Thursday, March 29, 2012

No, It's Not Republicans' Brains

A new study suggests it's not Republican's brains after all.

An article by Gordon Gauchat in American Sociological Review finds that in the mid-1970s self-identified conservatives had the highest trust in science, relative to self-identified moderates and liberals, and in 2010 had the lowest.

Do you suppose human genetics changed much in 35 years? No, I don't either. The mutation rate of the human genome is about 1 nucleotide in 91,000,000 per generation.

Yet this is from Chris Mooney's book:
And I’ll examine what is in some ways the most revolutionary idea at all–the increasingly powerful notion that, while the environment assuredly matters, much of the left-right difference may ultimately be influenced by genetics, and even detectable in structures in the brains.
The emphasis is Keith Kloor's, which I'll second.

In other words, Mooney's book, and much of his work, is a perverse attempt to twist science purely for political purposes. And this was fairly clear, even before this study. And that is at least as bad as claims about denying science, and many would say it's even worse. I certainly would.

23 comments:

Unknown said...

I haven't read the book - but neither have you.

You also apparently haven't see anything he's been saying over this study - or when responding to a long line of commentary coming from others who haven't read the book.

Mooney has consistently pointed out that his argument is NOT that it's all conservative brains. It's a combination of nature and nurture. If I'm following his most current example, that, right there, is the nurture. But this study offers nothing on the "nature" side of the equation - why it is that ONLY Conservatives show that long-term decline. That decline IS consistent with cultural change - against a backdrop of different neural hardware. A difference which _is_ substantiated in a number of studies.

You are strawmanning it to suggest that his argument is that it's ALL genetic all the time and therefore there must be mutation over 35 years. I don't think there's a single psychologist on the planet who wouldn't laugh at that.

Mooney and I have had disagreements in the past - I was a pretty strong critic of how he handled himself in the Unscientific America faiasco, for instance - but here is one area where I find myself defending him.

You're citing this study, ignoring the main context and argument, and selectively reporting just the fraction of the data that correspond with your bias. (Here, that bias is fed by ignoring a host of papers on cultural cognition - although to be fair there are other terms for the same sub-field.) I do believe you just attacked McKibben for doing the same thing with the Weaver paper.

David Appell said...

The excerpt from his book seems pretty clear to me.

sylas said...

The point is, David, that any behavior is a combination of many factors. Your ire would only be valid if it was claimed to be exclusively genetic -- which no-one is claiming. This makes your comment here a wild swing and miss.

The extract does not imply what you are suggesting, and there is no twisting of science involved.

In the current circumstances in the USA, there's a very strong correlation between political conservatism and rejection of science.

Looking at the reasons for that is going to bring in many factors; one of which is styles of thinking, which very likely does have a genetic component.

That is NOT saying that the style of thinking is simply a genetic disposition to reject science -- which you have read into the extract without adequate justification and in diametric contrast with the actual proposals of Mooney and of the research he cites.

I'm not particularly a fan of Mooney, and have disagreed with him strongly on various points at different times. But the correlation between political conservatism and irrational science denial is strong and worthy of serious consideration; and you are not doing that.

Anonymous said...

The terms "irrational" and "conservative" do not usually go together.

I would say that after the climate gate disclosures, a bit of skepticism would be quite rational.

Anonymous said...

Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd.

@unknown

I'd like to go ahead and disagree with everything you just said. The only reason I go on the internet to tell people that global warming is a hoax is because I am extremely afraid that the government will use global warming as a mandate to raise energy prices. And I have a specific context when I call it a hoax. I have grouped myself into my own group, called the "1.3". The 1.3's believe that a doubling from 280ppm to 560ppm will lead to a 1.3F increase in temperature. I think the 400% positive feedback is a total crock.

In my opinion, Chris Mooney is a far left activist who has completely overanalyzed the current situation. Now, this doesn't make him a bad person, we just have different analysis' on the same sets of data.

It seems to me that the all inclusive environmental movements never work out. I think where we're at now is "global warming effects everything, so we need to throw money at this singular cause and disperse the money from there." And to me this is inefficient and ineffective.

Instead, I think society needs to focus on individual environmental problems. So for instance, we need specific programs that address each problem, like water pollution and littering.

Anonymous said...

Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd.

@sylas

"The extract does not imply what you are suggesting, and there is no twisting of science involved.

In the current circumstances in the USA, there's a very strong correlation between political conservatism and rejection of science."

Sylas the above statements pretty much epitomize why there is a serious divide between the 2 political parties on this issue.

No science has been twisted? So you've concluded that climategate was not significant. You therefore have a severe double standard in your expectations.

You then say there is a strong correlation toward being a conservative and rejecting science. Silas, I can just as easily say you are rejecting the science by believeing in a bogus 400% positive feedback.

Anonymous said...

@Dave

Dave I thought your analysis was very good. You know I'll never understand why the left wing feels that they cannot give this issue up. Books like the one Mooney just wrote only make the argument worse because he personally attacks conservatives.

It is not as if global warming loses funding people are suddenly going to quit caring about the environment but we need to try something new.

stewgreen said...

- The whole premise of putting public's opinion into a "Trust Science? YES/NO" dichotomy is flawed.
- when scientific evidence says Nuclear power & GMOs are very safe some people choose not to trust it.
- When scientific evidence says the maths of wind & solar power don't stack up in most instances, some choose not to trust it.
- When scientific studies find organic food is NOT safer than industrial produced food, some people choose not to trust it.

Do the above examples apply only to conservatives ?
- Activist PR agencies know their arguments are vulnerable, so they choose to put others on the back foot by writing press releases that SMEAR & ATTACK, for their churnalist friends to cut + paste.
- We shouldn't allow them to bully us and control the agenda we should work to expose their flawed dogma.

Anonymous said...

I think it boils down to a conservative thinking that the scientific method shouldn't be changed to include currently falsified computer models with assumed boundary conditions with partial differential equations.

EJ

David Appell said...

EJ: Climate models are not "completely falsified."

All of physics is PDEs. What else are you going to do?

And how else do you expect to be able to calculate future climate, if not with a model?

David Appell said...

Sylas: Mooney wrote: "...much of the left-right difference may ultimately be influenced by genetics, and even detectable in structures in the brains."

He calls this "in some ways the most revolutionary idea" of his thesis.

It seems to me he, and you, are trying to have it both ways: it's genetic, except when it isn't. Sure, there are lots of factors. Mooney used the word "much" -- that most of the difference is due to genetics. This sociological study shows that's crap.

Jay said...

Jay above is not Dr. Jay Cadbury, Ph.D.

Jay said...

I had a very nice comment that seems to have been eaten.

Sigh.

Totally frustrating experiences on the internet -- it never had to be this way.

Jay said...

I think I fished it out of my cache. Captchas have gotten increasingly worse. They are very unfriendly.

Anyway, ...

"An article by Gordon Gauchat in American Sociological Review finds that in the mid-1970s self-identified conservatives had the highest trust in science, relative to self-identified moderates and liberals, and in 2010 had the lowest."

Thalidomide, late 50s

Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 1962

Vietnam, LSD, Watergate, Pentagon Papers

Greenpeace, 1971

Feminism, deconstructionism, patriarchy, ...

Liberals influences back then were all about not trusting the government, not trusting anyone over 30, not trusting big institutions, and not trusting the man's science.

Conservative influences were naturally the opposite: War in Asia, NASA I guess, Ronald Reagan at UC.

Fast forward 50 years and what has happened?

Greenpeace & WWF write the IPCC report. The liberal anti-goverment forces of the 70s are now the government, and the conservative influences tell them to oppose that and distrust their science.

That's essentially been my wonderment for the past few years. Greenpeace et. al., used to tell me not to trust government science, now Greenpeace et. al., tells me I have to trust big government.

Dano said...

Greenpeace & WWF write the IPCC report

*snork*

Internet Performance Art: entertaining us in the new entertainment era!

Best,

D

David Appell said...

Jay, sorry about the Captcha. I share your frustration, but if I don't have it I get inundated with comment spam almost immediately. I don't know what else to do....

Jay said...

Dano,

My slight hyperbole aside, Donna Laframboise's data shows pretty conclusively how much outside environmentalist forces from the 70s have become inside players in the 10s.

That's a testament to Greenpeace, WWF, and other such groups, and I've often been a member of each, but it also demonstrates what I said earlier, how the outsiders became the insiders and vice-versa, and one explanation for why conservatives no longer trust science and liberals do.

David, it's not the captchas so much, as my experience that in the past 3-5 months something has made the captchas much harder to read. My eyes? New googly mangling to defeat spammers? I am almost convinced, since each piece of the captcha is queried multiple times that someone, some group is intentionally poisoning captchas.

I've known a couple of reasonably popular bloggers who seem able to get by on very simple addition problems, or even "type in today's secret (which is the word 'burger')) and then change that secret once a year it seems and they do not seem to be plagued with spam -- I've never understood why.

Anyway, sorry for the distraction, and thank you for your writing.

Jay said...

Oh, and I'm also not suggesting you change anything (though it seems captchas are off for the moment.) It's your blog and your time going into it. (I'm just bitching.... as usual...)

David Appell said...

Jay wrote:
> Greenpeace & WWF write the
> IPCC report.

Please. That's absurd, and an insult to the many scientists who are putting a lot of work in writing the ARs.

> Greenpeace et. al., tells me
> I have to trust big government.

No, they don't. It's just that conservatives have abdicated the playing field and refuse to offer solutions that align with their political philosophies. (Watch Scott Denning's video at the 2011 Heartland Conference.) Instead they have chosen to deny the science, which isn't very convincing.

David Appell said...

Jay, I've found Captchas increasingly difficult too. I suspect it's a tactic to stay ahead of the robots. I've turned Captcha off for the now, but I'm already getting comment spam in only a half-hour....

Jay said...

David,

I find captchas annoying, but I find spam even worse. And don't ever do anything on my behalf that takes up your time.

"> Greenpeace & WWF write the
> IPCC report."

"Please. That's absurd, and an insult to the many scientists who are putting a lot of work in writing the ARs."

My hyperbole is hyperbole, but Donna Laframboise's book amply details the "integration" of WWF and IPCC writing.

What's absurd, as Laframboise points out, is that scientists, at a time when they should understand their objectivity and neutrality are on the line, should associate with partisan groups.

With all due respect, scientists that don't wish to be insulted or tarred as political activists should refrain from associating with political activist groups. Otherwise they should be willing to be loud and proud about it, and fly their flag, and not complain that others note their affiliations.

"> Greenpeace et. al., tells me
> I have to trust big government."

Again, a bit of hyperbole,

When I read environmentalist websites, Greenpeace to MoJo, or political activist websites, from Salon to MoJo to ThinkProgress, the constant refrain over and over is to trust absolutely the Federal Gov't on this issue.

Same thing with vaccines, and I say that not because I am against vaccines, just to point out the flipping of the position from these 1970ish counter cultural groups.

Glenn Greenwald points out the flipping that occurred between the time of Bush and the time of Obama wrt the left's embrace of privacy violations, assassinations of citizens, etc.

These groups that used to say, don't trust the government now say trust the government on environmental issues, and social issues, etc.

My point was mainly to offer one explanation for Gordon Gauchat's findings, which is that political explanations seem to predict the outcome much better than a genetic explanation.

I think we can both agree that Mooney's article was way offbase.

libertea73 said...

This was the question from the GSS that Mr. Mooney uses to buttresss his argument.

"166. I am going to name some institutions in this country. Some people have complete confidence
in the people running these institutions. Suppose these people are at one end of the scale at
point number 1. Other people have no confidence at all in the people running these institutions.
Suppose these people are at the other end, at point 7.

Where would you place yourself on this scale for: k. Scientific community?"

That is not a question about science but about "the people running the scientific community". From the sixties to the present day scientific institutions have gradually drifted from funding from the private sector to funding from government. Conclusions about the changes in confidence in the people running the scientific community are obvious.

Mooney's argument is a logical fallacy known as "petitio principii" or begging the question.
He assumes his argument is true and then seeks to prove that those who disagree are denying the facts. He even goes beyond that, suggesting those who disagree are somehow genetically incapable of recognizing the facts.

Whatever the facts may be in the global warming debate, Mr. Mooney's argument is not only not "scientific" but it is illogical. As Mr. Appell says, "a perverse attempt to twist science purely for political purposes."

sylas said...

David, you say (this comment) in response to me:

It seems to me he, and you, are trying to have it both ways:

But I am not arguing for Mooney's thesis. I don't have a stake in that either way. I am only refuting a bad error in your blog post.

You brought up mutation rates. That's a complete non-sequitur; Mooney's thesis is not that there's a genetic disposition to reject science; it is rather that political circumstances have turned up in which the "republican brain" has this response.

I am not saying anything for or against genetic roles in how individuals respond to issues.

I am exclusively dealing with a specific point in your blog post, which is in error. OK?

Meta note. It is really hard to get away from the "team thinking" snare. I've done it with others; you've done it here with me. I am not on Mooney's team here.

A good way for anyone, on any side of these debates, to avoid distorting science is to actually stay focused on specific points which get challenged. I'm challenging your use of mutation rates as a refutation of the thesis. It isn't. It's a non-sequitur to side step this criticism by trying to segue into a different basis for rejecting Mooney's thesis.