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This is intuitive. People aren't consistent, why should we expect their reasoning to be? Especially when the main determinant for most peoples' views on controv

This is intuitive. People aren't consistent, why should we expect their reasoning to be? Especially when the main determinant for most peoples' views on controversial topics, in the USA at least, is their political party affiliation. Why is it that having a D or R in front of a politician's name can correctly predict around 80-90% of their viewpoints? It's a clustering effect, people select D or R, and then cobble together reasoning as best they can to defend their felt views. Perfectly evidenced by the use of science, for instance. You have something like a pro-life movement, which co-opts scientific "facts" to support their view of fetuses being humans. But then these same GOP voters ignore scientific "facts" when it comes to climate change. This is due to the Republican politicians, who cluster all of their supporter's views to match their own. It's the same on the Democratic side - look at anti-GMO protesters who are ignorant of the scientifically proven benefits of GMO's, yet who point to 98% of scientists reaching consensus on climate change. Political party is stronger than reasoning or consistency.

cdoxsey 8y ago
Because political questions don't have scientific solutions. Pro-life supporters aren't co-opting science when they claim a fetus is a human being, they are undermining a possible objection: obviously everyone recognizes that killing a 1 year old is not ok, regardless how the mother feels about it, so why is it ok to kill a fetus? What's the relevant distinction between the two cases? In a former time people didn't have a good understanding of human development, so you might claim the fetus wasn't really human until it was born. Scientifically that doesn't hold up. But you might still be ok with abortion on other grounds. Perhaps a rationale based on capabilities or intelligence, etc. You can levy science to support a premise in an argument, but science can't decide the policy. That comes down to values, trade-offs, philosophy and ideology. Climate change is a great example. What everyone talks about is a belief in a one sentence description of an idea. But the actual detailed contours of that belief, and the scientific arguments that led to its conclusion... who has those? Climate isn't exactly easy to understand, even for an expert, and people have other priorities about things they care about. For a Republican its mostly going to come down to trust in government, and its that ideology which drives the conclusion. Anyway I don't think scientific shibboleths are all that valuable. I'd much rather people actually understand this stuff, but the truth is its asking too much. People live busy lives and not everyone can be a scientist.

cdoxsey 8y ago

Because political questions don't have scientific solutions. Pro-life supporters aren't co-opting science when they claim a fetus is a human being, they are undermining a possible objection: obviously everyone recognizes that killing a 1 year old is not ok, regardless how the mother feels about it, so why is it ok to kill a fetus? What's the relevant distinction between the two cases? In a former time people didn't have a good understanding of human development, so you might claim the fetus wasn't really human until it was born. Scientifically that doesn't hold up. But you might still be ok with abortion on other grounds. Perhaps a rationale based on capabilities or intelligence, etc. You can levy science to support a premise in an argument, but science can't decide the policy. That comes down to values, trade-offs, philosophy and ideology. Climate change is a great example. What everyone talks about is a belief in a one sentence description of an idea. But the actual detailed contours of that belief, and the scientific arguments that led to its conclusion... who has those? Climate isn't exactly easy to understand, even for an expert, and people have other priorities about things they care about. For a Republican its mostly going to come down to trust in government, and its that ideology which drives the conclusion. Anyway I don't think scientific shibboleths are all that valuable. I'd much rather people actually understand this stuff, but the truth is its asking too much. People live busy lives and not everyone can be a scientist.