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The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science- and Reality Hardcover – April 1, 2012
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From climate change to evolution, the rejection of mainstream science among Republicans is growing, as is the denial of expert consensus on the economy, American history, foreign policy and much more. Why won't Republicans accept things that most experts agree on? Why are they constantly fighting against the facts?
Science writer Chris Mooney explores brain scans, polls, and psychology experiments to explain why conservatives today believe more wrong things; appear more likely than Democrats to oppose new ideas and less likely to change their beliefs in the face of new facts; and sometimes respond to compelling evidence by doubling down on their current beliefs.
- Goes beyond the standard claims about ignorance or corporate malfeasance to discover the real, scientific reasons why Republicans reject the widely accepted findings of mainstream science, economics, and history—as well as many undeniable policy facts (e.g., there were no “death panels” in the health care bill).
- Explains that the political parties reflect personality traits and psychological needs—with Republicans more wedded to certainty, Democrats to novelty—and this is the root of our divide over reality.
- Written by the author of The Republican War on Science, which was the first and still the most influential book to look at conservative rejection of scientific evidence. But the rejection of science is just the beginning…
Certain to spark discussion and debate, The Republican Brain also promises to add to the lengthy list of persuasive scientific findings that Republicans reject and deny.
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherTrade Paper Press
- Publication dateApril 1, 2012
- Dimensions6.46 x 1.17 x 9.31 inches
- ISBN-101118094514
- ISBN-13978-1118094518
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Editorial Reviews
Review
From the Inside Flap
Part of the answer lies with motivated reasoning--the psychological phenomenon of preferring only evidence that backs up your belief--but in "The Republican Brain," Mooney explains that is just the tip of the cognitive iceberg. There is a growing body of evidence that conservatives and liberals don't just have differing ideologies; they have different psychologies. How could the rejection of mainstream science be growing among Republicans, along with the denial of expert consensus on the economy, American history, foreign policy, and much more? Why won't Republicans accept things that most experts agree on? Why are they constantly fighting against the facts? Increasingly, the answer appears to be: it's just part of who they are.
Mooney explores brain scans, polls, and psychology experiments to explain why conservatives today believe more wrong things; appear more likely than Democrats to oppose new ideas; are less likely to change their beliefs in the face of new facts; and sometimes respond to compelling evidence by doubling down on their current beliefs.
The answer begins with some measurable personality traits that strongly correspond with political preferences. For instance, people more wedded to certainty tend to become conservatives; people craving novelty, liberals. Surprisingly, openness to new experiences and fastidiousness are better predictors of political preference than income or education. If you like to keep your house neat and see the world in a relatively black and white way, you're probably going to vote Republican. If you've recently moved to a big city to see what else life has to offer, you're probably going to vote Democrat. These basic differences in openness and curiosity, Mooney argues, fuel an "expertise gap" between left and right that explains much of the battle today over what is true.
Being a good liberal, Mooney also has to explore the implications of these findings for Democrats as well. Are they really wishy-washy flip-floppers? Well, sometimes. Can't they be just as dogmatic about issues close to their hearts, like autism and vaccines, or nuclear power? His research leads to some surprising conclusions.
While the evolutionary advantages of both liberal and conservative psychologies seem obvious, clashes between them in modern life have led to a crisis in our politics. A significant chunk of the electorate, it seems, will never accept the facts as they are, no matter how strong the evidence. Understanding the psychology of the left and the right, Mooney argues, should therefore fundamentally alter the way we approach the he-said-he-said of public debates.
Certain to spark discussion and debate, "The Republican Brain" also promises to add to the lengthy list of persuasive scientific findings that Republicans reject and deny.
From the Back Cover
"Nothing short of a landmark in contemporary political reporting."
--Salon.com
"Mooney has bravely tackled a gigantic and complex topic."
--"The Washington Post"
""The Republican War on Science" does score some major hits when it takes on ideological campaigns against embryonic stem cell research and for intelligent design."
--"The New York Sun"
"Mooney's very readable, and understandably partisan, volume is the first to put the whole story, thoroughly documented, in one place."
--"Publishers Weekly" (starred review)
"Addresses a vitally important topic and gets it basically right."
--"The New York Times"
"Chris Mooney [is] one of the few journalists in the country who specialize in the now dangerous intersection of science and politics. His book is a well-researched, closely argued, and amply referenced indictment of the right wing's assault on science and scientists. In almost every instance, Republican leaders have branded the scientific mainstream as purveyors of 'junk science' and dubbed an extremist viewpoint--always at the end of the spectrum favoring big business or the religious Right--'sound science.' Rightists argue that the consensus itself is flawed. Then they encourage a debate between the consensus and the extremist naysayers, giving the two apparently equal weight. Thus, Mooney argues, it seems reasonable to split the difference or simply to argue that there is too much uncertainty to, say, ban a suspect chemical or fund a controversial form of research."
--"Scientific American"
"A careful reading of this well-researched and richly referenced work should remove any doubt that, at the highest levels of government, ideology is being advanced in the name of science, at great disservice to the American people."
--Neal Lane, former Director, National Science Foundation
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- Publisher : Trade Paper Press; First Edition (April 1, 2012)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1118094514
- ISBN-13 : 978-1118094518
- Item Weight : 1.23 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.46 x 1.17 x 9.31 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #487,189 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #287 in Political Parties (Books)
- #1,137 in Political Conservatism & Liberalism
- #1,671 in History & Philosophy of Science (Books)
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About the author

Chris Mooney is a science and political journalist, blogger, podcaster, and experienced trainer of scientists in the art of communication. He is the author of four books, including the New York Times bestselling The Republican War on Science and most recently The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science and Reality (April 2012). He blogs for Science Progress, a website of the Center for American Progress and Center for American Progress Action Fund, and is a host of the Point of Inquiry podcast.
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For those interested in reading M. Hanson's review and the comments to which I refer in my discussion, the review is on p. 6 of the reviews, with the link to comments located beneath it. The numbers of cited comments are given in parentheses (1-10 are on p. 1 of the comments, 11-20 on p. 2 etc). If you click on "your post" or "an earlier post" above each entry, you can see the text that is being addressed. My initial posts were to Hanson.(19, 22)
My first post to Enigma was to defend climate scientist Michael Mann's graph of historical temperatures that become known as the "hockey stick," and to contest the accuracy of several points that Enigma had made.(58) He replied by refusing to read the evidence to which I supplied the links, accused me of relying on leftists, like Al Gore and climate scientist James Hansen (actually a political independent), and of being dogmatic, ideological, and non-scientific. He claimed that his position was with science and fell between the ideologies of left and right.(63) He presented a chart he had constructed to make this clear. And he gave me five links to published papers that he claimed were "from scientific journals not ideological blogs that say the Mann hockey stick graph is pure BS."(63) In fact, none of the papers he cited mentioned the graph and none disproved its accuracy, although the first one reached a cautious conclusion that, if confirmed, could challenge Mann's graph.(135) But various other graphs have shown that the most recent temperatures are unmatched in the last thousand years (the greatest point of contention).
When I pointed out the flaws in his claims,(65) he responded with a list of 38 international academies, societies, and institutes of science that he said were on his side.(71) Stunningly, James Hansen, whom he put on the left side of his chart with the anti-science, dogmatic ideologues, heads NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, one of the institutions on his list of those exemplifying scientific truth! One wonders, if he has any familiarity with the institutions on his approved list, why he was unaware of this well-known fact. Another study that I discussed in my first response to him(58) was conducted by the National Academy of Sciences, which appears twice on his favored list. He never acknowledged the reference and repeatedly accused me of reading only biased blogs, while he got his science from the listed institutions. He claimed that all of these institutions had "temperature charts that say [Michael] Mann's hockey stick [graph of 6 centuries or 1000 years, according to which version he meant] was wrong."(71) What he refused to do was to even acknowledge the evidence I presented, much less try to point to any flaws in it. I compared this strategy to choosing superheroes to fight for our side when we were kids;(135) I suggested that saying the institutions were on his side was simply a verbal game if he could not indicate what particular ideas of theirs he agreed with and that I contested, but he never managed to produce any "chart" (I believe he meant any graph, but he produced neither) constructed by, or endorsed by, one of the museums on his list or any statement made by them with which he agreed. When I quoted from a research paper disproving criticisms that Mann's graph was based on manipulations of data and methods, and when I supplied further links to other science reports confirming the validity of Mann's graph,(101) Enigma's only response was to continue to claim that I only read partisan blogs, and that real science joined him between the politicized views of the left and right.
Enigma continually counseled me to "go to the source for real science,"(25) but he never gave me a reference to a scientific publication produced by any of the institutions he listed, much less used evidence in such publications to rebut any statements I made. I contested his claim that "all of these highly esteemed and internationally well thought of scientific organizations [on his list] have temperature charts that say Mann's hockey stick is wrong." and I challenged him to show an example.(117) He replied with a link to an investment website (possibly an error, except that he had given me the same link in an earlier post and claimed that it "shows NOAA charts" (it didn't).(125, 96) I responded by sending him a link to some hockey stick graphs with a text that confirmed Mann's graph in its essential characteristics at the NOAA website (on his approved list)(99), but was unable to find those described by Enigma.(96) He also gave me a link to a site with 125 graphs that he claimed disproved Mann's hockey stick, many of which did not cover the same region or time period, and others that were so odd it was not clear on what basis they had been constructed.(125) At the time I had not scanned all the way down the site, but checking back, I discovered a long list of hyperlinked article titles below the graph section with titles such as "? Are Lefties/Elites/Libs Destroying/Ignoring Empirical Science" and "Science / Academia Journals Bias/Distortion." It seems that, after all his assertions of standing for pure science as exemplified by his listed institutions, and coaching me to avoid biased blogs, Enigma's understanding of global warming was shaped by a dogmatic, ideological, non-scientific website! It is true that this website does have a category of peer-reviewed studies. But the interpretations provided by the blog master often attribute significance to the researcher's conclusions that they do not warrant, as here: [...]l and here:[...] Had he looked instead at the sources on his recommended list, he would have found statements such as the one by NCAR concerning the graph of Mann et al.:
"A number of recent studies have re-examined the methods used and suggested adjustments. Yet the basic message of the hockey stick remains valid, as a panel of the National Academy of Sciences found in a 2006 report. That panel concluded that the warming trend since 1900, and especially since the 1970s, is highly unusual and perhaps unprecedented in the last millennium."
In addition the National Academy of Sciences report,(58) and the NOAA graphs and commentary, I supplied links to two "hockey stick graphs" used by other institutions on his list to explain climate history, and two descriptions from listed institutions that fit the basic properties of Mann's graph.(91, 99) Enigma never removed these institutions from his list, despite their statements and graphs that completely contradict his claim of siding with them, and he continued to include the list in subsequent posts (five times in all) to show that, unlike me, he sided with science. He also repeated his left--center--right chart two more times to prove he was in the middle with science and I wasn't, since I got my evidence from "ideological" blogs. While I continued to find further statements in publications written by institutions on his list that agreed with my position and that seemed to contradict his, he never offered a single statement from any publication of "his" scientific institutions to support his claims. I pointed to a special issue of the journal of The Royal Society (which appears on his science institution list and is also the one institution used in his left-center-right diagram represent science) entirely devoted to papers presented at a conference on a future world with an increased temperature of 4 degrees Centigrade, now a growing possibility and contrary to his notion of global warming as presenting little risk.(121) He responded,
"They DID - but your [sic] forgot to mention (actually the blogs you rely on for your propaganda didn't tell you this) that they also put [out] a special issue devoted to papers that disputed the 4 degree rise. WHOOPS - you see John, that's how real science is done, they look at all of the arguments and follow the one with the most amount of evidence."
But he never offered to provide a link, a title, for date to this issue, and I was never able to locate it, despite Googling it under any likely terms I could think of.
I responded with references to two publications The Royal Society published to explain the present state of knowledge about global warming to the general public, one in 2005 and a more extensive one in 2010.(135) I extracted a series of statements from them that appeared to contradict positions he had taken in his responses to me. Once again, he never addressed my evidence or gave any indication that he had read anything published by any institution on his approved list. But soon he was back with his now-familiar attack:
"You spew out blogosphere BS and your [sic] refuse to engage in real science.
Oh and let's one more time look at these right wing blogs I use:"
This sarcasm is followed by the same list of approved science institutions, from which he never cites a publication (except the one that can't be found), nor acknowledged those I cited.(143) Spot checking a number of the websites of other institutions on the list reveals that the majority seem to have no department devoted to global warming and no publication explaining their understanding of the subject. So one must ask, how does Enigma extract information from these institutions that explains their positions? Evidently he makes "use" of them simply by listing their names repeatedly. This use has a striking resemblance to Mooney's description of the rigid right's inflexible concept of one model fitting all situations: in contrast to supply side economist Bruce Bartlett, who recognized that Keynesian economics would work better in the present situation, "the rigid right keeps pushing tax cuts, and now, 'don't print money'--not so much thoughts any longer, but chants."(p. 201) Repeated displays of "the list"(and of a shorter list of three climate blogs I cited, among my other references) were Enigma's analogous response to any argument and any evidence, "not so much thoughts any longer, but chants."
He also continued to repeat his evasion of my evidence but kept listing three blogs I had mentioned, which he claimed were evidence of my anti-science attitude, while ignoring the fact, which I pointed out, that any claims made on these blogs were supported by links to the original research papers. He responded to a further extensive analysis I made of his arguments (which were often simply assertions) by reproducing his list of institutions and writing, "John your fight is with science not with me I will let the above institutions do the talking for me."(152)
The problem with that proposal is that the only institutions of his that do any "talking" describe scientific understandings that agree with mine and contradict his. He could not explain why I should have a fight with them.
When Enigma got around to actually discussing scientific research, it was Fox's report of a study that he read and from which he decided the key take-away conclusion was:
"'As respondents' science literacy scores increased, their concern with climate change decreased.'
To which he added, "Seems the less you know about science the more sensationalistic and 'scared' you get about climate change - yup that seems about right."(126)
But when one checks with the actual study, readily available online, the significant conclusion is that
"[m]embers of the public with the highest degrees of science literacy and technical reasoning capacity were not the most concerned about climate change. Rather, they were the ones among whom cultural polarization was greatest."
[...]
As it turns out, the leader of the study, Dan M. Kahan, provided some of the underlying evidence for Chris Mooney's chapter 2, "Smart Idiots," and his study concludes 1.) that people's sense of risk from a possible threat, such as global warming, are skewed by the cultural group to which they belong; 2.) that the more mathematical and scientific factual knowledge they have, the more confident they feel in their beliefs, so that 3.) they become more polarize. For those who are egalitarian and communitarian (Harry Truman and St. Francis of Assisi), greater knowledge of math and science resulted in greater alarm about global warming, and for those who are hierarchical and individualistic (Mitt Romney and Donald Trump,) greater knowledge about math and science resulted in less alarm. Kahan's study is not concerned with which view is correct, but there is a large body of evidence demonstrating that global warming is real, anthropogenic, and a cause for great concern, a view accepted by the very institutions on Enigma's list. Consequently, as Mooney suggests, Republicans are in denial of the situation. And the saying goes, " "If you can keep your head about you while everyone else is losing theirs, then you probably don't understand the situation."
It is likely that Enigma missed Mooney's discussion of Kahan's research because, as he admitted to M. Hanson, the review writer, "I scanned the book in the store today and felt much of what you wrote about."(4) This revealing statement, taken with Enigma's other responses to information and evidence and his advice to read more science (although he apparently doesn't), fits nicely with Mooney's "smart idiot effect": "Republicans or conservatives who know more about the issue, or are more educated, are shown to be more in denial, and often more sure of themselves too--and are confident they don't need any more information on the issue."(p.48) As Mooney points out, this makes it extremely difficult to persuade someone from a group espousing different cultural or religious values of a subject such as global warming by using reasoning and evidence--as I now realize only too well. And more specifically, Mooney collaborated on designing several tests, the most significant conclusion from which was that Republicans read fast, perhaps, Mooney thinks, because "conservatives, more than liberals, may have been going on quicker and less informed impressions rather than deeply engaging with the material were provided." (p. 257) Enigma's quick scan of Mooney's book as well as his responses throughout our discourse offer striking evidence confirming this view. And the word he uses to indicate his agreement--"felt"--indicated that he makes decisions quickly and on the basis of feeling, while, as Mooney says, "liberals have more need for cognition."(p. 69)
As Enigma observes, getting your science from sources that are dogmatic, ideological, and non-scientific isn't a good idea, but evidently he doesn't find the rule necessary to practice. In the very next post he quoted the entire letter that a group of 16 scientists and non-scientists, six of whom had ties to fossil fuel companies,(154) and very few of whom were engaged in recent climate research, had published in the dogmatic, ideological, and non-scientific Wall Street Journal (coincidentally also owned by Rupert Murdoch).(127)
The letter begins with an account of Ivar Giaever's resignation from the American Physical Society (APS) because of the Society's stated position: "The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring," (the presence in the statement of the word "incontrovertible" was denied by the APS president).(154) It continues by attempting to create doubt about global warming's seriousness by reciting a series of long-disproved charges.
The letter prompted a response by 255 climate scientists, which the WSJ refused to publish, but the highly respected journal Science did. The letter pointed out that "there is compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend." All of the scientists were members of National Academy of Sciences, an institution that appears (twice) on Enigma's list of approved scientific institutions.(154)
The WSJ published another response by 37 climate scientists, who pointed out that, of the 16 signers of the original letter, few were climate scientists and those who were actually researching held views "that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert."(154)
Revealingly, Enigma relied for global warming science on a letter by non-climate scientists, published in the highly biased WSJ, to support his belief in the lack of consensus about global warming, rather than on the scientific understanding of the 225 members of the NAS, one of the institutions he claims to "use."
In my view, my extended discussion with Enigma, in which I worked as hard as possible to buttress my claims with evidence, confirms Mooney's ideas about the Republican brain--particularly the amazing resistance even to acknowledge that evidence has been presented (to a degree that I could not have dreamed possible) and, as we see daily among Republican politicians, a willingness to continue to make statements long after they have been proven false many times over, as Mooney discusses (pp. 5-7). Other conservative commenters joined our discussion, describing global warming warnings as "the work of fascistic radicals looking for an excuse to gain more tyrannical control over our lives"(149) (this written by an older man who professed to have "several earned doctorates") and, by a much younger man, as a plot "pushed by globalists with political agendas" leading to "world government."(109) (113) Another commenter the last-cited writer asked the young man, "Even if you would rather be dead than red, are your personal political beliefs of such importance that you are THE ONE who should have the right to dictate to everyone else that they must die along with you? He replied, simplifying the choice as an authoritarian conservative would,(pp. 72-74) and displaying unconcern for harm to others, as a conservative individualist would,(80) "I would rather die by mans causes than live as a slave to man."(124) These two conservative commenters also claimed that Enigma refuted my arguments(147), and they questioned my logic.(153) I view these reactions as "motivated reasoning," discussed by Mooney.(pp. 26-55)
The bottom line is, that while there is much more to learn in this area of study, Mooney's conclusions are generally valid, although hard to accept. One would very much like to believe that it is possible to convince people about the reality of matters such as global warming by presenting evidence to support a carefully reasoned argument that would overcome cultural bias. But I guess that's my liberal bias. Unfortunately, the current Republican willingness to win people over by emotion--especially fear--rather than evidence suggests, despite their one-star reviews of Mooney's book, that they are well aware of the research Mooney reports on and are using techniques to exploit it, as indicated by the repetition of baseless claims of "death panels," and lies about the president's birthplace despite his birth certificate, about his supposed increases in taxing and spending, about his religion, and a host of other misinformation. The polarization that Mooney describes has increased and has contributed to the present political split, with the far right driving out the center. Current Republican political behavior, including dismissal of the other side and repeated use of blatant, pants-on-fire lies, is replicated in nuce by Enigma's insistence on repeatedly presenting a list of science institutions with which he seems completely unfamiliar to back his claim that he sides with science, his refusal to respond to proof that he doesn't side with these institutions (and I do), his unwillingness to look at evidence that shows his positions to be mistaken, and his reliance of biased sources for information, a practice of which he accuses me. While being highly critical of Mooney's book, Enigma is a prime, if extreme, example of someone who evaluates and supports his convictions with a Republican brain of the kind Mooney describes.
We are all susceptible to over 250 cognitive biases, fallacies, and errors, regardless of what political party we belong to. It seems every week a new book comes out about why we can't see reality and make dumb choices.
I've read several such books lately. Daniel Kahneman's " Thinking, Fast and Slow ", is a good introduction to this research. Kahneman shows that the basis of our cognitive biases is due to how our minds work. It begins with the lightning fast like/dislike reactions of our primitive emotional brain (system 1). It's up to the newer parts of our brain to interpret these basic emotional reactions (system 2). But system 2 is slow and can only focus on a few things, so we usually succumb to the primitive biases of system 1 without even realizing it.
Chris Mooney's book also sees our emotional brains as a big part of how we see the world, and part of why we become a Democrat or Republican.
When an emotion bubbles up from our subconscious brain, we rationalize, not reason. Or as Mooney puts it, "we're not scientists, we're lawyers trying to 'win the case', especially if we're emotionally committed to an idea". We start to become little lawyers when we develop motivated reasoning around the age 4 or 5. That's when we start siding with the groups we belong to -- our family, friends, neighbors, church, and political party.
I doubt many Republicans are going to read this book. They ought to. Mooney is thoughtful and insightful. Compare his evidence-based book with the Republican counterpart, Ann Coulter's " If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans ". Some chapter titles:
* Teddy Kennedy: apparently fat, drunk, and stupid is a way to go through life
* Liberal "argument": hissing, scratching, and hair-pulling,
* Liberalism and other psychological disorders
* Liberal tactics: distortion, dissembling, deception--and the rest is just run-of-the-mill treason
* Baby-killing: Abort liberals, not children
* Blacks: the only thing standing between the democrat party and oblivion
* Christians: must Reproduce More
* Communism: a new fragrance by Hillary Clinton
* Environmentalism: Adolf Hitler was the first environmentalist
* Evolution, Alchemy, and other "settled" scientific theories
Some good news: not everyone is equally biased. Many of us are capable of listening to others and changing our views. But this varies a lot from person to person, because people differ in their need to defend their point of view, in their need to have convictions that must not change, in their need to believe their group is right, and in their need for unity with their group. If you're wired and strongly motivated to have unwavering convictions, it will be almost impossible to change your mind with any facts, logic, or reason. Mooney makes the case that this kind of person has a conservative mind, and is therefore likely to be a Republican.
Mooney likens someone with a strongly held opinion that's being challenged to experiencing a physical attack, because these beliefs are physically embedded in the brain.
Which means you can't expect to come up with undeniable, irrefutable facts and suddenly change someone's mind, since their strongly held beliefs are wired in their brains. Linguist George Lakoff, at the University of California, Berkeley, says that to think you can change someone's beliefs with well-reasoned arguments is not only naïve, it's also unwise and ineffective.
Reasoning is emotional, what psychologists call hot reasoning. We are not coldly rational. Not even scientists are immune. But what makes science the most successful way we have of testing reality is the scientific method, since peer review, experimental replication, and critiques from other scientists mean that eventually the best ideas emerge despite any individual's biases. Within scientific circles, it's considered admirable to give up cherished ideas when evidence shows you to be wrong.
Mooney believes this is a key difference between liberals and conservatives. Scientists are overwhelmingly liberal -- they have to be, or they won't get far in their profession. Please note this does not mean that their scientific discoveries are liberal or democratic. Scientific findings aren't political, they're reality, and only become "political" when spun that way. The opposite of a scientist is a religious, authoritarian, political conservative, because they tend to have a strong need to never modify their deeply held beliefs, or to ever appear to be uncertain and indecisive.
Since most of the most important problems that need to be solved require scientific literacy, which less than 10% of Americans have, here's how Mooney says scientific news is interpreted by the other 90% of the public:
"When it comes to the dissemination of science--or contested facts in general--across a nonscientific populace, a very different process is often occurring than the scientific one. A vast number of individuals, with widely varying motivations, are responding to the conclusions that science, allegedly, has reached. Or so they've heard.
They've heard through a wide variety of information sources--news outlets with differing politics, friends and neighbors, political elites--and are processing the information through different brains, with very different commitments and beliefs, and different psychological needs and cognitive styles. And ironically, the fact that scientists and other experts usually employ so much nuance, and strive to disclose all remaining sources of uncertainty when they communicate their results, makes the evidence they present highly amenable to selective reading and misinterpretation. Giving ideologues or partisans data that's relevant to their beliefs is a lot like unleashing them in the motivated reasoning equivalent of a candy store. In this context, rather than reaching an agreement or a consensus, you can expect different sides to polarize over the evidence and how to interpret it".
If you're going to make the strong claim that Republicans deny science and reality, you'd better back that up. First, he tells the history of how Republicans and the Christian Right have built institutions of propaganda and recruited false experts for decades. Then he shows how these institutions have influenced issues like climate change, evolution, women's rights, health care, economics, falsely rewritten history, and so on.
Republicans have created a closed world view for their followers so they're never exposed to ideas outside this universe of Fox TV, hate talk radio, and other right-wing and Christian propaganda. What's presented is carefully crafted to appeal to conservative minds and provides them with certainty and closure.
This means there can never be a moment of clarity like when Joseph Welch told McCarthy live on ABC television in 1954 "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" and suddenly people woke up to the evils of right-wing McCarthyism and made it go away.
But this is not a book about what's wrong with the world and how to fix it, or how you can change a Republican's mind now that you know how they operate. It's more of a Carl Sagan "Science as a candle in the dark", shining of light into the dark corners that lurk within closed minds, and groups of closed minds, shut off from reality. Mooney casts light with the latest scientific findings and critical thinking skills.
The Big 5 Personality Traits and how they predict which party you're likely to join
Scientists have tried to boil personality research from the past decades into a unified theory and have come up with the "big 5" personality traits (see wiki or my book review of Daniel Nettle's book, " Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are ").
Some of the liberal/conservative correlations with the big 5 personality traits:
* 71% of liberals have an open outlook
* 61% of conservatives are high in conscientiousness
* 59% of the highly educated are liberals
* 56% of those with very high incomes are conservatives
But these traits are not destiny. Overall, our political views are 40% genetic, 60% environment. There is no democratic or republican gene, but dispositions that predispose us one way or the other.
If you walked into someone's home, you could probably tell which way they swing - liberals and conservatives hang out at different places, dress differently, date differently, listen to different music. Liberals have more books and music, which ranges across a wider breadth of topics and styles than conservatives. Liberals have more art supplies, travel items, movie tickets. Conservative homes are tidier, with more sports paraphernalia, American flags, and cleaning supplies.
How to Avoid Giving up a Cherished Belief
Goal post shifting. Mooney defines this as demanding ever more evidence, or tweaking your view to avoid giving up a belief despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
My expert is better than your expert. Allows you to ignore what the other person is saying because you've found an expert who says the opposite. So when conservatives deny climate change, it's because they think their experts are the best -- the most realistic and truthful.
Stop seeking out more information. Republicans have a much higher need for closure, so they are likely to seize upon information that pleases them and stop looking for more information or spend time thinking about that issue.
Republicans are More Biased than Democrats
Basically, conservatives are more strongly motivated to defend their beliefs, and are far more likely to cling to wrong views tenaciously when presented with incontrovertible evidence they are wrong (Backfire effect). Really smart, educated republicans are even better at coming up with incorrect facts to defend their beliefs, what Mooney calls "the smart idiot effect". The opposite is true of Democrats - the more educated, the more likely a democrat will change his/her mind when evidence proves them wrong.
Why are we so Irrational?
Mooney makes the case that reasoning didn't evolve to make us good logicians but to make us persuasive speakers, finding evidence to support whatever our case is, and to see the flaws in other people's arguments.
Reasoning doesn't exist for us to get at objective truth, it's there to defend our position in a social context. This is why we go to such elaborate lengths to defend wrong beliefs, and come up with truly bizarre "religions" like Scientology.
There's an evolutionary advantage to being able to talk other people into doing what you want and helping you out. There's also an evolutionary advantage to be able to poke holes in other peoples arguments and discerning whether a speaker was reliable and trustworthy.
We may not be perfect at reasoning, but not everyone is bad at it or unwilling to change their minds based on new evidence. But it does appear that conservative minds are more likely to strongly defend their beliefs against any argument, and to persist in sticking to their incorrect beliefs no matter what evidence challenges their ideas.
The entire group benefits when all sides of an issue are aired, with everyone able to speak up about the flaws in others arguments. Groups that don't allow this, where the leaders aren't challenged, can go very astray. People or groups who insulate themselves from different opinions can end up like crazy hermits.
Conservatives are much more likely to be "crazy hermits" and follow conservative authorities who are dead wrong. Their minds can't be changed because of their need for closure, not seeking out new information, and the backfire effect, all of which make them more likely to hold wrong views. Conservatives strive harder to be unified with their teams, so even if a conservative changes his/her mind, s(he) has little motivation to speak out or pick a fight with friends, family, and other groups. Plus conservatives are far more likely than liberals to ostracize dissenters.
Mooney strives hard to find examples of bias in liberals to contrast with the extremely strong and incorrect biases of conservatives, but try as he might, he can come up with very few liberal biases. One way that liberals might be biased is in overstating harm to prevent environmental damages.
Why are conservatives conservative?
Researchers say that conservatism satisfies normal, deep human desires to manage uncertainty and fear by finding beliefs and values that are certain, stable, and unchanging. The need for order, structure, closure, and management of threat are normal. Other normal tendencies that conservatives have are patriotism, decisiveness, and loyalty to friends and allies.
On pages 107-109, Mooney makes the case for conservatism being the default position, by showing how you can turn democrats into republicans in certain situations.
Partisan Democratic and Republican brains differ
Partisan Democratic and Republican brains are different. Democrats have a larger anterior cingulated cortex (part of the frontal lobe connected to the prefrontal cortex). This is the area that makes corrective responses, that can override the automatic emotional system 1 and bring in system 2 reasoning.
Republicans have a larger right amygdala. The amygdala is at the epicenter of our fear and threat center, a central component of our emotionally-centered brain. Those with greater fear "dispositions" such as distrust of outsiders and people of different races, tend to be politically conservative.
What are the three kinds of conservatives?
Mooney breaks them down into Economic, Status-quo, and Authoritarians. Economic and Status-quo conservatives are intellectual and principled. Authoritarians are more primal, driven by visceral negative responses to otherness and a desire to impose their way of doing things on others. All three types have a resistance to change.
Conclusion
In these times of gridlocked politics, and the The Republican War on Science (another of Mooney's books), the Republican's lack of reality and denial of science combined with billions of dollars invested in massive right-wing propaganda media and other institutions scares me and nearly everyone I know who's paying attention.
Perhaps if there were a way for each side to understand one another our country could be governed more pragmatically. Mooney is particularly upset that Republicans deny climate change, since that could drive us and most other species extinct (though see my energyskeptic post "Why do political and economic leaders deny Peak Oil and Climate Change?" for a more nuanced explanation).
Across time and place, liberals are agents of change, conservatives the resisters - the yin and yang of societies. Liberals are more likely to compromise, to see things in shades of gray and nuance. Republicans tend to be more rigid, are less likely to compromise, see the world in more black and white terms. These different cognitive styles lead to differences in information processing.
It's good to be reminded not to trust your initial reactions and confabulate them into incorrect rationalizations. If all of us could be more reflective and open to new ideas, and unattached to old ones, we might be able to create and sustain better communities.
I read this book partly because I wondered whether there were any practical insights that might help reform our broken political system. But I doubt it, especially after hearing an NPR interview today with Robert Kaiser about his book Act of Congress: How America's Essential Institution Works, and How It Doesn't . Extreme partisanship and defense of turf decides what bills pass and their content far more than policy. Most Congressmen are ignorant on important issues, so their staffs make powerful and influential decisions, which are probably not always beneficial for the public, since staffers often aspire to become corporate lobbyists.
My Take on this Book Given All the Other Books I've Read
(at energyskeptic booklist)
The way conservative and liberal minds manifest themselves in political parties at this time in America interests me less than what the idea of liberal versus conservative minds means across time and cultures, or if it's even a useful concept. Would educated minds be a better term than liberal minds, since people who are more educated tend to be Democrats?
As far as the differences between the two parties, Joe Bageant, in his excellent book Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War is one of the best I've read. He explains how it came to be that so many people vote for politicians whose policies are against their own interests. Like Mooney, he documents how limited the information is that voters in red states have access to, he'd agree with Mooney about the closed world aspect of right-wing propaganda.
I see the world from a systems ecology point of view and think both democrats and republicans in America are nuts to think we can grow forever on a finite planet. Both sides want to "grow the economy" at a time we are at peak resources.
Political and economic ways of describing the world are more like blinders, false and narrow constructs that divert attention from what really matters -- what keeps us alive: natural resources, infrastructure, and above all energy, especially liquid transportation fuels. So I greatly appreciate all of Mooney's books that use science as the basis for criticism, but wish that he would pay more attention to the real issues -- above all, fossil fuel energy resources, which allows us to over-exploit all the other resources way past carrying capacity and makes civilization as we know it possible.
Is the idea of a liberal or conservative party useful, given that in all societies since civilization began, the ruling despots were mainly interested in gaining or keeping their wealth, fighting off rivals, and rewarding their tribe? Framing reality as political and economic truths or moral issues distracts people from noticing their pockets are being picked and the wealth redistributed to the already wealthy.
To the extent that this is true, "conservatism" is rooted in self-interest to prevent a redistribution of land, money, and power, and "liberalism" is rooted in overthrowing the existing order and replacing it with a better or different one. If successful, a new group reigns and the cycle of corruption and mismanagement begins again.
The word corporation isn't in the index of Mooney's book. Or campaign finance reform, the intersection of politics and money that drives both Democratic and Republican legislation to favor special interests over the public good. Yet I think most politicians work extremely hard to make pragmatic, not "republican" or "democratic" decisions, and care deeply about our nation and helping others, but they're caught between the rock of funding campaigns and the hard place of not being able to fix our real problems, or even talk about them, due to the peaking of energy and other resources.
And what exactly do conservative and liberal "values" and "morality" mean? Is there a pattern? Are there only two sides? Isn't there often only one side and dissenters are killed or exiled? Were hunter-gatherer liberal or democratic societies?
The best book I know of to understand reality more clearly is Charles A. Hall's " Energy and the Wealth of Nations: Understanding the Biophysical Economy ". This is a revolutionary book that uses science as the basis of economics and is full of testable hypotheses, and explains why the current Neo-classical "economics" is more crazy than the most bizarre cult or religion you can think of. This book ought to be the economics 101 textbook at all universities. To get an idea of what it's about, read Richard Vodra's review at resilience.org.
The past four centuries of growth resulted in one-time only economic and political systems that provided thousands of energy slaves to every person (Buckminster Fuller) in developed countries, allowing us the luxury of a democratic political system. After the decline of fossil fuels, we'll be back in the unstable alliances, regional governments, and occasional empires of the wood-based civilizations that existed before coal started the industrial revolution (see John Perlin's outstanding book, " A Forest Journey: The Story of Wood and Civilization "). Political "parties" are more likely to be determined by what tribe or family you belong to, not your liberal or conservative mind, and you probably won't be voting unless you're quite wealthy.
It seems to me that a society of conservative minds would be the normal one, selected for by warfare, since tribes that were more unified, more religious, more willing to fight and die for both their group and their God would win the most battles. The human past was endless warfare and skirmishes. Communities were in a constant state of fear and on alert for an attack-- surely most of us had enlarged amygdala's?
What are the selection forces liberal minds? I have no idea. Maybe liberals provided a bit of comic relief for the conservatives. They were the fun people, the tribal drummers, cave painters, the best dancers around the fire.
Population exploded from 1 billion to 7 billion people once fossil fuels launched an amazing number of new industries and increased intensive agricultural production 5-fold with fossil fuel based fertilizers and pesticides. Perhaps those with liberal minds coped the best with constant change and did well in getting the billions of new jobs that arose, while the conservatives remained the servants at Downton Abbey.
Miscellaneous
I've always been fascinated by why people fall into these camps and wondered why. Ever since I can remember, I could be sure of rowdy political debates on holidays as relatives on either side argued about current affairs, with poor uncle John in the middle, trying to moderate the discussions and keep them from getting out of hand. You'd think genetics and shared experiences would have put us all on one side or the other.
This book made me think about what experiences and traits led me to have a liberal mind. I think I could have gone either way, but above all I wanted to fit in with other kids, and they overwhelmingly came from liberal families where I grew up. Judith Harris makes a very convincing case that parents don't have nearly as much impact on children as their peers do in " The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do, Revised and Updated " and I strongly agree based on my own experiences. I became a democrat the day nearly everyone's hand shot up when the teacher asked whose parents would be voting for Kennedy.
One study Mooney cites says that the stronger a man is, the more likely he's a Republican (see sciencedaily "Why Are Action Stars More Likely to Be Republican?")
Top reviews from other countries
The science of why they deny science is all too clear.
Required reading for anybody with a brain.
While the topics are few, they are powerful and should lead all political extremes to a greater understanding of why such a great divide exists between us. Liberalism attracts and maintains persons who are not only far more curious than their conservative brothers but are also more easily swayed if the data shows that their initial conclusions are not exact. Conservatism, on the other hand, attracts persons who are more single minded and, being so, present themselves in a more self-assured manner. Or more easily stated; liberals seek out data and from that develop a conclusion whereas conservatives develop a conclusion based on scant data and then, in turn, seek out data that will confirm this original stance. The 'whys' of this dynamic most certainly are not well defined at this point but lean towards a combination of both nature and nurture. Physiology and psychosocial development both enter into the molding of this part of one's personality.
The author, on the other hand, offers a style of writing that is very distracting. He continually inserted comments about how a topic will be dealt with in a latter chapter. That served as nothing more than an annoying diversion and distraction from what he was trying to explain at the time. Secondly, there is a great amount of repetition and `pulp-filler' that made the text a highly tiresome read at times. The basic conclusion of this text was repeated ad nauseum throughout. "We heard you the first time! We really did!" If his rambling wordiness was in fact totally eliminated the topics that were actually discussed could have been presented in less than 100 pages. But, I guess you cannot sell a book that is that small but, maybe again, that was the purpose for the wordiness to begin with. More money is made selling books than simply distributing pamphlets.......



