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I dislike this study. It naively picks out a few conservative views to lampoon as examples of irrationality (I say this as a liberal), and then hopes to general

I dislike this study. It naively picks out a few conservative views to lampoon as examples of irrationality (I say this as a liberal), and then hopes to generalize this as "controversial topics" This is too narrow. We shouldn't pretend that human beliefs are predominantly logical with a few strange exceptions. By and large we know incredibly little, most of what we "know" is because authorities have told us about it (e.g. I've never seen Africa with my own eyes), and most of what we believe isn't scientifically meaningful (i.e. justice/goodness being social constructs).

glitcher 8y ago
For the purposes of attempting to understand why people continue to believe in things when there is much scientific evidence to the contrary, I felt the list they chose was very representative of relevant topics that fit this criteria. If you were to attempt to balance what you see as bias in this study, what are some specific examples that you feel would improve it?
- aidenn0 8y ago
  Many I know on the left would deny any evidence of intrinsic psychological differences between the sexes. GMO safety is probably another one, but one example they gave of fallacious reasoning, while logically fallacious, is also well lined up with reality.
  - n4r9 8y ago
    There's definitely a stronger inclination within the "left" to attribute sex-/gender-specific trait differences to culture/environmental causes rather than genetics. I'm kind of interested in the challenge of picking out how far genetics predetermines things but as far as I know there's not really a scientific consensus - at least nowhere near as much as for climate change or GMOs?
    - repolfx 8y ago
      There is absolute scientific consensus with regards to the things the left routinely rejects, e.g. different interests in different job roles are biological and not cultural, men earn more (collectively) because they make different choices and not due to discrimination, that there is no sexism against women during job hiring, etc. You can find studies that back these things up everywhere, yet the Damore incident showed a huge propensity to not only ignore or deny this science but actively persecute anyone who pointed it out. Another hot button trigger for the left is false rape allegations. Multiple studies (with replications) have shown the figure is extremely high, like 50% or more. Studies that claim otherwise invariably have severe flaws that render them unscientific (e.g. dropping huge numbers of data points). Good luck debating those studies with anyone who wanted Bernie Sanders. One more example: for the longest time psychologists ignored the question of stereotype accuracy, because psychology is dominated by left-wing academics (this is itself studied). Eventually a small number of conservative academics started examining this and discovering that stereotypes are extremely and surprisingly (?) accurate. Of course many stereotypes associate negative traits with various subgroups which is anathema to certain political orientations, so this sort of science is often also instinctively rejected. edit: ahaha, voted down within 60 seconds, on a topic about how whether people reject scientific consensus about political hot button topics or not. What a shock.
      - n4r9 8y ago
        I didn't down-vote you, but for someone who's talking about how easy it is to find studies backing up what you're saying, you haven't been very forthcoming with citing any of those studies. Also, you went off on a bit of a wild tangent about how awful the left are. HN doesn't generally like politically-motivated rants.
        repolfx 8y ago
        I was responding to a post that started by talking about the left, in a thread that is entirely about political differences in what science is accepted. That's hardly a wild tangent unless the entire thread is. Indeed the reaction to this post is perfect validation of the original claim. What I'm claiming here is not obscure, weird, or hard to find. Would you expect me to cite a claim that scientists generally agree that climate change is man made? So why should I be expected to cite studies, when my claim is literally that they all say the same thing? Anyway, I can see that we're deep in the thick of science denial in this thread, so fine. Damore already did cite studies, go read his memo to find the links. Or read this story by scientists saying that scientists agree with him: https://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/ https://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists... Or this article about the replicability of stereotype accuracy: http://www.spsp.org/news-center/blog/stereotype-accuracy-response http://www.spsp.org/news-center/blog/stereotype-accuracy-res... Again, I should not have to cite studies when there is a scientific consensus about something. It should be up to you to cite studies showing the opposite.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  >what are some specific examples that you feel would improve it? The positive correlation between readily available long guns (i.e. non handguns) and violent crime (protip: the official stats tell the opposite story) is the equivalent to climate change denial (i.e. directly contradicted by pretty much all available evidence and pretty much everyone who is an expert in the subject) for the other end of the political spectrum. If you're looking for examples of illogical opinions this one is as good as any.
  - lostcolony 8y ago
    I'd be quite interested in those stats if you can give me a citation. I can come up with a few ways to explain that correlation off the top of my head that would not imply causation (such as "long guns are more commonly owned in rural areas, so have proportionally higher ownership, and such areas also tend to see lower crime rates per square mile due to low population density", i.e., a third variable problem), so I'd be really interested to see the underlying data.
  - Buldak 8y ago
    Presumably a good test case should involve a scientific consensus that the average person could reasonably be expected to be familiar with. What you're suggesting does not seem to fit (to be honest, I'm not even sure offhand what a "long gun" is).
- alexandercrohde 8y ago
  > why people continue to believe in things when there is much scientific evidence to the contrary No, it's not though. It's cherry-picked political. Most instances of believing this contrary to evidence aren't just political. They are individual (e.g. thinking one is smarter than they are), religious, social (glorifying founding fathers), or even ethical
Buldak 8y ago
What is a controversial scientific view that you wouldn't characterize as "conservative"? The article mentions aversion to GMO, does that count?
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Aversion to GMO is a sort of aversion to the unknown. Something like "regulation of long guns (shotguns, rifles, other things that aren't handguns) in various states in the US has had a non-negligible impact on crime in those states" would be more on par with climate change denial because in both cases you really have to pick a lot of cherries to back up the claim.
- malmsteen 8y ago
  "nuclear power is the safest on earth" (cf forbes article which show death/kwh is even lower than wind / water energy)
  - beat 8y ago
    That article is not a very good example. It makes some pretty twisted arguments, the sort of thing boys in college say to make themselves feel smart.
    - malmsteen 8y ago
      Its just numbers.. you can interpret as you want.
      - beat 8y ago
        You can interpret as you want, but start interpreting in a way that reflects poorly on the intellectual habits of the average HN reader, and you get downvoted to oblivion.
- moate 8y ago
  Anti-vaxxers tend to be described as middle/upper-class liberals. GMO/Organic trends do also tend to be similar groups
KirinDave 8y ago
> I dislike this study. It naively picks out a few conservative views to lampoon as examples of irrationality (I say this as a liberal), and then hopes to generalize this as "controversial topics" I strong object to this. Having been deeply involved both with this topic, skeptical advocacy, and having been raised deeply conservative: "GMO foods" is not a conservative anti-science issue. It's deeply "liberal", and generally stems from an inability to separate unethical corporate work and interests with the outcomes of technology. Similarly, many anti-vaccination misinformation peddlers are squarely aligned with what constitutes the "left" in American popular culture. > This is too narrow. We shouldn't pretend that human beliefs are predominantly logical with a few strange exceptions. Again, I think you're reading into both the study and the article. This is more a study of how people rationalize their beliefs and in some cases, political affiliations inform that. It's an important topic. > By and large we know incredibly little, most of what we "know" is because authorities have told us about it Science, of course, neither creates reality nor truly measures it. It can only measure our observations, and we can seek to make our observations ever more reflective of reality. The entire point of that process is for us to convince one another and survive each other's reasonable objections. Understanding how people work themselves up to reject such a consensus-driven process, and how the mental techniques they use may be addressed. The stakes are quite high.
- jacobolus 8y ago
  > many anti-vaccination misinformation peddlers are squarely aligned with what constitutes the "left" “Squarely aligned”? Nope, anti-vaxxers are not “squarely aligned” with any broad political movement. Responsible politicians, party officials, pundits, etc. of all parties and ideologies are pro-vaccination. But e.g. the Governor-Elect of Oklahoma is a GOP anti-vaxxer. It is incredibly dangerous when these views start to get legitimized: children will die.
  - tomjakubowski 8y ago
    Trump is another noted anti-vaxxer. It's only anecdata, but all the anti-vaxxers I've known have been wealthy GOP voters.
james_s_tayler 8y ago
I don't think they are saying that we are predominantly logical with a few exceptions around controversial topics... I think they are saying something much, much deeper and maybe this is just my confirmation bias kicking in here but it really supports my observations on a position I've held for a couple of years now. I think what they are alluding to is that we are not logical and not rational in how we choose all of our beliefs as we do not try to seek out what is true (except for one edge case), instead we try to seek consensus within some political sphere (a group of any kind). The so called controversial topics are where it's easiest to spot and easiest to study. But there is a stunningly deep implication that just because there is an uncontroversial consensus around something it doesn't mean the conclusion was arrived at by a sound process. So you actually really have to question everything. For a while now I've been saying people don't argue for what is true, they argue for political affiliation. It's close to impossible for humans to tell what's true. Often it would take trillions of dollars, millions of people or thousands of years to actually verify something as being the case. We take 99.99% of our existence on faith because it's simply not possible for us to fact check it. And if it's not possible for us to fact check what is true except for in the most basic of cases why would it ever be important to us as a social behavior? So that's why we see what this article points out. At least in my view. We do do some degree of fact checking but it's usually the minimum viable fact checking to coordinate with our peers. The interesting edge case they point out where some people do reason consistently is also signaling political affiliation. They are attempting to signal "I'm on team evidence-based". But the interesting thing about team "evidence-based" is they tend not to question or be skeptical so much of the fraud and other social phenomenon (replication crisis etc) present in science. They take it on faith that "this is the best answer I have whether it is true or not, but it's most likely true therefore it's true". Even team evidence-based isn't purely rational. And for good reason. They can't be. It's simply not viable to personally try to reproduce every study you read. We are political animals that care about our survival and forming consensus. Not truth.

glitcher 8y ago

For the purposes of attempting to understand why people continue to believe in things when there is much scientific evidence to the contrary, I felt the list they chose was very representative of relevant topics that fit this criteria. If you were to attempt to balance what you see as bias in this study, what are some specific examples that you feel would improve it?

aidenn0 8y ago
Many I know on the left would deny any evidence of intrinsic psychological differences between the sexes. GMO safety is probably another one, but one example they gave of fallacious reasoning, while logically fallacious, is also well lined up with reality.
- n4r9 8y ago
  There's definitely a stronger inclination within the "left" to attribute sex-/gender-specific trait differences to culture/environmental causes rather than genetics. I'm kind of interested in the challenge of picking out how far genetics predetermines things but as far as I know there's not really a scientific consensus - at least nowhere near as much as for climate change or GMOs?
  - repolfx 8y ago
    There is absolute scientific consensus with regards to the things the left routinely rejects, e.g. different interests in different job roles are biological and not cultural, men earn more (collectively) because they make different choices and not due to discrimination, that there is no sexism against women during job hiring, etc. You can find studies that back these things up everywhere, yet the Damore incident showed a huge propensity to not only ignore or deny this science but actively persecute anyone who pointed it out. Another hot button trigger for the left is false rape allegations. Multiple studies (with replications) have shown the figure is extremely high, like 50% or more. Studies that claim otherwise invariably have severe flaws that render them unscientific (e.g. dropping huge numbers of data points). Good luck debating those studies with anyone who wanted Bernie Sanders. One more example: for the longest time psychologists ignored the question of stereotype accuracy, because psychology is dominated by left-wing academics (this is itself studied). Eventually a small number of conservative academics started examining this and discovering that stereotypes are extremely and surprisingly (?) accurate. Of course many stereotypes associate negative traits with various subgroups which is anathema to certain political orientations, so this sort of science is often also instinctively rejected. edit: ahaha, voted down within 60 seconds, on a topic about how whether people reject scientific consensus about political hot button topics or not. What a shock.
    - n4r9 8y ago
      I didn't down-vote you, but for someone who's talking about how easy it is to find studies backing up what you're saying, you haven't been very forthcoming with citing any of those studies. Also, you went off on a bit of a wild tangent about how awful the left are. HN doesn't generally like politically-motivated rants.
      - repolfx 8y ago
        I was responding to a post that started by talking about the left, in a thread that is entirely about political differences in what science is accepted. That's hardly a wild tangent unless the entire thread is. Indeed the reaction to this post is perfect validation of the original claim. What I'm claiming here is not obscure, weird, or hard to find. Would you expect me to cite a claim that scientists generally agree that climate change is man made? So why should I be expected to cite studies, when my claim is literally that they all say the same thing? Anyway, I can see that we're deep in the thick of science denial in this thread, so fine. Damore already did cite studies, go read his memo to find the links. Or read this story by scientists saying that scientists agree with him: https://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/ https://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists... Or this article about the replicability of stereotype accuracy: http://www.spsp.org/news-center/blog/stereotype-accuracy-response http://www.spsp.org/news-center/blog/stereotype-accuracy-res... Again, I should not have to cite studies when there is a scientific consensus about something. It should be up to you to cite studies showing the opposite.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
>what are some specific examples that you feel would improve it? The positive correlation between readily available long guns (i.e. non handguns) and violent crime (protip: the official stats tell the opposite story) is the equivalent to climate change denial (i.e. directly contradicted by pretty much all available evidence and pretty much everyone who is an expert in the subject) for the other end of the political spectrum. If you're looking for examples of illogical opinions this one is as good as any.
- lostcolony 8y ago
  I'd be quite interested in those stats if you can give me a citation. I can come up with a few ways to explain that correlation off the top of my head that would not imply causation (such as "long guns are more commonly owned in rural areas, so have proportionally higher ownership, and such areas also tend to see lower crime rates per square mile due to low population density", i.e., a third variable problem), so I'd be really interested to see the underlying data.
- Buldak 8y ago
  Presumably a good test case should involve a scientific consensus that the average person could reasonably be expected to be familiar with. What you're suggesting does not seem to fit (to be honest, I'm not even sure offhand what a "long gun" is).
alexandercrohde 8y ago
> why people continue to believe in things when there is much scientific evidence to the contrary No, it's not though. It's cherry-picked political. Most instances of believing this contrary to evidence aren't just political. They are individual (e.g. thinking one is smarter than they are), religious, social (glorifying founding fathers), or even ethical

Buldak 8y ago

What is a controversial scientific view that you wouldn't characterize as "conservative"? The article mentions aversion to GMO, does that count?

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
Aversion to GMO is a sort of aversion to the unknown. Something like "regulation of long guns (shotguns, rifles, other things that aren't handguns) in various states in the US has had a non-negligible impact on crime in those states" would be more on par with climate change denial because in both cases you really have to pick a lot of cherries to back up the claim.
malmsteen 8y ago
"nuclear power is the safest on earth" (cf forbes article which show death/kwh is even lower than wind / water energy)
- beat 8y ago
  That article is not a very good example. It makes some pretty twisted arguments, the sort of thing boys in college say to make themselves feel smart.
  - malmsteen 8y ago
    Its just numbers.. you can interpret as you want.
    - beat 8y ago
      You can interpret as you want, but start interpreting in a way that reflects poorly on the intellectual habits of the average HN reader, and you get downvoted to oblivion.
moate 8y ago
Anti-vaxxers tend to be described as middle/upper-class liberals. GMO/Organic trends do also tend to be similar groups

KirinDave 8y ago

> I dislike this study. It naively picks out a few conservative views to lampoon as examples of irrationality (I say this as a liberal), and then hopes to generalize this as "controversial topics" I strong object to this. Having been deeply involved both with this topic, skeptical advocacy, and having been raised deeply conservative: "GMO foods" is not a conservative anti-science issue. It's deeply "liberal", and generally stems from an inability to separate unethical corporate work and interests with the outcomes of technology. Similarly, many anti-vaccination misinformation peddlers are squarely aligned with what constitutes the "left" in American popular culture. > This is too narrow. We shouldn't pretend that human beliefs are predominantly logical with a few strange exceptions. Again, I think you're reading into both the study and the article. This is more a study of how people rationalize their beliefs and in some cases, political affiliations inform that. It's an important topic. > By and large we know incredibly little, most of what we "know" is because authorities have told us about it Science, of course, neither creates reality nor truly measures it. It can only measure our observations, and we can seek to make our observations ever more reflective of reality. The entire point of that process is for us to convince one another and survive each other's reasonable objections. Understanding how people work themselves up to reject such a consensus-driven process, and how the mental techniques they use may be addressed. The stakes are quite high.

jacobolus 8y ago
> many anti-vaccination misinformation peddlers are squarely aligned with what constitutes the "left" “Squarely aligned”? Nope, anti-vaxxers are not “squarely aligned” with any broad political movement. Responsible politicians, party officials, pundits, etc. of all parties and ideologies are pro-vaccination. But e.g. the Governor-Elect of Oklahoma is a GOP anti-vaxxer. It is incredibly dangerous when these views start to get legitimized: children will die.
- tomjakubowski 8y ago
  Trump is another noted anti-vaxxer. It's only anecdata, but all the anti-vaxxers I've known have been wealthy GOP voters.

james_s_tayler 8y ago

I don't think they are saying that we are predominantly logical with a few exceptions around controversial topics... I think they are saying something much, much deeper and maybe this is just my confirmation bias kicking in here but it really supports my observations on a position I've held for a couple of years now. I think what they are alluding to is that we are not logical and not rational in how we choose all of our beliefs as we do not try to seek out what is true (except for one edge case), instead we try to seek consensus within some political sphere (a group of any kind). The so called controversial topics are where it's easiest to spot and easiest to study. But there is a stunningly deep implication that just because there is an uncontroversial consensus around something it doesn't mean the conclusion was arrived at by a sound process. So you actually really have to question everything. For a while now I've been saying people don't argue for what is true, they argue for political affiliation. It's close to impossible for humans to tell what's true. Often it would take trillions of dollars, millions of people or thousands of years to actually verify something as being the case. We take 99.99% of our existence on faith because it's simply not possible for us to fact check it. And if it's not possible for us to fact check what is true except for in the most basic of cases why would it ever be important to us as a social behavior? So that's why we see what this article points out. At least in my view. We do do some degree of fact checking but it's usually the minimum viable fact checking to coordinate with our peers. The interesting edge case they point out where some people do reason consistently is also signaling political affiliation. They are attempting to signal "I'm on team evidence-based". But the interesting thing about team "evidence-based" is they tend not to question or be skeptical so much of the fraud and other social phenomenon (replication crisis etc) present in science. They take it on faith that "this is the best answer I have whether it is true or not, but it's most likely true therefore it's true". Even team evidence-based isn't purely rational. And for good reason. They can't be. It's simply not viable to personally try to reproduce every study you read. We are political animals that care about our survival and forming consensus. Not truth.