,” he wrote. “Is this something to be proud of? I don’t think so. It means that if we were to select a tea-party member at random, there would be a 50% chance he or she would say that ‘antibiotics kill viruses as well as bacteria’ and less than a 40% chance that he or she would be able to correctly interpret data from a simple experiment involving a new skin-rash treatment.”

Of the “recurring irony” of the misrepresentation of such results, Kahan wrote: “It’s funny. It’s painful. And it’s depressing—indeed, the 50th time you see it, it is mainly just depressing.”

Seems the author doesn't really agree with your misinterpretation of his data.

 

[sublimeone]

Tea Partiers are wealthier and more educated as well: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html

 

[NCCommish]

Congratulations, tea party members: You are just as vulnerable to politically biased misinterpretation of science as everyone else! Is fixing this threat to our Republic part of your program?A recurring irony in the empirical study of politically biased misunderstandings of science is how often people misconstrue empirical evidence of this very phenomenon as a result of politically biased reasoning.

It’s funny.

It’s painful.

And it’s depressing—indeed, the 50th time you see it, it is mainly just depressing.

So I wasn’t “surprised”—much less “stunned”—when I observed descriptions of the data I presented on the correlation between science comprehension and identification with the tea party being warped by this same dynamic.

The 14 billion regular readers of this blog (exactly 2,503,232 of whom identity with the tea party) know that I believe that there is no convincing empirical evidence that the science communication problem—the failure of compelling, widely accessible scientific evidence to dispel culturally fractious disputes over societal risks and other policy-relevant facts—can be attributed to any supposed correlation between a “conservative” political outlook & a deficit in science literacy, critical reasoning skills, or commitment to science’s signature methods for discovery of truth.

On the contrary, I believe that the popularity of this claim reflects the vulnerability of those who harbor a “nonconservative” (“liberal,” “egalitarian,” or

whatever one chooses to style it) outlook to accept invalid or ill-supported empirical assertions that affirm their cultural outlooks.

That vulnerability, I believe, is perfectly “symmetrical” with respect to the right-left political spectrum (and the two-dimensional space defined by the cultural continua of “hierarchy-egalitarianism” and “individualism-communitarianism”).

I believe that, in part, because of a study I conducted in which I found evidence that there was an ideologically uniform tendency—one equal in strength, among both “conservatives” and “liberals”—to credit or dismiss empirical evidence supporting the validity of an “open-mindedness” test depending on whether study subjects were told that the test showed that those who share their ideology were more or less open-minded than those subscribing to the opposing one.

Not only do I think the “asymmetry thesis” (AT)—the view that this pernicious deficiency in reasoning is disproportionately associated with conservativism—is wrong.

I think the contempt typically evinced (typically but not invariably; it's possible to investigate such hypotheses without ridiculing people) toward "conservatives" by AT proponents strengthens the dynamics that account for this reason-effacing, deliberation-distorting form of motivated cognition.

I want reasoning people to understand this. I want them to understand it so that they won’t be lulled into behaving in a way that undermines the prospects for enlightened democracy. I want them to understand it so that they can, instead, apply their reason to the project of ridding the science communication environment of the toxic partisan entanglement of facts with cultural meanings that is the source of this pathology.

The “tea party science comprehension” postwas written in that spirit. It presented evidence that a particular science comprehension measure I am working on (in an effort to help social scientists, educators, and others improve existing measures, all of which are very crude) has no meaningful correlation with political outlooks.

Actually, the measure did correlate negatively—“r = - 0.05, p < 0.05”—with a scale assessing one’s disposition to identify one’s ideology as “conservative” and one’s party affiliation as “Republican.”

I noted that, and pointed out that this association was far too trivial to be afforded any practical significance whatsoever, much less to be regarded as the source of the fierce conflicts in our society over climate change and other issues turning on decision-relevant science.

But anticipating that politically motivated reasoning would likely induce some readers who identify as “liberal” and “Democratic” to seize on this pitifully small correlation as evidence thatof course politically biased reasoning explains why those who identify as "conservative" & "Republican" disagree with them, I advised any such readers to consider the correlation between science comprehension and identifying with the tea-party: r = 0.05, p = 0.05.

Anyone who might be tempted to beat his or her chest in a triumphal tribal howl over the practically meaningless correlation between right-left political outlooks & science comprehension could thus expect to find him- or herself fatally impaled the very next instant on the sharp spear tip of simple, unassailable logic.

I figured this warning would be clear enough even for "liberals” (it's sad that our contemporary political discourse has so compacted the meaning of this word) at the higher end of the “science comprehension” scale (ones lower in science comprehension would be even less likely to draw politically biased inferences from the data), and thus deter them from engaging in such an embarrassing display of partisan unreason.

I also owned that I myself had expected that likely I’d find a modest negative correlation between tea-party membership and science comprehension.

I did that for a couple reasons. The first was that I really did expect that's what I'd see. I surmised, for one thing, that there was likely a correlation between religiosity and tea-party membership (there is: r = 0.16, p < 0.01), and I know religion correlates negatively with “cognitive reflection” and “science literacy” measures—in ways that empirical evidence shows make no meaningful contribution to disputes over climate change etc.

Second, I thought it would be instructive and constructive for me to show how ###### virulent the politically motivated reasoning bias is. Knowing about it is certainly no defense. The only protection is regular infusions of valid empirical evidence administered under conditions that reveal the terrifying prospect that one will in fact display symptoms of true idiocy if one succombs to it.

But despite all this, many many many tea-party partisans succumbed to politically biased reasoning in their assessment of the evidence in my post.

Characterizing a blog post on exploratory probing of a new science comprehension measure as a “study” (indeed, a “Yale study”; I guess I was “misled” again by the “liberal media” about whether the tea party treats Ivy League universities as credible sources of information) , scores of commentators (in blogs, political opinion columns, in comments on my blog, etc) gleefully crowed that the data showed tea party members were "more science literate,” "better at understanding science" etc. than non-members.

My observation that the size of the effect was “trivial,” and my statement that the “statistical” significance level was practically meaningless and as likely to disappear as reappear in any future survey (where one observes a “p-value” very close to 0.05, then one should expect half of the attempted replications to have a p-value above 0.05 and half below that) was conveniently ignored (indeed, writers tried to add force to the reported result by using meaningless terms like “solid” etc. to the describe it).

Also ignored, of course, was that liberals scored higher than conservatives on the same measure and in the same dataset.

Did these zealots feel the sting of 50,000 logic arrows burrowing into their chests moments after they got done beating on them? Doubt it.

So, what to say? I dunno, but here are four observations.

1. Tea party members are like everyone else, as far as I can tell, when it comes to science comprehension.

Is this something to be proud of? I don’t think so. It means that if we were to select a tea-party member at random, there would be a 50% chance he or she would say that “antibiotics kill viruses as well as bacteria” and less than a 40% chance that he or she would be able to correctly interpret data from a simple experiment involving a new skin-rash treatment.

2. Because tea-party members are “just like everyone else,” they too have among their number some individuals who combine a high degree of scientific knowledge with an impressively developed capacity for engaging in critical reasoning. But because they are like everyone else, these high "science comprehending" tea-party members will be more likely to display politically biased misinterpretations of empirical data than people who display a lower "science comprehension" apptitude.The greater their capacity to engage in analytical thinking, the more systematically they will use that capacity to ferret out evidence congenial to their predispositions and block out and rationalize away everything else.

Moreover, because others who share their values very sensibly rely on themwhen trying to keep up with what’s known to science, these high science-comprehending tea-party members --just like high science-comprehending "Democrats" and "Republicans'" and "libertarians" and "socialists" et al.-- will play a principal role in transmitting the reason-effacing pathogens that pervade our polluted science communication environment.

3. Also like everyone else, tea-party members can be expected, as a result of living in a contaminated science communication environment, to behave in a manner that evinces not only an embarrassing deficiency in self-awareness but also an exceedingly ugly form of contempt for others , thereby amplifying the dynamics that are depriving them along with all the other culturally diverse citizens in the Liberal Republic of Science of the full benefit that this magnificent political regime uniquely confers on reasoning, free individuals.

4. Finally, because they are like everyone else, some of the individuals who have used their reason and freedom to join with others in a project they call the “tea-party” movement realize that they have exactly the same stake in repulsing this repulsive pathology as those individuals who’ve used their reason and their freedom to form associations like the “Democratic Party,” the “Republic Party,” the “Libertarian Party,” the “Socialist Party” etc.

They know the only remedy for this insult to our common capacity to reason is to use our common capacity to reason to fashion a new political science, one cognizant of the distinctive challenge that pluralistic democracies face in enabling their citizens to recognize the significance of the unprecedented volume of scientific knowledge that their free institutions have made it possible for them to acquire.

They are resolved to try to make all of this clear to those who share their values—and to reach out to those who don’t to make common cause with them in protecting the science communication environment that enlightened self-government depends on.

The best available evidence doesn’t tell anyone what policy is best. That depends on judgments of value, which will vary—inevitably and appropriately—among free and reasoning people.

Mine differ profoundly from those held by individuals who identify as tea party members. We will have plenty to disagree about in the democratic process even when we agree about the facts.

But without a reliable apprehension of the best available evidence, neither I nor they nor anyone else will be able to confidently identify which policies can be expected to advance our respective values.

In the polluted science communication environment we inhabit, none of us can be as confident as we have a right to be that we truly know what has come to be collectively known through science.

 

[LinusMarr]

Tea Partiers are wealthier and more educated as well: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html

That should be a no brainer since half the liberal population was collecting free obama phones after the election, blouses....

 

[NutterButter]

What are we putting to rest?

 

[NCCommish]

What are we putting to rest?

Not a thing

 

[bostonfred]

r = - 0.05, p < 0.05”

Irony

 

[Orlando RMF]

It's long been a Democratic mantra that grass roots conservatives were racist and stupid. (And this goes back way before the Tea Party movement started.) Personally I've never believed this. Most of of the Tea Party people I've encountered are extremely bright, and I've yet to meet to a racist one. They also tend to be very knowledgeable about politics and the information about science comprehension doesn't surprise me one bit.

My problem with Tea Partiers is not their intelligence nor their identification of political problems: it's that, IMO, their proposed solutions tend to be stringent and worse than the problems themselves. In addition, of course, they are a populist movement, and I don't think such movements generally produce positive results. But I would never question their ability. If they were as stupid as some Democrats paint them to be, they wouldn't be nearly as dangerous as they are.

My problem with the Tea Party = No Solution party. The only solutions is to end/cut the service some how by burying our heads in the sand solves the problem? After all the problem/service being axed doesn't impact them/us anyway. As a republican, the Tea Party has destroyed what should be common sense thinking. We should be working to make a greater community, State or Country not a better party or make Obama look bad. United we stand, divided we fall and right not we as a nation are divided. The republican party is divided. Work for the people and not just/only for the party.

 

[jonessed]

People on both extremes are going to be less trusting of authority and, as a result, more skeptical of ideas more readily accepted by others.

 

[jon_mx]

It's long been a Democratic mantra that grass roots conservatives were racist and stupid. (And this goes back way before the Tea Party movement started.) Personally I've never believed this. Most of of the Tea Party people I've encountered are extremely bright, and I've yet to meet to a racist one. They also tend to be very knowledgeable about politics and the information about science comprehension doesn't surprise me one bit.

My problem with Tea Partiers is not their intelligence nor their identification of political problems: it's that, IMO, their proposed solutions tend to be stringent and worse than the problems themselves. In addition, of course, they are a populist movement, and I don't think such movements generally produce positive results. But I would never question their ability. If they were as stupid as some Democrats paint them to be, they wouldn't be nearly as dangerous as they are.

My problem with the Tea Party = No Solution party. The only solutions is to end/cut the service some how by burying our heads in the sand solves the problem? After all the problem/service being axed doesn't impact them/us anyway. As a republican, the Tea Party has destroyed what should be common sense thinking. We should be working to make a greater community, State or Country not a better party or make Obama look bad. United we stand, divided we fall and right not we as a nation are divided. The republican party is divided. Work for the people and not just/only for the party.

It is a better solution than the status quo, which effectively is spending more through their future promises than the entire GDP. We are spending and making promises at levels that are unbelievable if future outlays are actually accounted for. We need to reign in all facets of government in moderate steps and try to get spending under control over the next decade. There is no one year fix, but we need to be taking baby steps towards a substainable level of government spending.

 

[jon_mx]

People on both extremes are going to be less trusting of authority and, as a result, more skeptical of ideas more readily accepted by others.

The problem is, the status quo is also an extreme which can not be maintained.

 

[timschochet]

People on both extremes are going to be less trusting of authority and, as a result, more skeptical of ideas more readily accepted by others.

The problem is, the status quo is also an extreme which can not be maintained.

That's YOUR perspective. Someone else looking at our political system from a different galaxy might have just the opposite POV.

 

[mr roboto]

I would be surprised if the radical side of either party is not more educated than the center of the party. To have a strong political philosophy means you've at least thought about political philosophy.

 

[Orlando RMF]

It's long been a Democratic mantra that grass roots conservatives were racist and stupid. (And this goes back way before the Tea Party movement started.) Personally I've never believed this. Most of of the Tea Party people I've encountered are extremely bright, and I've yet to meet to a racist one. They also tend to be very knowledgeable about politics and the information about science comprehension doesn't surprise me one bit.

My problem with Tea Partiers is not their intelligence nor their identification of political problems: it's that, IMO, their proposed solutions tend to be stringent and worse than the problems themselves. In addition, of course, they are a populist movement, and I don't think such movements generally produce positive results. But I would never question their ability. If they were as stupid as some Democrats paint them to be, they wouldn't be nearly as dangerous as they are.

My problem with the Tea Party = No Solution party. The only solutions is to end/cut the service some how by burying our heads in the sand solves the problem? After all the problem/service being axed doesn't impact them/us anyway. As a republican, the Tea Party has destroyed what should be common sense thinking. We should be working to make a greater community, State or Country not a better party or make Obama look bad. United we stand, divided we fall and right not we as a nation are divided. The republican party is divided. Work for the people and not just/only for the party.

It is a better solution than the status quo, which effectively is spending more through their future promises than the entire GDP. We are spending and making promises at levels that are unbelievable if future outlays are actually accounted for. We need to reign in all facets of government in moderate steps and try to get spending under control over the next decade. There is no one year fix, but we need to be taking baby steps towards a substainable level of government spending.

I would completely agree the rate of spending and debt is unsustainable, but to do away entirely with programs is not the solution. Baby steps yes, we need to realize that to get ahead of our spending also means finding revenue streams. I am not a believer in taxing tax payers, but I am though for those who are not paying or paying a fair share. I think we need to carefully reduce subsidies and other tax breaks. While we take baby steps, I also don't recommend going too far and throwing the baby out with the bath water.

 

[T Bell]

People on both extremes are going to be less trusting of certain authorities and, as a result, more skeptical of ideas more readily accepted by others who are trusting of those disfavored authorities.

FYP

Both sides of the spectrum have their precious dogmas that they're loathe to question.

 

[jon_mx]

People on both extremes are going to be less trusting of authority and, as a result, more skeptical of ideas more readily accepted by others.

The problem is, the status quo is also an extreme which can not be maintained.

That's YOUR perspective. Someone else looking at our political system from a different galaxy might have just the opposite POV.

Tim, we are promising more money each year to future generations than the total GDP. That is a serious problem.

 

[jon_mx]

It's long been a Democratic mantra that grass roots conservatives were racist and stupid. (And this goes back way before the Tea Party movement started.) Personally I've never believed this. Most of of the Tea Party people I've encountered are extremely bright, and I've yet to meet to a racist one. They also tend to be very knowledgeable about politics and the information about science comprehension doesn't surprise me one bit.

My problem with Tea Partiers is not their intelligence nor their identification of political problems: it's that, IMO, their proposed solutions tend to be stringent and worse than the problems themselves. In addition, of course, they are a populist movement, and I don't think such movements generally produce positive results. But I would never question their ability. If they were as stupid as some Democrats paint them to be, they wouldn't be nearly as dangerous as they are.

My problem with the Tea Party = No Solution party. The only solutions is to end/cut the service some how by burying our heads in the sand solves the problem? After all the problem/service being axed doesn't impact them/us anyway. As a republican, the Tea Party has destroyed what should be common sense thinking. We should be working to make a greater community, State or Country not a better party or make Obama look bad. United we stand, divided we fall and right not we as a nation are divided. The republican party is divided. Work for the people and not just/only for the party.

It is a better solution than the status quo, which effectively is spending more through their future promises than the entire GDP. We are spending and making promises at levels that are unbelievable if future outlays are actually accounted for. We need to reign in all facets of government in moderate steps and try to get spending under control over the next decade. There is no one year fix, but we need to be taking baby steps towards a substainable level of government spending.

I would completely agree the rate of spending and debt is unsustainable, but to do away entirely with programs is not the solution. Baby steps yes, we need to realize that to get ahead of our spending also means finding revenue streams. I am not a believer in taxing tax payers, but I am though for those who are not paying or paying a fair share. I think we need to carefully reduce subsidies and other tax breaks. While we take baby steps, I also don't recommend going too far and throwing the baby out with the bath water.

I am not against increasing revenues. I fully support taking a similar approach as we did in 94, which combined modest tax increases with modest spending cuts (really only cuts in the growth, but still significantly lower than the baseline spending).

 

[joffer]

I would be surprised if the radical side of either party is not more educated than the center of the party. To have a strong political philosophy means you've at least thought about political philosophy.

Guess it depends what you consider radical, but I disagree. A strong, well-considered political philosophy doesn't trend to the far sides of the spectrum IMO

 

[Clifford]

I think the Tea Party's biggest problem is that their most vocal and well-known spokespeople are stupid, hypocritical douchebags. Case in point:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/joe-the-plumber-wurzelbacher-union-job-chrysler

 

[Rove!]

What are we putting to rest?

Not a thing

“Tea party members are like everyone else, as far as I can tell, when it comes to science comprehension,” he wrote. “Is this something to be proud of? I don’t think so. It means that if we were to select a tea-party member at random, there would be a 50% chance he or she would say that ‘antibiotics kill viruses as well as bacteria’ and less than a 40% chance that he or she would be able to correctly interpret data from a simple experiment involving a new skin-rash treatment.”

Of the “recurring irony” of the misrepresentation of such results, Kahan wrote: “It’s funny. It’s painful. And it’s depressing—indeed, the 50th time you see it, it is mainly just depressing.”

Seems the author doesn't really agree with your misinterpretation of his data.

I posted a direct quote

I even posted the part about the advantage being small enough to not be considered definitively better

 

[Rove!]

What are we putting to rest?

Not a thing

Just this

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.

 

[Sand]

I think the Tea Party's biggest problem is that their most vocal and well-known spokespeople are stupid, hypocritical douchebags. Case in point:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/joe-the-plumber-wurzelbacher-union-job-chrysler

I was expecting Ted Cruz or Rubio or similar. Your choice here is predictably trollish.

 

[TobiasFunke]

I kinda hate to indulge this crap, but ...

I think it's obvious that any politically engaged subsection of the population is gonna be smarter in most respects than the population at large. People who watch the news and read the papers are always gonna be smarter on average than the population regardless of their political leanings. The population includes people who can barely read or write; you're not gonna find much of that in the tea party or any other political subset

To disprove the common perception about the tea party, you'd have to show there was a greater correlation with science comprehension than there was with the membership of a similar political group on the other side of the aisle.

 

[NCCommish]

What are we putting to rest?

Not a thing

Just this

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.

And not even that if you read what I posted from him after all the tea partiers incorrectly interpreted what he was saying. Just like you did.

 

[igbomb]

It's long been a Democratic mantra that grass roots conservatives were racist and stupid. (And this goes back way before the Tea Party movement started.) Personally I've never believed this. Most of of the Tea Party people I've encountered are extremely bright, and I've yet to meet to a racist one. They also tend to be very knowledgeable about politics and the information about science comprehension doesn't surprise me one bit.

My problem with Tea Partiers is not their intelligence nor their identification of political problems: it's that, IMO, their proposed solutions tend to be stringent and worse than the problems themselves. In addition, of course, they are a populist movement, and I don't think such movements generally produce positive results. But I would never question their ability. If they were as stupid as some Democrats paint them to be, they wouldn't be nearly as dangerous as they are.

My problem with the Tea Party = No Solution party. The only solutions is to end/cut the service some how by burying our heads in the sand solves the problem? After all the problem/service being axed doesn't impact them/us anyway. As a republican, the Tea Party has destroyed what should be common sense thinking. We should be working to make a greater community, State or Country not a better party or make Obama look bad. United we stand, divided we fall and right not we as a nation are divided. The republican party is divided. Work for the people and not just/only for the party.

It is a better solution than the status quo, which effectively is spending more through their future promises than the entire GDP. We are spending and making promises at levels that are unbelievable if future outlays are actually accounted for. We need to reign in all facets of government in moderate steps and try to get spending under control over the next decade. There is no one year fix, but we need to be taking baby steps towards a substainable level of government spending.

This is a joke. You talk of baby steps yet the Tea Party demands complete capitulation by other Republicans and the Democrats or they try to shut the whole thing down. If nothing else, they have unerringly shown a complete unwillingness to work in any meaningful way towards identifying those baby steps you speak of.

 

[Clifford]

I think the Tea Party's biggest problem is that their most vocal and well-known spokespeople are stupid, hypocritical douchebags. Case in point:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/joe-the-plumber-wurzelbacher-union-job-chrysler

I was expecting Ted Cruz or Rubio or similar. Your choice here is predictably trollish.

Well its meant to point out the problem of the lack of an established political identity, an established speaker, a real representative.

Also meant to point out that the folks who are most likely to declare for tea party often have problems living up to the standards the party espouses, which typically lionize the lack of dependence of government or any other organization.

 

[Rove!]

What are we putting to rest?

Not a thing

Just this

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.

And not even that if you read what I posted from him after all the tea partiers incorrectly interpreted what he was saying. Just like you did.

I didn't "interpret" anything. I just cut and pasted results.

With respect to tea partier interpreation he also noted that "liberals" did the same thing with his finding that there was a trivial negative correlation for the conservrepub subgroup.....

 

[jon_mx]

It's long been a Democratic mantra that grass roots conservatives were racist and stupid. (And this goes back way before the Tea Party movement started.) Personally I've never believed this. Most of of the Tea Party people I've encountered are extremely bright, and I've yet to meet to a racist one. They also tend to be very knowledgeable about politics and the information about science comprehension doesn't surprise me one bit.

My problem with Tea Partiers is not their intelligence nor their identification of political problems: it's that, IMO, their proposed solutions tend to be stringent and worse than the problems themselves. In addition, of course, they are a populist movement, and I don't think such movements generally produce positive results. But I would never question their ability. If they were as stupid as some Democrats paint them to be, they wouldn't be nearly as dangerous as they are.

My problem with the Tea Party = No Solution party. The only solutions is to end/cut the service some how by burying our heads in the sand solves the problem? After all the problem/service being axed doesn't impact them/us anyway. As a republican, the Tea Party has destroyed what should be common sense thinking. We should be working to make a greater community, State or Country not a better party or make Obama look bad. United we stand, divided we fall and right not we as a nation are divided. The republican party is divided. Work for the people and not just/only for the party.

It is a better solution than the status quo, which effectively is spending more through their future promises than the entire GDP. We are spending and making promises at levels that are unbelievable if future outlays are actually accounted for. We need to reign in all facets of government in moderate steps and try to get spending under control over the next decade. There is no one year fix, but we need to be taking baby steps towards a substainable level of government spending.

This is a joke. You talk of baby steps yet the Tea Party demands complete capitulation by other Republicans and the Democrats or they try to shut the whole thing down. If nothing else, they have unerringly shown a complete unwillingness to work in any meaningful way towards identifying those baby steps you speak of.

I was not equating my solution with that of what many in the tea party advocated. I was saying doing nothing is not the right answer. I support some tax increases, which the vast majority in the tea party are strongly against.

 

[jwp]

Tea Partiers are wealthier and more educated as well: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html

That should be a no brainer since half the liberal population was collecting free obama phones after the election, blouses....

Oh you mean that program that originated under Reagan and was started by George W. Bush?

 

[jon_mx]

Tea Partiers are wealthier and more educated as well: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html

That should be a no brainer since half the liberal population was collecting free obama phones after the election, blouses....

Oh you mean that program that originated under Reagan and was started by George W. Bush?

Reagan was way ahead of his time if he was giving out free cell phones.

 

[E Street Brat]

Tea Partiers are wealthier and more educated as well: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html

That should be a no brainer since half the liberal population was collecting free obama phones after the election, blouses....

Oh you mean that program that originated under Reagan and was started by George W. Bush?

Pretty sure that was for land lines and sold as a way for the poor to reach 911.

 

[E Street Brat]

Tea Partiers are wealthier and more educated as well: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html

That should be a no brainer since half the liberal population was collecting free obama phones after the election, blouses....

Oh you mean that program that originated under Reagan and was started by George W. Bush?

Reagan was way ahead of his time if he was giving out free cell phones.

It was a misdirection play that he used to distract the homeless in order to steal their beanie-weenies from the the Carterville hobo camps.

 

[BigSteelThrill]

They try so hard, and then always have it blow up in their faces.

 

[17seconds]

What are we putting to rest?

Not a thing

Just this

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.

So we're putting to rest what some blogger thought

 

[BigSteelThrill]

What are we putting to rest?

Not a thing

Just this

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.

So we're putting to rest what some blogger thought

Exactly.

 

[Sand]

I think the Tea Party's biggest problem is that their most vocal and well-known spokespeople are stupid, hypocritical douchebags. Case in point:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/joe-the-plumber-wurzelbacher-union-job-chrysler

I was expecting Ted Cruz or Rubio or similar. Your choice here is predictably trollish.

Well its meant to point out the problem of the lack of an established political identity, an established speaker, a real representative.

No, it was a pot shot with a 3rd rate reality show star type character as a "typical representative". Defending this is asinine.

Ted Cruz is quite firmly the established political identity. If you want to try and pick someone apart as a "stupid, hypocritical ########" use him.

 

[jwp]

It's long been a Democratic mantra that grass roots conservatives were racist and stupid. (And this goes back way before the Tea Party movement started.) Personally I've never believed this. Most of of the Tea Party people I've encountered are extremely bright, and I've yet to meet to a racist one. They also tend to be very knowledgeable about politics and the information about science comprehension doesn't surprise me one bit.

My problem with Tea Partiers is not their intelligence nor their identification of political problems: it's that, IMO, their proposed solutions tend to be stringent and worse than the problems themselves. In addition, of course, they are a populist movement, and I don't think such movements generally produce positive results. But I would never question their ability. If they were as stupid as some Democrats paint them to be, they wouldn't be nearly as dangerous as they are.

Hey Tim just do a simple google image search of racist tea party signs. You will see good examples of the racist ones. Most can't spell either.

 

[Clifford]

I think the Tea Party's biggest problem is that their most vocal and well-known spokespeople are stupid, hypocritical douchebags. Case in point:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/joe-the-plumber-wurzelbacher-union-job-chrysler

I was expecting Ted Cruz or Rubio or similar. Your choice here is predictably trollish.

Well its meant to point out the problem of the lack of an established political identity, an established speaker, a real representative.

No, it was a pot shot with a 3rd rate reality show star type character as a "typical representative". Defending this is asinine.

Ted Cruz is quite firmly the established political identity. If you want to try and pick someone apart as a "stupid, hypocritical ########" use him.

Ok, but first I think you should get a little more upset about this.

Does Sarah Palin count as a 3rd rate reality star as well? Or are we supposed to forget 2008 ever happened?

The anger you show at being presented with former hand-picked mouthpieces for the GOP is pretty unreal. I didn't bring this guy on stage with me when I was running for President.

 

[MaxThreshold]

I think the Tea Party's biggest problem is that their most vocal and well-known spokespeople are stupid, hypocritical douchebags. Case in point:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/joe-the-plumber-wurzelbacher-union-job-chrysler

I was expecting Ted Cruz or Rubio or similar. Your choice here is predictably trollish.

Well its meant to point out the problem of the lack of an established political identity, an established speaker, a real representative.

No, it was a pot shot with a 3rd rate reality show star type character as a "typical representative". Defending this is asinine.

Ted Cruz is quite firmly the established political identity. If you want to try and pick someone apart as a "stupid, hypocritical ########" use him.

Ok, but first I think you should get a little more upset about this.

Does Sarah Palin count as a 3rd rate reality star as well? Or are we supposed to forget 2008 ever happened?

The anger you show at being presented with former hand-picked mouthpieces for the GOP is pretty unreal. I didn't bring this guy on stage with me when I was running for President.

I'll remember that you posted this the next time Sean Penn, Danny Glover or Harry Belefonte open their mouth. Shouldn't be long now.

 

[rockaction]

I think the Tea Party's biggest problem is that their most vocal and well-known spokespeople are stupid, hypocritical douchebags. Case in point:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/joe-the-plumber-wurzelbacher-union-job-chrysler

I was expecting Ted Cruz or Rubio or similar. Your choice here is predictably trollish.

Well its meant to point out the problem of the lack of an established political identity, an established speaker, a real representative.

No, it was a pot shot with a 3rd rate reality show star type character as a "typical representative". Defending this is asinine.

Ted Cruz is quite firmly the established political identity. If you want to try and pick someone apart as a "stupid, hypocritical ########" use him.

Ok, but first I think you should get a little more upset about this.

Does Sarah Palin count as a 3rd rate reality star as well? Or are we supposed to forget 2008 ever happened?

The anger you show at being presented with former hand-picked mouthpieces for the GOP is pretty unreal. I didn't bring this guy on stage with me when I was running for President.

No. And I don't think you can forget it, actually. She was a VP candidate on a viable ticket.

 

[sublimeone]

liberals are amusing. Why are you guys so threatened by the tea party? Any time the tea party is mentioned you guys come out of the wood work in full force. Remember the whole 'tea-bagging' episode? I've never seen anything like it.

 

[rockaction]

liberals are amusing. Why are you guys so threatened by the tea party? Any time the tea party is mentioned you guys come out of the wood work in full force. Remember the whole 'tea-bagging' episode? I've never seen anything like it.

I think if you post anything conservative or libertarian in here, the usual suspects come out. They're kind of like dogs who love a good, tough, unchewable steak in their mouths. Which is cool, but funny. It's like ringing a dinner bell.

 

[joffer]

liberals are amusing. Why are you guys so threatened by the tea party? Any time the tea party is mentioned you guys come out of the wood work in full force. Remember the whole 'tea-bagging' episode? I've never seen anything like it.

that's what you got from this thread?