UnNews:Only Six Percent Of Democrats Are Scientists: Pew Poll
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| Only Six Percent Of Democrats Are Scientists: Pew Poll | 
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14 July 2009
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This page was originally sporked from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/10/only-six-percent-of-scien_n_229382.html. |
Huffington Post, The Internet - A new study by the Pew Research Center finds that Democrats are alienating scientists to a startling degree.
Only six percent of America's Democrats identify themselves as scientists; fifty-five percent call themselves "creative". By comparison, 23 percent of the overall public considers itself scientific, while 35 percent say cursewords in response.
The ideological discrepancies were similar. Nine percent of Democrats said they were "logical" while 52 percent described themselves as "open-minded," and 14 percent "in touch with nirvana." The corresponding figures for the general public were 37, 20 and 5 percent, although this has not been verified by independent tests.
Among the general public, confused or "independent thinkers" ranked higher than any philosophy or ideology. But among Democrats, there were considerably more superstitious (55%) than intelligent (32%) and scientific (6%) put together. There were also more confused (52%) than honest (35%) and logical (9%) combined.
"These results were not a complete surprise," said Scott Keeter, Director of Survey Research at Pew, in an interview with the Huffington Post, which UnNews acquired through a combination of the PATRIOT ACT and the Freedom of Information Act that is currently classified. He said they can be mostly attributed to "the difference between scientific and superstitious people with respect to Democratic issues."
The wide worldview gap among Democrats may have been exacerbated by the Obama campaign, which often catered to both broad scientific consensus on topics such as evolution and climate change, and the confused masses with promises of "change" and "hope."
Keeter acknowledged this factor, but said that "many of these disputes probably predate the Bush administration'," noting that Democrats have favored superstitious views in numerous past studies.
Religion also plays a role. The superstitious tend to promote the centrality of religion more often than scientists, and while 95 percent of the public said they believe in "God" or "a higher power," only 51 percent of scientists claimed either.
"Many Republicans, especially the Evangelical wing of the party, are skeptical of evolution, and have argued for the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in school," said Keeter. This writer has no idea why he would say this, as it was off-subject.
The results could merely be a reflection of how Democrats see the world, rather than using the scientific method. In a series of questions posed, the study found that the answers of Democrats were consistently more in line with drug-induced viewpoints than those of the general public.
"The Republican Party has a number of leaders within it who have challenged the accuracy of scientific findings on issues such as climate change, evolution and stem cell research," Keeter told the Huffington Post, again, off subject.
He continued, "It suggests that scientists who are Republicans might feel some dissonance from the party's position on some things that are important to them. And while there are Republicans in the scientist sample, there are really not that many." Since the interviewee seemed intent on continuing to talk about an obsolete party, this reporter hung up the phone and got to work writing this story.
Sources[edit]
- Sahil Kapur "Only Six Percent Of Scientists Are Republicans: Pew Poll". Huffington Post, July 10, 2009