Partisanship, Scientific Literacy, and How to Moderate Our Internal Partisan Hacks
While the GOP has done a good job of painting itself as the party committed to anti-science and anti-truth, the reality is more complex. Partisan reading of science is indeed perhaps the only bipartisan things we've got going these days. A recent article in the New York times discussed research showing that both progressives and conservatives (probably also libertarians, but the NYT left them out) interpret science in ways that support their political priors. While conservatives underestimate Covid risks, progressives overestimate it.
An excellent example of this biased use of science is teacher's unions in Oakland this week. The same teachers unions presumably trashed Trump for his distrust of the CDC and manipulation of scientific data in the early stage of the pandemic, but now, despite evidence from the World Health Organization and advice from the Centers for Disease Control, union leaders say they're "not convinced" of the science, or at least how it would apply in their particular schools. But the science is clear on at least a few levels: the harms of keeping children out of school are growing, and dramatically. And the science is also clear that children are the lowest risk population for Covid-10 complications. Finally, the vaccines that are now widely available to teachers are extremely effective at preventing infections and serious complications. Given the science it's hard to see these walkouts as anything other than a political stunt.
These political biases affect other kinds of social and political issues as well, contributing to polarization and the increasing feeling that truth doesn't exist at all. According to researchers, progressives are more likely to exaggerate harms and social issues and conservatives and libertarians are more likely to downplay issues that affect or limit personal freedom. These biases affect everything from discussions of nuclear power to gun control. And they make actual political deliberation almost impossible since people can't even agree - not just on what facts are relevant - but whether any facts exist at all.
These biases make actual political deliberation almost impossible since people can't even agree - not just on what facts are relevant - but whether any facts exist at all.
While we don't have solutions for the societal level, the best we can do is to try to tame our own internal partisan hacks as much as possible. While there are no easy fixes, here are a few suggestions to get us all started.
Avoid informational silos. Get your information from a range of legitimate sources from different political angles. National Review, Reason Magazine and the New York Times will all have different angles and biases and will cite different researchers, but reading all of them will give you a fuller picture of the science itself as well as the various reactions to the science.
Avoid confirmation bias, as much as possible. This one is harder because often we don't know we're doing it, but social science research is clear that we give more weight to research that we already agree with and are much more likely to mentally ignore research that goes against our existing beliefs. We can work to avoid this by first becoming more aware of how we seek out information and second by actively working to sit with the discomfort that disconfirming information creates. At the very least you give yourself some time to make a more informed decision.
Learn a variety of ideological lenses and use them. Social scientists call this "perspective taking" and it can be a powerful way to reduce ideological bias. If you want to understand the fullness of the gun control debate, for example, it can help to put on a libertarian lens (focused on individual freedom), then a progressive lens (focused on equity and harm), and then a conservative lens (focused on tradition) and see where you end up. You might not change your mind, but you'll be more aware of how each side uses evidence and science and you'll be better able to come to your own radically moderate conclusions.
What do you think? How can we get better at reading and interpreting science in unbiased ways? Tell us in the comments!