There have been several articles in recent days about how people [conservatives] who don’t accept evolution or climate science don’t necessarily know less about those subjects than others… they do so because their “community” rejects such conclusions, by instinct.<\/p>\n
New York Times: Brendan Nyhan on When Beliefs and Fact Collide<\/a>.<\/p>\n \nMr. Kahan\u2019s study suggests that more people know what scientists think about high-profile scientific controversies than polls suggest; they just aren\u2019t willing to endorse the consensus when it contradicts their political or religious views. This finding helps us understand why my colleagues and I have found that factual and scientific evidence is often ineffective at reducing misperceptions and can even backfire on issues like weapons of mass destruction,<\/a> health care reform<\/a> and vaccines<\/a>. With science as with politics, identity often trumps the facts.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Jerry Coyne’s take: Do people who deny evolution know less about it than others?<\/a>, with lots of graphs. Referring to his book Why Evolution is True<\/b> [WEIT], <\/p>\n \nAs I\u2019ve been saying repeatedly, the way to eliminate creationism is not to teach people about evolution (as I tried to do in WEIT<\/em>), but to get rid of the major factor that make them deny evolution: religion. Granted, WEIT<\/em> was successful in changing some people\u2019s minds (I have lots of emails attesting to that), but I suspect its main effect was simply to tell people who already accepted evolution<\/em> about the kind and amount of evidence supporting it.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Another piece about how Christians, the dominate religious sect in the US, feel themselves persecuted. By the gays.<\/p>\n Slate: The Christian Persecution Complex Moves Into the Workplace<\/a><\/p>\n \nAll of this is extravagantly silly, and I respect Dreher and George\u2019s intellects too much to believe that they\u2019re actually taking it seriously. But for the unhinged Ruse and his acolytes, I\u2019m sure the story plays right into a developing narrative on the far right: LGBTQ people, they insist, are the true oppressors, and conservative Christians an embattled, discriminated-against minority.<\/p>\n This persecution complex\u2014which actually began long before the Brendan Eich controversy\u2014is so asinine that I almost regret wasting space refuting it. But the fear needs a rebuttal, because, daft as it may be, it\u2019s also dangerous. Recasting a tiny, historically despised minority as a covertly powerful conspiracy of puppeteers is a time-honored smear tactic used to vilify Jews and other disfavored demographics. It\u2019s a darkly clever strategy here, especially given Americans\u2019 traditional love for an underdog. Suddenly, gays aren\u2019t a small minority fighting for basic equal rights; they\u2019re unduly influential string-pullers, using behind-the-scenes machinations to persecute Christians.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And finally, Salon on how right-wingnut Dinesh Di’Souza thinks the whole world is against him. Conspiracy! Between The New York Times<\/i>, Costco, and Google!<\/p>\n Salon: Dinesh D\u2019Souza\u2019s paranoid nightmare: Everything is a vast conspiracy against him <\/a><\/p>\n Or maybe he’s just a paranoid religious franatic (like so many right-wing heroes are) who does not, in fact, and fortunately, have very many followers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There have been several articles in recent days about how people [conservatives] who don’t accept evolution or climate science don’t necessarily know less about those subjects than others… they do so because their “community” rejects such conclusions, by instinct. New … Continue reading
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