Education makes you dumber…

At least in this case:

From “Education, politics and opinions about climate change evidence for interaction effects” (PDF):

Abstract U.S. public opinion regarding climate change has become increasingly polarized in recent years, as partisan think tanks and others worked to recast an originally scientific topic into a political wedge issue. Nominally “scientific” arguments against taking anthropogenic climate change seriously have been publicized to reach informed but ideologically receptive audiences. Reflecting the success of such arguments, polls have noted that concern about climate change increased with edu- cation among Democrats, but decreased with education among Republicans. These observations lead to the hypothesis that there exist interaction (non-additive) effects between education or knowledge and political orientation, net of other background factors, in predicting public concern about climate change. Two regional telephone surveys, conducted in New Hampshire (n=541) and Michigan (n=1,008) in 2008, included identical climate-change questions that provide opportunities to test this hypothesis. Multivariate analysis of both surveys finds significant interactions. These empirical results fit with theoretical interpretations and several other recent studies. They suggest that the classically identified social bases of concern about the environment in general, and climate in particular, have shifted in recent years. Narrowcast media, including the many Web sites devoted to discrediting climate- change concerns, provide ideal conduits for channeling contrarian arguments to an audience predisposed to believe and electronically spread them further. Active- response Web sites by climate scientists could prove critical to counterbalancing contrarian arguments.

There seems to be something here that explains a lot about beliefs other than climate change: evolution and political subjects like health care and economic policy – pretty much any subject where an intellectually indefensible position is in fact defended by ideologically-driven snake oil outfits whose product is scientific-sounding doubt of some mainstream scientific consensus. See “The Merchants of Doubt”.

UPDATE: Here is some follow-up material on this issue, some of which shows that on the subject of evolution, there is still an enormous conservative/ liberal split (with reality favoring the liberals again), but education doesn’t make you dumber.

Gleick, master of science writing

The NY Times has a review of James Gleick’s new book, The Information:

“The Information” offers this point-blank characterization of its author: “James Gleick is our leading chronicler of science and modern technology.” This new book goes far beyond the earlier Gleick milestones, “Chaos” and “Genius,” to validate that claim…“The Information” is so ambitious, illuminating and sexily theoretical that it will amount to aspirational reading for many of those who have the mettle to tackle it. Don’t make the mistake of reading it quickly.

Chaos and Genius are on my list of all-time greatest science books. If The Information is in their company, then this is going to be _the_ science book to read this year. I’m not sure what “aspirational reading” means, but The Information is sitting on my desk and I’m ready to savor it.

In the Beginning. . .or Icky Genesis Genetics

1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.2And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
– Genesis 1:1-2 (King James Version – KJV)

And then he made humans, at least twice-ish[1]. Embarrassingly, he seemed to only make one family, which meant that when it came time for Adam and Eve’s son, Cain[2], to go looking for a bride, he was not going to go looking very far from home.

If you are not descended from a line of Egyptian pharaohs, now is the time to say “EWWW!” and start wondering why all of humanity doesn’t look like Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel. Continue reading “In the Beginning. . .or Icky Genesis Genetics”

Bath Time at 1:7 Scale

I have to give my two year old daughter credit for her great attitude.

Were I to be scrubbed clean by a, to scale, 12 foot tall, 1500 pound man, I’m not sure I’d be so circumspect.

When Supplements Work? or (may) Kill

Normally, when we learn that alternative medicine substances are contaminated with actual, scientifically tested pharmaceuticals that happen to do the exact same thing the “all-natural” supplement purports to do (oops), we can happily report these issues are not associated with serious injury or death. Normally. Sometimes people do get hurt:

FDA has received multiple reports of adverse events associated with the use of Fruta Planta, including several cardiac events and one death. FDA laboratory analysis confirmed that Fruta Planta contains sibutramine, a controlled substance that was withdrawn from the market in October 2010 for safety reasons. The product poses a threat to consumers because sibutramine is known to substantially increase blood pressure and/or pulse rate in some patients and may present a significant risk for patients with a history of coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, arrhythmias or stroke. Fruta Planta may also interact in life threatening ways with other medications a consumer may be taking.
– FDA Medwatch – “Fruta Planta: Public Notification – Undeclared Drug Ingredient” – 23 December 2010 (emphasis mine) Continue reading “When Supplements Work? or (may) Kill”