Touting slogans such as 鈥淔acts have a well-known liberal bias鈥�, people on the Left have made clear they see themselves as the true heirs and defenders of the Enlightenment. New research, however, shows that they鈥檙e just as deluded as everybody else.
One study, published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, concluded that conservatives and liberals were to listening to opposing viewpoints on hot-button issues, such as same-sex marriage. In fact, they were willing to give up the chance to win money just to avoid the unpleasantness of hearing an opinion they disliked.
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A meta-analysis of 41 studies recently published on the Social Science Research Network : there was no difference in partisanship between liberals and conservatives. As it turns out, 鈥渙pen-minded鈥� liberals are plagued by confirmation bias to the same extent as 鈥渃losed-minded鈥� conservatives.
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Consider Seattle, a city that and is proudly one of the most progressive 鈥� and well educated 鈥� in the US. A warm embrace of scientific reality doesn鈥檛 come with the territory: Seattle isn鈥檛 terribly fond of biotechnology, rejecting GMOs and even vaccines. Rwanda鈥檚 childhood polio vaccination rate is . As for other vaccines, including MMR, only than Washington State. If liberalism translated into embracing science, we would expect places like Seattle to have vaccination rates of 100 per cent. Blame for 鈥渁lternative facts鈥� and 鈥渇ake news鈥� therefore, can鈥檛 be pinned solely on the Left or Right. Both are culpable.
Alternative realities
This shouldn鈥檛 come as a surprise to聽anyone who has followed politics in聽recent years. Society, fuelled by hyperpartisan news outlets and social media echo chambers, has created alternative realities for us to inhabit, full of self-reinforcing platitudes and free of any pesky information that might upset fragile world views.
That may explain the current US phenomenon of the 鈥溾��, as University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne called them, believing that聽鈥� as he put it聽鈥� 鈥渟ome positions aren鈥檛 just wrong, but [are] taboo to mention鈥�.
The resulting absence of intellectual diversity has contributed to a toxic and intolerant American university culture. Jonathan Haidt, a聽social psychologist at New York University, has documented . In聽1990, liberal academic psychologists outnumbered conservatives 4 to 1; today, the ratio is roughly 14 to 1.
Similar ideological exclusion was on聽display during the recent March for Science. Some protesters held signs that read, 鈥淪cience is not a liberal conspiracy.鈥�
That鈥檚 absolutely true. It is equally true, however, that science is for everybody 鈥� liberals and conservatives, atheists and believers. Twisting science into a bludgeon for political opponents is a gross perversion of humanity鈥檚 best attempt at secular knowledge. Worse, it does grievous damage to the institution of science. Trust in science has been .
As it turns out, turning science into聽a political weapon has backfired spectacularly. The good news is that the first step toward solving any problem is to admit that we have one.聽These new studies are a good first step.
