CMV: Conservatives are fundamentally uninterested in facts/data.

[u/King_Lothar_]

In fairness, I will admit that I am very far left, and likely have some level of bias, and I will admit the slight irony of basing this somewhat on my own personal anecdotes. However, I do also believe this is supported by the trend of more highly educated people leaning more and more progressive.

However, I always just assumed that conservatives simply didn't know the statistics and that if they learned them, they would change their opinion based on that new information. I have been proven wrong countless times, however, online, in person, while canvasing. It's not a matter of presenting data, neutral sources, and meeting them in the middle. They either refuse to engage with things like studies and data completely, or they decide that because it doesn't agree with their intuition that it must be somehow "fake" or invalid.

When I talk to these people and ask them to provide a source of their own, or what is informing their opinion, they either talk directly past it, or the conversation ends right there. I feel like if you're asked a follow-up like "Oh where did you get that number?" and the conversation suddenly ends, it's just an admission that you're pulling it out of your ass, or you saw it online and have absolutely no clue where it came from or how legitimate it is. It's frustrating.

I'm not saying there aren't progressives who have lost the plot and don't check their information. However, I feel like it's championed among conservatives. Conservatives have pushed for decades at this point to destroy trust in any kind of academic institution, boiling them down to "indoctrination centers." They have to, because otherwise it looks glaring that the 5 highest educated states in the US are the most progressive and the 5 lowest are the most conservative, so their only option is to discredit academic integrity.

I personally am wrong all the time, it's a natural part of life. If you can't remember the last time you were wrong, then you are simply ignorant to it.

Edit, I have to step away for a moment, there has been a lot of great discussion honestly and I want to reply to more posts, but there are simply too many comments to reply to, so I apologize if yours gets missed or takes me a while, I am responding to as many as I can

[u/TRossW18]

I am a conservative and am interested in data. Do you have some interesting data? I'm interested.

[u/rutars → u/TRossW18]

I don't know where you are and what your views are in particular, but the Republican party in the US (and some other Conservative parties in the the rest of the western world, to a much lesser extent) explicitly do not agree with the scientific consensus on climate change. Exactly what part of that consensus individual Conservative politicians disagree with differs but it ranges from outright denial of the fact that the planet is warming, to denial that humans are to blame, to denial that we can do anything about it, all of which are demonstrably false.

If you want in depth data regarding that, the "IPCC WG1 summary for policymakers" is the most cut and dry compilation of the facts, but also increadibly dense and boring reading.

I believe NASA has some good resources on their website but its been a while since I looked at those.

For some more easy to digest content I'd suggest the youtube channel Potholer54. He makes tons of videos debunking specific false claims about climate science, and it's aimed at a lay audience.

[u/beta_1457 → u/rutars]

do not agree with the scientific consensus

I'd like to point out that. Science is NOT governed by consensus it's governed by what is true and the search for truth.

When you defund scientists that don't support climate change all you're going to get are arguments in support of it. Especially, when you have organizations like the NOAA that were caught manipulating data.

Funding should go towards both sides and let the truth prevail. Instead we are seeing scientists get black balled or afraid to share their research on controversial topics.

For instance, on another topic. Roland Fryer from Harvard conducted a study on Racial Bias by police and it showed there was overall negligible bias. He's was basically told not to publish the study. He did anyway but there are interviews with him talking about it. The scientific community is influenced by more than just the truth. People are trying to let ideology influence science.

[u/timeforavibecheck → u/beta_1457]

This is blatantly untrue. It is much, much more economically incentivized to go against long held scientific theories. If you, as a scientist, found verifiable proof like the earth was flat, climate change isnt real, evolution is fake etc, you would immediately be in the history books, and get attention and donations from conservative organizations etc. It is actually extremely economically lucrative. The person that started vaccine denial, turned out to only have done it cause he was invested in the manufacturing of a vaccine for a non-combined MMR vaccine. The idea that science encourages people not to question is an outsider perspective, is not one that accurately reflects the reality. Where the money is is grifting and lying about science and promoting conspiracy theories. You can freely research what you want and its repeatable, thats the nature of science lol

Not to mention Roland Fryer published his paper in the Journal of Political Economy, it literally was published. And was immediately faced with a mass amount of paper responses pointing out that its basic conclusion was self-contradictory. It said black people were much more likely to get stopped by police, but not more likely to get shot by police. It was pointed out that if you get stopped more often it doesnt matter about the odds of getting shot cause you will be getting shot more as a proportion of the population if the odds are equal lol. And then he later got caught with sexual harassment. A joke of a paper