Conservatives: The Growing Ignorance and Distrust of Science

I sometimes say somewhat in jest - but not entirely - that to be a Republican or far right conservative nowadays, one prerequisite is that you have a lobotomy. In my youth, the many conservatives in my family embraced and encouraged education, intelligence and scientific knowledge. But today, especially among Christian conservatives, ignorance is exalted and anything that challenges increasingly unsupportable Biblical "truths" is rejected. Indeed, it's almost labeled as Satanic. What is particularly shocking is that a mere 36 years ago, conservatives as a group ranked highest in trust in science. What's happened? I would argue the rise of religious fundamentalism and religious denominations that teach Bible literalism (selectively applied, of course). I have long argued that anything that makes these people have to think for themselves and ask questions about the brainwashing that they have received will be vigorously rejected. A new study seems to validate this view. The Los Angeles Times has a piece that looks at this troubling phenomenon. Here are highlights:

As the Republican presidential race has shown, the conservatives who dominate the primaries are deeply skeptical of science — making Newt Gingrich, for one, regret he ever settled onto a couch with Nancy Pelosi to chat about global warming.

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."

To highlight the dramatic impact conservative views of science have had on public opinion, Gauchat pointed to results from Gallup, which found in 2012 that just 30% of conservatives believed the Earth was warming as a result of greenhouse gases versus 50% two years earlier. In contrast, the poll showed almost no change in the opinion of liberals, with 74% believing in global warming in 2010 versus 72% in 2008.

Chris Mooney, who wrote "The Republican War on Science," which Gauchat cites, agreed. "If you think of the reasons behind this as nature versus nurture, all this would be nurture, that it was the product of the conservative movement," he said. "I think being educated is a proxy for people paying attention to politics, and when they do, they tune in to Fox News and blogs."

As readers will recall, a recent study that compared the levels awareness on issues and information in general found Fox News regulars to be the least well informed. Perhaps regular Fox News viewing combined with listen to Rush Limbaugh regularly causes a de facto lobotomy.