Party ID and ID
September 1st, 2005Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
Yesterday’s New York Times had an interesting article on a recent poll conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The poll has some interesting findings: “John C. Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum, said he was surprised to see that teaching both evolution and creationism was favored not only by conservative Christians, but also by majorities of secular respondents, liberal Democrats and those who accept the theory of natural selection.”
Let’s take a closer look at the data to understand why Mr. Green might have been surprised.
Of the 53% of Democrats who believe that humans evolved over time, fully 20% believe that evolution was “guided by a supreme being.” For Republicans the numbers are 40% and 18% respectively. In other words, given the survey’s margin of error, the exact same percentage of Democrats as Republicans believe in “Intelligent Design” (ID). (Republicans do outnumber Democratic Creationists, 51% to 38%.)
When the filter is ideology, there is a similar parity. The poll looked at four “ideological” categories, Conservative Republicans, Moderate/Liberal Republicans, Conservative/Moderate Democrats, and Liberal Democrats. Of these four categories, the percentage of each that believe in ID are respectively 19%, 19%, 22%, 17%, just about within the margin of error. There are more Conservative Republican Creationists than Liberal Democratic Creationists (59% to 29%), but in the middle there are just about no differences: 37% Moderate/Liberal Republican Creationists, 41% Conservative/Moderate Democrat Creationists. I’m not surprised to see where there are more Creationists, but I am surprised at the relative numbers in each category.
There are some other interesting findings in the data, such as similar support across party lines for “teaching creationism instead of evolution” (R = 43%, D = 37%) and “teaching creationism along with evolution” (R = 67%, D = 61%). And there are some pronounced differences according to party identification, such as “who should have primary responsibility for deciding how evolution is taught” (Teachers? R = 19%, D = 35%; Parents? R = 51%, D = 35%). But even here the differences are not as large as one might think (or, at least as much as I would have thought).
Bottom line: These data support the thesis that there is more going on in contemporary politics of science than one political party, or even its most ideological elements (and feel free to place Democratic or Republican parties wherever you’d like in this statement depending on your predilections), seeking to undercut science and the other political party rising to its defense. It really makes for a good story, but it’s too bad that it is just not true. It may be that discussions of science policy/science politics are becoming Ann Colter-ized and Michael Moore-ized, which I suppose would be the ultimate result of partisan ideologues waging their wars via the politicization of science.
September 1st, 2005 at 9:03 am
This is some interesting data. Not sure how it supports your thesis, though. If you accept a general across-the-board support for ID, that doesn’t mean ID was created by a liberal organization, or that it is being pushed by the Democratic party “just as hard”. I’m sure a few Southern Democrats will push for ID, and the Democratic party may jump on board the way they did the Iraq War or gay marriage. In the beginning, you saw equal support across the board. Yet, I wouldn’t call the Iraq War or gay marriage bipartisan. One side definitely wanted and pushed for both more.
What is your take on the famous Waxman/UCS reports? On a day when you see yet another scientist resigning, citing political pressure and an inability to do her job, do you think, “same old, same old”? Do you see the history of scientific politicization on a static continuum? Or do you see the dynamics, such as increased polarization, occurring, but always equally balanced in their use of tactics, and motivations?
I guess I just don’t see Frankenfood vegetarians and environmentalists hijacking the Democratic party in the same way Fundamentalists and industry interests have hijacked the right. If anything, I see the Democratic party bowing to industry as much if not more than environmentalists.
September 1st, 2005 at 9:37 am
Dylan-
Thanks much for these comments. Let me try to respond, and if these don’t help, ask again.
First, I am less interested in who is “better” or “worse” (depending on your point of view) at the politicization of science. One need only look at the make-up of the White House and Congress to see that Republicans are playing the political game “better” than Democrats from the standpoint of national electoral politics. It is no surprise that they would also be “better” at the game of science politics at the tactics of science politicization. I think that this is a fair characterization.
Second, what I am interested in are the dynamics that make the misuse of science possible, and in particular its effects on the scientific community itself. These dynamics are not, I am conviced, the function of ideology or political party, even if Republicans are “worse” misusers or “better” political strategists.
Third, people who use the politicization of science as an issue to try to win power for Democrats are going to be disappointed on two fronts. One is that they are not going to gain any political advantage because they are playing right into the hands of the conservatives. It is bad strategy and bad tactics. Two is that they aren’t going to do anything about the politicization of science, and instead may make it worse, because they are not addressing the dynamics or root causes. In fact, I am not convinced than may folks who express concern about the politicization of science (on the left and right) care about the issue other than as a means of seeking political advantage.
Finally, I am interested in how we make good decisions using science. I am not interested in using science policy as a tool of partisan politics, simply because I don’t think it works practically.
September 1st, 2005 at 10:33 am
This is tiresome. If they want to treat ID as a scientific theory and apply scientific principles to prove/disprove/refine it, then they should get on with it instead of playing rhetorical games. Right now, as far as I can tell, most proponents of ID are employing Aristotelian arguments and that kind of approach gave the world things like the theory of impetus for close to 20 centuries until Galileo actually decided to test it to see if it was true or not (which, by the way, made him a ton of money as an expert on ballistics
).
I don’t know if ID is for real or not, and frankly I don’t care one way or the other. If a Theory of Intelligent Design demonstrably fits the facts better than the Theory of Evolution, then evolution becomes a historical footnote like the Theory That the Sun is a Lump of Burning Coal (that was real, not made up). End of story. Move on, please.
September 1st, 2005 at 10:58 am
Okay, I’m with you.
I think the “source” of politicization does cut across the spectrum, in that the public trusts science, so interest groups want science on their side. When it’s not – as in the case of ID, crop circles or alternative medicine – you then discredit the scientific process.
I think you’re right that taking a position plays into the GOP’s hands in the sense that they want to create “liberal” science and “conservative” science because it allows their loyal footsoldiers to embrace their science and dismiss the rest in the same way they embrace FOX as accurate and dismiss all other outlets as “liberal”.
But the polarization puts those organizations who require a reputation for objectivity and nonpartisanship in a pickle. To continue a pose for balance, they must suck up to groups who will see anything short of total and unquestioning support as treason. It puts these organizations in the position of having to choose between distorting information to appear nonpartisan, or fulfilling their nonpartisan mission of providing accurate information. I guess the solution is to have Mooney write a book and Pielke criticize.
September 1st, 2005 at 4:57 pm
It has been pointed out that it should be “Coulter-ized” not “Colter-ized”.
September 2nd, 2005 at 10:24 pm
There was an editorial and several letters on this issue in C&E News. You need to have a subscription or be at a place that has one to read the letters.
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/editor/83/8335edit.html
I’ll quote the first one because it does as good a job as I have ever seen in explaining what a scientific theory is and is not:
“There was a clear lack of understanding of evolutionary theory, and the nature of science itself, in the “Challenging evolution” letters (C&EN, April 18, page 6). Evolution is a scientific theory. Like all theories, it is an overarching set of explanations that has been well-substantiated by scientific evidence published in tens of thousands of papers, in this case explaining how life has developed and changed on Earth. Evolution provides a framework for understanding how organisms appear and change through modifications in genetic composition during successive generations subjected to natural selection.
Absence of a creator is not requisite for this development to occur. Indeed, many of the mainstream Christian denominations have issued statements indicating that evolutionary theory is not incompatible with the teachings of their faiths. Any scientist (whether believer or agnostic) reading the pages of Science, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or the myriad other peer-reviewed scientific journals, or walking through a museum, zoo, aquarium, or his or her own backyard, will find more than enough evidence to support evolutionary theory.
Evolution is actually one of the more robust scientific theories, garnering support from a spectrum of scientific disciplines (including chemistry). This evidence ranges from an increasingly clear paleontological record of progressively different but interrelated lineage, all the way to modern-day human, animal, and plant bacteria that have become increasingly resistant to once-effective antibiotics.
Tina M. Masciangioli
Arlington, Va.”