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Are global warming skeptics simply ignorant about climate science? Not so, says a forthcoming paper in the journal Advances in Political Psychology by Yale Professor Dan Kahan. He finds that skeptics score about the same (in fact slightly better) on climate science questions. The study asked 2,000 respondents nine questions about where they thought scientists stand on climate science. On average, skeptics got about 4.5 questions correct, whereas manmade warming believers got about 4 questions right. One question, for instance, asked if scientists believe that warming would “increase the risk of skin cancer.” Skeptics were more likely than believers to...

Last week, professor of law and psychology Dan Kahan added a couple of fascinating posts to the Yale law school Cultural Cognition Project blog. Kahan’s work focuses on the correlation between science comprehension ability and factors like educational attainment, religious conviction and political ideology. Kahan recently noted that his latest study showed that, to his surprise, those who affiliate with the tea party movement tend to be slightly better than average at science reasoning. But then came the fascinating part of the post: Kahan's comment that he didn’t know a single person who identified with the tea party and his...

---------------------------------------------snip------- . . .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...

Via the Independent Journal Review, I meant to post this yesterday but got sidetracked by the Healthcare.gov Chernobyl. Tea partiers are as far ahead of the science curve relative to the general population, Yale professor Dan Kahan’s data shows, as liberal Democrats are relative to conservative Republicans. It’s a small difference, but it’s there — and so sharply contrary is it to the left’s view of TPers that Kahan felt obliged to acknowledge that fact explicitly. 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...

Yale Law professor Dan M. Kahan was conducting an analysis of the scientific comprehension of various political groups when he ran into a shocking discovery: tea party supporters are slightly more scientifically literate than the non-tea party population. When composing histograms of the scientific inference abilities of liberals and conservatives, he discovered that those who described themselves as tea party supporters came out pretty well, based on National Science Foundation standards of evaluation: The shift to the right on the gray columns represents a positive correlation between tea party members and generally higher scientific test scores. The r=0.05 is not...

You know that line liberals love to lob at the Tea Party: you're stupid. Well, obviously that's not the case, nor has it ever been true. Now, a Yale professor has released some new research showing that the so-called "Tea Party radicals" are actually scientifically literate. 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...

Dan Kahan, the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology at Yale Law School was curious about the relationship between ”science comprehension“ and political outlooks. His findings shocked him: tea party supporters are actually more scientifically literate than the non-tea party population 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...

You hear a lot about the politicization of science, but the real problem is the moralization of science. The New York University psychologist Jonathan Haidt has made a compelling case that moral differences drive partisan debates over scientific issues. Dan Kahan and others at the Yale Cultural Cognition Project have identified cultural differences that bias how people assimilate information. Together, Haidt and Kahan’s research suggests that what you believe about a scientific debate signals to like-minded people that you are on their side and are therefore a good and trustworthy person. Unfortunately, this means that the factual accuracy of beliefs...

A recent Yale University study funded by the National Science Foundation found that those with opposing views on climate change don’t hold those views because of insufficient scientific understanding, but because of “opposing sets of cultural values.” To be specific, people have a rather solid foundation in science and mathematics, but they use scientific evidence to fit their cultural group’s values. In other words, global warming deniers aren’t stupid, they just want to fit in. “In effect, ordinary members of the public credit or dismiss scientific information on disputed issues based on whether the information strengthens or weakens their ties...

The data process used to arrive at the administration’s determination that greenhouse gases endanger “the public health and welfare” violated the Environmental Protection Agency’s own peer review procedure, a new report from the EPA Office of the Inspector General reveals.Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, requested this report in April, asking that the OIG determine whether the EPA “followed key federal and Agency regulations and policies in developing and reviewing the technical data used to make and support its greenhouse gases endangerment finding.” Now, Inhofe is calling for a series of...

A new study suggests that your values, not science, determine your views about climate change. The more scientifically literate you are, the more certain you are that climate change is either a catastrophe or a hoax, according to a new study [PDF] from the Yale Cultural Cognition Project. Many science writers and policy wonks nurse the fond hope that fierce disagreement about issues like climate change is simply the result of a scientifically illiterate American public. If this “public irrationality thesis” were correct, the authors of the Yale study write, “then skepticism about climate change could be traced to poor...

The Supreme Court has clearly ruled that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution means individuals have a right to own weapons, and the justices have been asked to take up two cases that could broaden that right to include state laws. The court’s decision on whether to take up the cases, National Rifle Association v. Chicago and McDonald v. Chicago, could come this week, before the fall term officially starts Oct. 5. The Second Amendment is one of the most contentious provisions in the Constitution. To many, it is an unqualified guarantee of Americans’ right to defend themselves. Others...

What do you think is more dangerous? Terrorists getting their hands on a biological weapon that can be smuggled into the country or another hurricane like Katrina? Which is the smarter way to keep Social Security solvent? Raise the retirement age or raise taxes? How can the current economic crisis be averted? Give Americans cash to spend or slash mortgage interest rates to restart the housing market? As millions of Americans gather to vote for presidential candidates in tomorrow's Democratic and Republican primaries, what they are really being asked to do is make a number of policy choices. The problem...

VIOLENCE, GUNS, AND DRUGS: A CROSS-COUNTRY ANALYSIS* JEFFREY A. MIRON Bastiat Institute and Boston University ABSTRACTViolence rates differ dramatically across countries. A widely held view is that these differences reflect differences in gun control and/or gun availability, and certain pieces of evidence appear consistent with this hypothesis. A more detailed examination of this evidence suggests that the role of gun control/availability is not compelling. This more detailed examination, however, does not provide an alternative explanation for cross-country differences in violence. This paper suggests that differences in the enforcement of drug prohibition are an important factor in explaining differences in violence rates across...