Because modern human civilization did not exist to be disrupted or destroyed during past climate change. People tend not to buy infant carseats before they have babies–do you think it is because they do not know that cars can crash? Would you attempt to “reason” with them by pointing out that before they had a baby their baby had never died?

This is one of many self-defeating non-sequiturs that denialists employ. Not only does it say nothing, it’s also irritatingly arrogant because it presumes that the original complainer over climate change actually *doesn’t have* the most basic first-year education on this topic. It is precisely because we are aware of the impact that climate change can have on living systems that we dislike the thought of what it will have on ours.

The difference could be explained by conservative beliefs being evidence-based and liberal beliefs being expert-based. The more educated the liberal, the more they know and go with what the experts say. The more educated the conservative, the more they know and go with what the evidence says.

Balderdash. Conservatives erect one cult of personality after another around every lying crank autodidact who makes up a conspiracy theory and waves a PhD around, whether it was Iben Browning or Chris Monckton or Bjorn Lomborg. There sure isn’t any evidence that the polar bear could discern the threat of climate change in time to deliberately “evolve backwards” to avoid it, yet Lomborg’s fake seal of approval is all it took to convince certain people. There is certainly no “evidence” that any of the thoughtcrimes described in the Climategate email actually took place, and little more than the presumed expertise of the HARRY-README author to justify taking him seriously.

@Johnny — First of all, that link provides only anecdotal support for your smaller claim that anti-vaccinators are liberals given by the interviewer, the interviewee, and a guy the interviewee mentioned.

@Nullius in Verba — Actually, that’s not what I meant, but yeah, let’s just leave it at that.

@Johnny — First of all, that link provides only anecdotal support for your smaller claim that anti-vaccinators are liberals. The interviewer, the interviewee, and a guy the interviewee mentioned. No poll cited. No study cited. Womp waaa.

Second, your larger claim (involving your usage of rubber glove quotes around the word education to make clear you’re not calling it that) is hardly proven by showing only one example, even hypothetically allowing that example established as true. One data point doesn’t even indicate a trend, much less prove it.

@SocraticGadfly — I hadn’t seen the diagram in question before, but after looking at it for awhile it seemed to me to break down into roughly four standard sociopolitical groups:
Upper right quadrant (hierarchy-communitarian) – social conservatism
Lower right quadrant (egalitarian-communitarian) – liberalism
Lower left quadrant (egalitarian-individualist) – libertarianism
Upper left quadrant (hierarchy-individualist) – economic conservatism

Then, seeing this picture only strengthened that initial assessment (look at the one about halfway down with the four gentlemen on it)… http://www.yalescientific.org/2011/05/cultural-cognition-and-scientific-consensus/

Now, I have one dispute with the diagram in that I don’t see how favoring egalitarianism correlates with considering technology as more high-risk, while favoring hierarchy correlates with considering technology as more low-risk. Industry, sure, I suppose — but technology? Hmm. So that strikes me as one Procrustean bed (I had to look it up – interesting phrase) aspect to it. But the rest of it seems alright.

As for my post to Eric, I listed what I see as traits of American conservatism, not traits that all American conservatives necessarily possess. The concept is simpler while people are more complex. At least, that’s how I see it. Someone doesn’t have to possess all the traits or agree with all the stances of conservatism to be reasonably considered a conservative. And by “possess” a trait, obviously there are shades of gray there, too. So right, of course not all American conservatives match that list with 100% accuracy. Just mapping out a generalization, which, as I see it, there’s nothing wrong with doing that as long as it applies to a solid majority.

@ Mikio … I wasn’t entirely clear. I meant that they’re not the same in the sense it’s arguable that the axis-tracking maybe isn’t what it’s made out to be. And, per your answer to Eric, I’m not sure all American conservatives fall on that plotting with 100 percent accuracy.

On left-liberals, nuke power, and accept vs. reject … I’d say that, oh, editors at Counterpunch or Truthout are science-literate and numerate, but still are strong rejectors of nuke power. That’s why, to a degree, beyond other concerns about axis plotting, some of this comes off like a Procrustean bed, Cartesian style.

IF one understand that it’s a “convenient shorthand,” all well and good, tho.

That said, the “onion” is a great answer to Nullius.

I can give an easy example to prove my earlier theory, which is that liberals will always move in the direction the “education” is designed to move them, even when the “education” is false.

The Autism / Vaccination link is the perfect example.

Liberal parents, who viewed “education” warning them of the link, were far more likely than conservative parents to believe the “education” and not vaccinate their children. This is because the “don’t trust big busines pharma” was a fear that resonated with them.

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/01/why-the-prius-driving-composting.html

Well, I’m quite happy to leave things there. It was diverging off-topic anyway.

I don’t even know how to respond to that last post of yours. It’s a multi-layered onion of wrongness. I think I’ll just let it remain unpeeled in all its glory.

Apart from the question of homosexual marriage, which is for completely different reasons, those are all good examples of outcome-equality thinking.

You have picked a series of examples of measures taken to enforce outcome-equality, at the expense often of the very people they’re trying to help, and noted that conservatives oppose them. Well, yes – that’s the point. You’re trying to force an equality of outcome, irrespective of the merits. It’s both unjust and economically inefficient.

#26,

Whatever makes you think I’m a “layman”?!

You’ll note: you just used an expertise-based argument!

That you AGW deniers/doubters see nothing wrong whatsoever about thinking you as laymen understand climatology better than climatologists is part of the Bizarro World mentality you all share that’s so impenetrable.

And it’s that very bizarro mentality evident in this study’s results which none of you commenting in this thread have even noticed. It’s completely dissing conservatives but you have no clue because you just see “increased scientific literacy of conservatives aligning with increased denial of climate change” and accept that as a compliment when it’s not meant as a compliment. The baseline FACT presented by the study that climate change is real simply bounces off of your skull as usual as you go on with your cherry picking.

If you don’t know, you could always ask.

The difference could be explained by conservative beliefs being evidence-based and liberal beliefs being expert-based. The more educated the liberal, the more they know and go with what the experts say. The more educated the conservative, the more they know and go with what the evidence says.

Literate and numerate conservatives who are sceptical of climate science are quite open about their reasons – they say there’s inadequate/exaggerated evidence. (We can argue about whether they’re right on another occasion; that’s what they say.) The other stuff only enters the picture when liberals ask how come all the experts on TV say otherwise.

Chris has highlighted a very interesting distinguishing case. It’s not that education makes people strengthen their partisan beliefs, because liberals believe less in the dangers of nuclear. Education weakens their partisan belief. It’s not that conservatives generally have unscientific false beliefs contrary to reality because on nuclear they have more correct beliefs that get even closer to reality with education. It has to be something else.

That’s the scientific method in action, and I’ll tell you I’m very impressed that Chris picked up on it.