<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:12pt">From politico.com: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/tea-party-science-98488.html<br><br>Never underestimate those you disagree with. It's also a good example of how following only those news outlets you agree with can affect your perception of reality.<br><br>Paul<br><br><br><br><h1>Eureka! Tea partiers know science</h1><div class="byline">
By <a href="http://www.politico.com/reporters/TalKopan.html">TAL KOPAN</a> | 10/17/13 1:53 PM EDT
<span class="updated"> Updated: 10/17/13 3:42 PM EDT<br><br></span>
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<div>A finding in a study on the relationship between science literacy
and political ideology surprised the Yale professor behind it: Tea
party members know more science than non-tea partiers.</div><div><br></div><div>Yale law professor Dan Kahan <a href="http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2013/10/15/some-data-on-education-religiosity-ideology-and-science-comp.html" target="_blank">posted</a>
on his blog this week that he analyzed the responses of more than 2,000
American adults recruited for another study and found that, on average,
people who leaned liberal were more science literate than those who
leaned conservative.</div><br>However, those who identified as part of the tea party movement were
actually better versed in science than those who didn’t, Kahan found.
<br><br>The findings met the conventional threshold of statistical significance,
the professor said.<br><br><div>Kahan wrote that not only did the findings surprise him, they embarrassed him.</div><div><br></div>
<div>“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,” Kahan wrote.</div><div><br></div>
<div>“But then again, I don’t know a single person who identifies with the
tea party,” he continued. “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 and POLITICO). I’m a little embarrassed, but
mainly, I’m just glad that I no longer hold this particular mistaken
view.”</div><div><br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: HelveticaNeue,Helvetica Neue,Helvetica,Arial,Lucida Grande,sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;">While Kahan cautioned against thinking the results can be used to
explain deep ideological fights over climate change and other
politically relevant science, and he said the results wouldn’t change
his negative views of the tea party, he did say he will no longer make
assumptions about the level of knowledge on his opponents’ side.</div><br><div><br></div></div></body></html>