Trumps Science

Ideology Often Trumps Science, Especially Among Conservatives

Two carefully couched studies parse how our political views impact the way we respond to scientific findings.

By Tom Jacobs

In recent years, two narratives have been competing to explain the often-testy relationship between science and ideology. One asserts that all political partisans tend to deny scientific findings when they threaten their world view. The other insists that conservatives are much more resistant to accepting settled science than liberals.

A pair of new studies featured in a special “politics and science” edition of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science suggests both assertions are fundamentally correct.

One paper, by an Ohio State University team led by Erik Nisbet, finds both liberals and conservatives express negative feelings towards the scientific community when research results challenge their assumptions. But the researchers found the intensity of conservatives’ reactions was four times greater than that of liberals.

The other, by Joshua Blank and Daron Shaw of the University of Texas-Austin, concludes that while Americans’ willingness to defer to science “varies considerably across issues,” Democrats “are relatively more likely to say they defer to scientific expertise.”

"Both liberals and conservatives respond more negatively to ideologically dissonant science communication, which indirectly leads to lower trust in the scientific community."

Overall, the Blank-Shaw paper is more optimistic, emphasizing that “scientific recommendations on public policy are taken seriously by partisans of all stripes.” In contrast, Nisbet and his colleagues Kathryn Cooper and R. Kelly Garrett “distressingly” conclude that political polarization “has the potential to depress trust in science.”

Both sets of authors couch their language carefully, emphasizing that partisans on both sides are at fault. But their actual results suggest a larger problem on the conservative side of the spectrum.

Nisbet and his team conducted an online survey of 1,518 adults, who filled out short surveys measuring their political ideology, general scientific knowledge, and understanding of certain hot-button issues. They were then randomly assigned to read a short summary of scientific findings on issues that make conservatives uncomfortable (climate change or human evolution), those that make liberals uncomfortable (hydraulic fracking or nuclear power), or non-political issues (astronomy or geology).

Afterwards, they were asked to describe the emotions the findings aroused in them, including the extent to which they felt anger and annoyance. They also expressed their level of agreement with five statements measuring their trust in scientists, including “I am suspicious of the scientific community.”

The key results: “Both liberals and conservatives respond more negatively to ideologically dissonant science communication, which indirectly leads to lower trust in the scientific community,” the researchers write.