Surprise Surprsie

[woodchip]

"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."

Now if you doubt that professors are not biased:

"Kahan wrote that not only did the findings surprise him, they embarrassed him."

Poor baby.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/t ... z2i0jSOkYw

[callmeslick]

let's use a little science here: First off, it showed that liberals in general were better versed than conservatives. No surprise. Now, look at the subset called 'identified with Tea Party'. At the moment, they make up less than 10% of the adult population, mostly older. They are not, by what I've seen, monolithic about being Christian Conservatives. In fact, few of them are self-identified fundamentalist Christians, your major source of scientific ignorance, sad to say. Studies have shown that up to 25% of the US adult population accepts the Bible as literal truth. Thus, 25% of the population is, by self-definiton Scientifically illiterate. So, comparing the 10% slice called 'Tea Party' with a nation chock full of ignorant people isn't proving much of anything. I sort of find it odd that anyone was surprised. Take Ted Cruz for example. He is a very educated man. I would assume him to be literate in science. If he is your prototypical tea partier, then I would expect him to outperform, say, Ralph Reed or the Focus on the Family crowd.

[woodchip]

WTF are you babbling on about. The study was about science literacy between liberal and tea party members...not between conservatives and liberals. Stop trying to mitigate something by throwing in non pertinent ★■◆●.

[Will Robinson]

let's use a little science here: {removal of all verbiage absent of anything definitive or contrary to the findings} ...

Ok, go.

[woodchip]

let's use a little science here: {removal of all verbiage absent of anything definitive or contrary to the findings} ...

Ok, go.

LOL, nicely done.

[vision]

What a messy article. I had to go to the original blog to understand what they were talking about, but even that says very little. There is no paper to review, no methods, no data. We have an author who links to several other sites in his post, none of which add anything of meaning to his story. Also,

I decided it would be sort of interesting to see what the relationship was between a "science comprehension" scale I've been developing and political outlooks.

Why is "science comprehension" in quotes? And what are the details of his work? The author does not provide. His work does not seem to be published let alone peer reviewed. It appears he simply self-publishes articles combining experimental psychology and politics on his website without offering any meaningful details. But regarding the correlation between science comprehension and Tea Party affiliation he says "the relationship is trivially small," but without knowing what his secret "science comprehension" scale consists of no one can be sure the results have any meaning whatsoever. Also, after looking over other articles on the site his writing is absolutely terrible, but whatever.

My final analysis: Utterly incredible. Looks like nonsense that politico published, which predictably aroused readers like woodchip who would then cross link their site. woodchip is an advertising execs dream, I swear. So gullible.

[woodchip]

Yes vision, it is a trick story and I tried to fool you. So because it is not peered reviewed and gets reported on makes it a worthless study. Remember that the next time you quote some source about global warming.

Oh and I don't see anything peer reviewed for your "final analysis"

[vision]

Yes vision, it is a trick story and I tried to fool you. So because it is not peered reviewed and gets reported on makes it a worthless study. Remember that the next time you quote some source about global warming.

Oh and I don't see anything peer reviewed for your "final analysis"

You didn't trick me, I voluntarily looked to see if there was an interesting, credible story there because sometimes politico does a good job. The story is worthless because it amounts to gossip. It is reporting about the results of a study related to science literacy, but irresponsibly applies no critical thinking while doing so. It is the same as if I had a popular blog and posted a story about how this guy on descentbb.net named woodchip said Obama is a socialist. So what? Can he prove Obama is a socialist? Can his proof be verified? Why would anyone care? Regarding global warming, yes, the planet does a lot of heating and cooling by itself. However, the speed of the current warming trend has, as much as science can verify, been caused by human beings. There are literally thousands of peer-reviewed studies to confirm this. Denial is simply denial at this point. And finally, my final analysis doesn't need to be peer reviewed because it itself is a review and makes no interpretation of data other than pointing out there is none provided.

Also, I know you are but what am I?

[callmeslick]

WTF are you babbling on about. The study was about science literacy between liberal and tea party members.

did you even read the article? First off, it clearly stated when comparing libs and conservatives, libs were notably more literate. It also, after that compared Tea Party identifiers(not, by any means, all conservatives) vs the population as a whole. Put your reading glasses on, please.

not between conservatives and liberals. Stop trying to mitigate something by throwing in non pertinent ****.

yeah, heaven forbid I actually read the article and dissect it.

[callmeslick]

lest anyone think I am making something up to merely annoy Woody, these words VERBATIM from the article:

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.
However, those who identified as part of the tea party movement were actually better versed in science than those who didn’t,


now, I don't know how others interpret rather plain English, but 'those who didn't' to me means EVERYONE else: liberal, conservative, neonazi, whatever, so long as they didn't ID as Tea Party. And, numerous studies show the number of people who ID as Tea Party movement adherents is less than 10%. So, therefore, the Tea Partiers out-perfomed(without any judgement on my part about the definition or the other problems Vision notes) the other 90% of the population, of which over a quarter tend to be fundamentalist religious adherents who are long-proven to be science deniars, and who knows what percentage are completely illiterate. As for liberals, note the highlight in darker blue.

[woodchip]

The thrust of this thread was tea party members are more science literate than liberals. Does this somehow offend your sensibilities? Was this not what surprised the prof.?

[callmeslick]

The thrust of this thread was tea party members are more science literate than liberals.

ok, then as I've shown, that thrust is a blatant lie, and the words of the article prove it.

Does this somehow offend your sensibilities? Was this not what surprised the prof.?

no for both.

[woodchip]

It's absolutely amazing how dense and obtuse you are.

[callmeslick]

what part of the English language eludes you? The article is VERY straighforward, even blunt about the lib vs conservative part. That a subset of conservatives out-performed the entire rest of the population on average isn't a surprise. What also isn't a surprise, but IS amusing as hell, is watching you misread your own cited article, and then keep trying to lie about a conclusion that article never made. Or, even suggested. Once again, you repeating a flagrant untruth doesn't magically make it correct.

[callmeslick]

heck, even funnier, I just took your advice and read the words in your OP. "He found that tea-partiers are more science literate than NON-TEA PARTIERS' . In other words, Woody, EVERYONE who IS NOT in the Tea Party subgroup. This includes hillbilly farmers, the Amish, Black Muslims, inner city gang bangers, Harvard PhD's, and everyone in between. Note that at NO POINT in the article does the author or anyone say that Tea Party types are more science literate than Liberats. As I noted, and highlighted, the only mention of liberals states that they are clearly more science literate than conservatives. Nothing else is offered by way of comparison. Nothing. Doubt me? Find the words. Go ahead, I dare you.

[Spidey]

I think “those who didn’t” would technically include liberals, so Woody is not lying…he is…..ehhhhh…bending the truth.

[woodchip]

what part of the English language eludes you? The article is VERY straighforward, even blunt about the lib vs conservative part. That a subset of conservatives out-performed the entire rest of the population on average isn't a surprise. What also isn't a surprise, but IS amusing as hell, is watching you misread your own cited article, and then keep trying to lie about a conclusion that article never made. Or, even suggested. Once again, you repeating a flagrant untruth doesn't magically make it correct.

What did I mis-read? Did he not find out Tea Party people were more science literate in a study he was trying to find out if liberals were more science literate than conservatives.? You seem to be awfully focused on the cons. versus lib aspect of the study as though you are trying to deflect from the other finding. It's funny watching you get all worked up and sweaty over this.

[woodchip]

heck, even funnier, I just took your advice and read the words in your OP. "He found that tea-partiers are more science literate than NON-TEA PARTIERS' . In other words, Woody, EVERYONE who IS NOT in the Tea Party subgroup. This includes hillbilly farmers, the Amish, Black Muslims, inner city gang bangers, Harvard PhD's, and everyone in between. Note that at NO POINT in the article does the author or anyone say that Tea Party types are more science literate than Liberats. As I noted, and highlighted, the only mention of liberals states that they are clearly more science literate than conservatives. Nothing else is offered by way of comparison. Nothing. Doubt me? Find the words. Go ahead, I dare you.

What a child.

"A finding in a study on the relationship between science literacy and political ideology"

That was what the study was about. Now parse it all you want and try to inject all the stupid comments you like, the Tea Party people came out more science literate than conservatives in general and the liberals in total. They are more science literate than Libertarians and whatever other ideologies that took part. Or do you think hill billy pig farmers and clueless gang bangers have a political ideology and thus were part of the study. Your attempts to twist logic makes ones eyes bleed.

[vision]

...aaaaand this thread proves I am right. A bunch of people arguing about a study no one actually read because none of the methods or data are available. And naturally, we have the one guy who never took a statistics class and doesn't know why self-reported tea party members can appear to have higher science comprehension over everyone else when the same data shows all liberals scored higher than all conservatives in science comprehension (even though the author's definition of science comprehension isn't known, nor is the sample set or size).

But you know, keep arguing because Obama is a socialist and stuff.

[Isaac]

They meant real science. None of that fake "obama science" that talks about how your grandpa was really monkey that came out of the ocean.

[Top Gun]

Another quality woody thread. This is pretty damn hilarious.

[Jeff250]

Woodchip, the point is that:

AVG(tea-party-conservatives) > AVG(non-tea-party-conservatives and liberals)

does *not* imply

AVG(tea-party-conservatives) > AVG(liberals).

In particular, the "liberals" average can be higher if the "non-tea-party-conservatives" average sufficiently brings the "non-tea-party-conservatives and liberals" average down. So from what we know so far about the study, your conclusion cannot be supported. Also, I don't think anything in the study prohibited liberals from identifying as Tea Party either, although we probably wouldn't expect very many to do that.

[snoopy]

Woodchip, the point is that:

AVG(tea-party-conservatives) > AVG(non-tea-party-conservatives and liberals)

does *not* imply

AVG(tea-party-conservatives) > AVG(liberals).

In particular, the "liberals" average can be higher if the "non-tea-party-conservatives" average sufficiently brings the "non-tea-party-conservatives and liberals" average down. So from what we know so far about the study, your conclusion cannot be supported. Also, I don't think anything in the study prohibited liberals from identifying as Tea Party either, although we probably wouldn't expect very many to do that.

My conclusion: The non-tea-party conservatives are the idiots.

[callmeslick]

hilarity ensues. Thanks, Woodchip!!!!

[Will Robinson]

...Also, I don't think anything in the study prohibited liberals from identifying as Tea Party either, although we probably wouldn't expect very many to do that.

Only if they were interviewed at a protest shouting racial epithets then the odds go up a bit....