A Demonstration

Thursday 17 October 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

A demonstration of both the bias and the power of the media. In an interview of Daniel M. Kahan, a Yale professor who published a study showing that those who identify as Tea Party members generally have a higher level of “science comprehension” than those who don’t identify as Tea Party supporters, he notes,

While noting that this relationship is “trivially small,” Kahan wrote: “I’ve got to confess. I found this result surprising. As I pushed the button to run the analysis on my computer, I fully expected I’d be shown a modest negative correlation between identifying with the Tea Party and science comprehension.”

“But then again,” he admitted, “I don’t know a single person who identifies with the Tea Party. All my impressions come from watching cable tv — & I don’t watch Fox News very often — and reading the “paper” (New York Times daily, plus a variety of politics-focused internet sites like Huffington Post & Politico).” (Emphasis added)

In addition to the media having the ability to completely and single-handedly form an opinion for an allegedly highly intelligent member of the intelligentsia concerning a large swath of people, I’d argue that Kahan’s memory recall abilities are lacking, if he indeed reads the New York Times everyday, considering that the Gray Lady published a story over 3 years ago showing those who identify as Tea Party supporters are generally higher educated than the general public. It should be no surprise that those who are higher educated would also have a higher level of science literacy.

2013-10-17  »  madlibertarianguy