In the most unlikely of political talk show face-offs, Bill Nye (“The Science Guy”) will debate Tennessee Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn Sunday on climate change and what’s up with recent weather in Sochi, Russia and the United States (not a joke). … On a core issue, scientists have consistently struggled […] Read more »
‘Motivated Numeracy’: What’s the Point?
… The “Motivated Numeracy” study is the latest (more or less) installment in a series intended to make sense of and maybe help solve the science communication problem. The “science communication problem” refers to the failure of valid, compelling, and widely accessible scientific evidence to dispel public controversy over risks […] Read more »
Who distrusts whom about what in the climate science debate?
… No group’s members understand themselves to be taking positions contrary to what expert scientists advocate. They all believe that the position that predominates in their group is consistent with the views of expert scientists on the risks in question. In other words, they recognize that science is a source […] Read more »
America is becoming more liberal
… The country is getting more diverse, and as the proportion of white voters shrinks, so, too, does the conservative base. As demographics shift, so do political preferences — in this case, toward the left. A close examination of U.S. attitudes in the past decade-plus reveals that the United States […] Read more »
What sorts of inferences can/can’t be drawn from the ‘Republican shift’ (now that we have enough information to answer the question)?
Okay, Pew, not surprisingly, happily released the partisan breakdown for all parts of its evolution question. It also offered a useful “accounting” that addressed (as only it was in a position to do!) what it admitted was a “puzzle” in its report–viz., how the proportion of Republicans “disbelieving” evolution could […] Read more »
The GOP’s Darwinism
… The nonpartisan Pew Research Center recently released the results of an extensive poll done in 2013 on Americans’ views of evolution. Like other polls, it shows that overall views are stable: Sixty percent believe that humans have evolved over time, the same as said so in 2009. But within […] Read more »