{"id":22867,"date":"2019-04-02T13:02:38","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T17:02:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=22867"},"modified":"2019-04-02T13:41:11","modified_gmt":"2019-04-02T17:41:11","slug":"party-of-science-scores-lower-than-party-of-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/02\/party-of-science-scores-lower-than-party-of-stupid\/","title":{"rendered":"Party of Science scores lower than Party of Stupid"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“What Americans Know About Science”<\/a> (Pew Research) is subtitled “Science knowledge levels remain strongly tied to education; Republicans and Democrats are about equally knowledgeable,” but it turns out that “equal” translates to “Republicans know more”:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republicans and independents who lean to the Republican Party average seven correct answers<\/strong>, while Democrats and independents who lean to the Democratic Party average 6.6<\/strong>. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A difference of 0.4<\/strong> doesn’t sound huge, right? But the difference between Americans with postgraduate degrees and bachelor’s degrees was only 0.6<\/strong>. Being a Republican was worth about the same as two years of graduate school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering that Democrats have branded themselves the “Party of Science” while decrying the purported anti-science idiocy of Republicans, these data are interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even more interesting is why we continue to have faith in our unique capacity to solve the world’s science and engineering problems. When a politician proposes a reduction in the growth of government spending on grants to science labs (not an actual cut, of course, though a lower growth rate will be characterized by “scientists” as a “cut”), the reaction includes statements that this will mean the end of scientific progress. This necessarily assumes that scientific discoveries can be made only in the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Global warming? Only Americans can help! This has the same logical basis as Tom Cruise explaining that a car accident calls for a Scientologist<\/a>. It won’t be Chinese and German engineers who come up with improved solar cells, wind turbines, batteries, and CO2 vacuums. (After all, the fundamentals were all developed in the U.S. It was American Edmond Becquerel<\/a>, working in a Paris, Texas lab, who discovered the photovoltaic effect; American Albert Einstein<\/a> later explained the photoelectric effect while working in Zurich, Kansas.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who are these Americans ready to help solve the world’s toughest problems? Fully 39 percent of us know that a “base” is the opposite of an “acid”. Plainly we are going to be experts on the carbon cycle<\/a> and atmospheric CO2 washing out into carbonic acid. Americans can do even better when adjusting for the sun’s influence on climate, since 63 percent of us know that the tilt of the Earth is responsible for the seasons (survey methodology<\/a>). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“What Americans Know About Science” (Pew Research) is subtitled “Science knowledge levels remain strongly tied to education; Republicans and Democrats are about equally knowledgeable,” but it turns out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-science"],"yoast_head":"\nParty of Science scores lower than Party of Stupid - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/02\/party-of-science-scores-lower-than-party-of-stupid\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Party of Science scores lower than Party of Stupid - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"“What Americans Know About Science” (Pew Research) is subtitled “Science knowledge levels remain strongly tied to education; 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