BLogging has been light as I've been on a long business trip. I am working for a meaty post for you, once I get over the jet lag.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Religiosity by state
New data from Gallup shows us the "religiosity' of the different states. MIssissippi is the most religious. It's also the state where a large percentage of Republican primary votes think inter-racial marriage should be illegal.
BLogging has been light as I've been on a long business trip. I am working for a meaty post for you, once I get over the jet lag.
BLogging has been light as I've been on a long business trip. I am working for a meaty post for you, once I get over the jet lag.
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4 comments:
LA Times article today - Conservatives' trust in science has declined sharply. And the more so, the more education they have.
"A study released Thursday in the American Sociological Review concludes that trust in science among conservatives and frequent churchgoers has declined precipitously since 1974, when a national survey first asked people how much confidence they had in the scientific community. At that time, conservatives had the highest level of trust in scientists.
"Confidence in scientists has declined the most among the most educated conservatives, the peer-reviewed research paper found, concluding: 'These results are quite profound because they imply that conservative discontent with science was not attributable to the uneducated but to rising distrust among educated conservatives.'"
dr.primrose: I think we're witnessing a profound crisis of epistemology. Facts are not determined by empirical evidence, but by the political perspectives of the observers. Ergo, if you trust the observer, you'll trust their observations. If you don't, you won't.
To wit: before you tell me the # of widgets in wonkets in Wankovia, tell me: do you oppose gay "marriage"? Is abortion the murder of an unborn baby? Is global warming a myth invented by the Liberal Media? Do we need to cut taxes on the job-creators? Yes, to all 4? OK, NOW tell me about those widgets...
Primrose, given that I spend the early part of this week in Washington discussing science funding, that is depressingly timely.
JCF, I think that's exactly so.
Gotta find time for another meaty post....
There's an interesting book recently out, "The Righteous Mind" by William Saletan. According to the last Sunday's review in the N.Y. Times Book Review, the human brain is designed to make quick decisions on instinct and come up with the reasons supporting that decision later. Perhaps that has something to do with it -- people making quick, ideological decisions and, if the science doesn't support those decisions, then pseudo-science will work just as well.
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