Oops.

Tea Party: More Scientific Knowledge

Yale Law professor Dan M. Kahan was conducting an analysis of the scientific comprehension of various political groups when he ran into a shocking discovery.

Eureka! Tea partiers know science

Liberal, Funny, Science, Brilliance, Narrative, Oops, Stereotyping

However, those who identified as part of the tea party movement were actually better versed in science than those who didn’t, Kahan found. The findings met the conventional threshold of statistical significance, the professor said. Kahan wrote that not only did the findings surprise him, they embarrassed him.

“I’ve got to confess, though, I found this result surprising. As I pushed the button to run the analysis on my computer, I fully expected I’d be shown a modest negative correlation between identifying with the Tea Party and science comprehension,” Kahan wrote. “But then again, I don’t know a single person who identifies with the tea party,” he continued.

Democrats and SCIENCE

% Correctly Answering That the Earth Goes Around the Sun & That It Takes a Year

NORC GSS 2012, including panel data; weighted N=2186
Political Group% Correctwtd N
Democrat 48.6% 778
Independent 55.0% 853
Republican 62.1% 556
Liberal Democrat 62.0% 356
Moderate Democrat 43.7% 258
Conservative Republican 67.2% 403

Do we need new a government program to get Democrats better educated?