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Well, for views on climate change by political affiliation in the USA: http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=1550 http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=1550 F

Well, for views on climate change by political affiliation in the USA: http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=1550 http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=1550 For choices of "human-caused warming", "warming for natural reasons", and "not warming", opinions are split 30%/43%/24% for Republicans, 64%/29%/4% for Democrats, and 49%/38%/9% for independents. Assuming that party identification is roughly equally split three ways, that means that if all you know about a person is that they think the planet isn't getting warmer, you have 2-to-1 odds of that person being a Republican. Not a sure thing, but probably qualifies as "most". If you really need a source for people in rural areas and southern states, white people, and strongly religious people being disproportionately Republican I could probably find one, but c'mon. So, sure, he was probably overgeneralizing a bit but the statistical tendency is there and not exactly subtle. I'm sorry if you're offended by demographics, but that's the way things are. Outside the USA, of course, I doubt views on climate change correlate much at all with membership in US political parties, but I don't think that's what you meant.

jacoblyles 17y ago
Of course, the most visible educated critic happens to be an urban Canadian liberal who favored Obama in the last US election. The Republican/Democrat thing is just more stupid tribalism. It doesn't matter how good of an idea a Republican has, you'll never see an urban educated middle-class young person agreeing with them on the merits because the idea is from the wrong tribe. So, I'm not really sure what you're trying to prove, other than to whip up tribal sentiments in favor of the misbehaving scientists (silicon valley is VERY blue country).
- camccann 17y ago
  Okay. Yes? The statistics I mentioned basically support your point about tribalism, which I happen to agree with. Pointing out a prominent exception doesn't really disprove the demographics involved; if you know a person has a characteristic of one tribe you can usually confidently guess that they're substantially more likely to share other, apparently unrelated characteristics of that tribe, precisely because many people take political positions as a way to announce group identity, not because they've actually thought things through in any rational manner. I've no particular interest in defending the scientists involved in this nonsense (even under the most charitable interpretation of events, they've embarrassed themselves and their colleagues and undermined the credibility of their field) and I don't really like or identify with any of the popular political tribes. I just thought the person I replied to was being silly for apparently denying that the political tribe he seems to belong to has certain demographic tendencies.
  - jacoblyles 17y ago
    I'm a young urban atheist middle-class student in a graduate degree program who happens to be skeptical of the way the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis is presented to the public. Pointing out that most of my peer group is not skeptical and trying to link me with rural anti-intellectual protestants are rhetorical bully tactics, not engaging the debate on its merits.
    - camccann 17y ago
      The way any science is presented to the public is rubbish, and most of the public wouldn't understand it anyway even if it was explained properly. Welcome to the way things are, I'm afraid. And, frankly, I don't have the expertise to actually engage the debate on its merits, and neither do most people who take positions on the issue, so you'll have to forgive me if I assume most people with strong opinions on the matter have those opinions because of group identity. But, try this: stop and look around at your real peer group, people whose opinions you respect, whose moral values you share, whose political perspectives you agree with. If you find that you and they have in common many beliefs about contentious issues of a factual nature... you might want to stop and think about why that might be the case.
      - jacoblyles 17y ago
        I have no peer group such as you describe, but I'm a very odd person.

jacoblyles 17y ago

Of course, the most visible educated critic happens to be an urban Canadian liberal who favored Obama in the last US election. The Republican/Democrat thing is just more stupid tribalism. It doesn't matter how good of an idea a Republican has, you'll never see an urban educated middle-class young person agreeing with them on the merits because the idea is from the wrong tribe. So, I'm not really sure what you're trying to prove, other than to whip up tribal sentiments in favor of the misbehaving scientists (silicon valley is VERY blue country).

camccann 17y ago
Okay. Yes? The statistics I mentioned basically support your point about tribalism, which I happen to agree with. Pointing out a prominent exception doesn't really disprove the demographics involved; if you know a person has a characteristic of one tribe you can usually confidently guess that they're substantially more likely to share other, apparently unrelated characteristics of that tribe, precisely because many people take political positions as a way to announce group identity, not because they've actually thought things through in any rational manner. I've no particular interest in defending the scientists involved in this nonsense (even under the most charitable interpretation of events, they've embarrassed themselves and their colleagues and undermined the credibility of their field) and I don't really like or identify with any of the popular political tribes. I just thought the person I replied to was being silly for apparently denying that the political tribe he seems to belong to has certain demographic tendencies.
- jacoblyles 17y ago
  I'm a young urban atheist middle-class student in a graduate degree program who happens to be skeptical of the way the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis is presented to the public. Pointing out that most of my peer group is not skeptical and trying to link me with rural anti-intellectual protestants are rhetorical bully tactics, not engaging the debate on its merits.
  - camccann 17y ago
    The way any science is presented to the public is rubbish, and most of the public wouldn't understand it anyway even if it was explained properly. Welcome to the way things are, I'm afraid. And, frankly, I don't have the expertise to actually engage the debate on its merits, and neither do most people who take positions on the issue, so you'll have to forgive me if I assume most people with strong opinions on the matter have those opinions because of group identity. But, try this: stop and look around at your real peer group, people whose opinions you respect, whose moral values you share, whose political perspectives you agree with. If you find that you and they have in common many beliefs about contentious issues of a factual nature... you might want to stop and think about why that might be the case.
    - jacoblyles 17y ago
      I have no peer group such as you describe, but I'm a very odd person.