Sociologist
Robert Merton famously proposed norms for the conduct of science in
1942. The norm of “communism” (different from the political philosophy of communism) holds that the
results of scientific research should be the
common property of the scientific community.
“Universalism” postulates that knowledge should transcend racial, class, national or political barriers.
“Disinteredness” mandates that scientists should conduct research for the benefit of the scientific enterprise rather than for personal gain. These norms sit uneasily with strands of standard contemporary C*N*servative thought.
C*N*servatism and
CONservatism are typically associated with nationalism and patriotism, at the
expense of embracing cooperative internationalism. [Moderate conservatives, on the other hand, are capable of facing realities -- explaining why so many well-educated moderate conservatives have publicly abandoned the tRUMPist RepuGNican partisanship]. And the notion of disinterestedness may not mesh well with conservative emphasis on property rights [self, self, self].
Science has enabled us to explain the world around us but that may create further tensions – especially with
religious conservatism religionist CONservatism. The
idea fantasy that humans are exceptional is at the core of traditional Judeo-Christian thought, which
sees [perpetuates the self-flattering medieval myth of viewing] the human as an
imago Dei, an image of God, that is clearly separate from other beings and nature itself.
Against this human exceptionalism, the over-arching outcome of centuries of research since the scientific revolution has been a diminution of the status of human beings.
We [those
big enough to marvel at realities] now
recognise our planet to be a rather
small and insignificant object in a universe full of an untold number of galaxies [with no need for invented deities], rather than the centre of all creation.
Many
scientific findings continue to be
disputed by [mostly wrong-wing] politicians and [mostly wrong-wing] parts of the public long after a scholarly consensus has been established. For example,
nearly a third of [mostly wrong-wing] Americans still do not accept that fossil fuel emissions cause climate change, even though the
scientific community settled on a consensus that they do decades ago.
The author and associates recently conducted
two large-scale surveys that explored the first possibility – that some intrinsic attributes of science are in tension with aspects of conservative thinking.
Research focused on three scientific issues;
climate change, vaccinations, and the
heritability of intelligence. The first two were chosen because of their known tendency to be rejected by people on the political
right wrong, allowing us to observe the potential moderating role of other predictors.
Heritability of intelligence was chosen because the belief that
external forces such as education can improve people and their circumstances is a focus of
liberalism.
CONservatism, on the other hand, is skeptical of that possibility and leans more towards the idea that improvement comes from the individual – implying a lesser role for the malleability of intelligence.
The
fact that individual differences in intelligence are related to
genetic differences, with current estimates of
heritability hovering around 50%, is therefore potentially challenging to liberals [Pah! Genuinely liberal thinkers recognize that the 50:50 nature:nurture statistic confirms human malleability in the face of the education] but might be endorsed by CONservatives.
C*N*servatives and CONservatives were
less likely to accept the norms of science, suggesting that the worldviews of some people on the political
right wrong
may be typically are in intrinsic conflict with the scientific enterprise. [Well-educated moderate political conservatives are capable of coping with reality.]
The two studies help explain why C*N*/CONservatives are more likely to reject scientific findings than liberals. This rejection is not only dictated by political interests clashing with a specific body of scientific knowledge (such as human-caused climate change), but it appears to represent a
deeper tension between C*N*/CONservatism and the spirit in which science is commonly conducted.
[Is "nature" or "nurture" a predictor of C*N*/CONservative rejection of reality? fMRI studies have repeatedly demonstrated functional and structural differences between the brains of "conservatives" (closed) and "liberals" (open). The neuroscientists stress that the difference indicate predispositions rather than party affiliation ---- in other words, "conservative thinkers" can be found at both political extremes.
Psychological research has repeatedly demonstrated that, in addition to Big 5 "openness", "liberal" attitudes are statistically correlated with educational level. At the aggregate level, this correlation is reflected in the association between poverty/illiteracy levels and conservative, authoritarian societies.
Most likely explanation of fMRI and attitudinal findings? Nature endows individuals with cognitive (fIQ) predilections such that "liberal" brains gravitate towards liberal information sets [moderate and left-leaning media], and "conservative" brains towards "conservative" information sets [eg BratBait, FAUX Lies]. Thus, gravitation leads to selective self-amplification of inborn attitudinal/fIQ propensities.]
