Entry #3042: Both Sides Do It

Conservatives don’t trust science, and it’s not because of under-education since the trust is lacking even among those with advanced degrees.

It came as a surprise to me that Jenna and not-Jenna are supporters of Obama.

America’s political spectrum. The problem of course is the call for a third party implies the “both sides do it” myth.

iPod Shuffle:

1. When We Ran (John Hiatt)
2. Pig, Sheep and Wolves (Paul Simon)
3. Wild Horses (The Rolling Stones)
4. Another Round of Blues (Shawn Colvin)
5. Rosalita (Bruce Springsteen)

Comments

[Paul]

How can you not "trust" science. Isn't that like not trusting math or gravity?

[joel hanes]

Many answers from science are provisional, even when the resulting predictions about phenomena are not. To a personality that craves stability and eternal verities, it's unsettling and deeply unsatisfactory to hear that neither Newton nor Maxwell was completely and eternally correct, that Einstein will only be thought right until new data contradicts his theories, and especially that such data is eagerly sought. In this worldview, the findings of Heisenberg and Godel cast a pall of uncertainty (naively equated with unreliability) over the entire enterprise.

Conservatives do not, as a general rule, understand or trust people who set out to overturn established opinion by showing that its underpinnings are mistaken.

In short: many conservatives want certainties. Science offers few.

[Mark H]

That explains many things, trickle down economics for example, and the many "zombie lies" (birtherism, etc) that no matter how many times they are refuted they still come up year after year.

[Paul]

Thanks, Joel and Mark.