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The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science- and Reality
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33 Reddit comments about The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science- and Reality:

u/aspartame_junky · 122 pointsr/politics

They have already tried to establish their own "facts" with Conservapedia.

For example, Conservapedia suggests that the Theory of Relativity is not supported by evidence, and in fact, says "Claims that relativity was used to develop the Global Positioning System (GPS) are false." ... This assertion by Conservapedia is itself just plain false.

Chris Mooney goes into much more depth with this and other examples in his book "The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science - and Reality", worth checking out.

EDIT: I just checked out a few entries in Conservapedia. The following are good for a laugh:

Global Warming

Dinosaurs

Mammoth

Counterexamples to an Old Earth




u/nicmos · 32 pointsr/askscience

I know this will be buried, but:

just to be clear, psychologists do not have a clear understanding of the mechanism behind motivated reasoning. all of the persuasion resistance strategies mentioned in the reference you provided are really downstream of the process, they are strategies that result from this motivated reasoning.

it's sort of like asking how Lionel Messi is so good at scoring goals (or LeBron James and basketball or whatever), and answering, "he uses such and such strategies" but that still doesn't answer why he scores all those goals as opposed to other people. it's part of the answer, yes, but not a complete answer. when does he use which strategies? how does he make the decision what strategy to use? when are they more or less effective? there are lots of questions remaining in addition to the critical one of determining the exact mechanism(s).

I'm also surprised you didn't cite the most complete account of motivated reasoning in a journal format, which is Kunda, Z. (1990) in Psychological Bulletin, p. 108.

edit:changed a 'why' to a 'how'. also, for a good recent treatment of this, Chris Mooney, a journalist, as a book The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science and Reality which doesn't actually answer those gaps I have brought up, but is a good intro into some of the science nonetheless.

u/r_a_g_s · 27 pointsr/politics

> I think there must be some sort of primordial fear mechanism that Fox/Roger Ailes know how to exploit.

tl;dr Strong correlation between "being conservative" and "brain that tends to respond more strongly to fear, with bigger fear-handling brain parts [the amygdala]".

  • Mother Jones article from 2013 by Chris Mooney, "The Surprising Brain Differences Between Democrats and Republicans"

  • One of the studies referred to in the article

    > What they found is that people who have more fearful disposition also tend to be more politically conservative, and less tolerant of immigrants and people of races different from their own. As [Brown University researcher Rose] McDermott carefully emphasizes, that does not mean that every conservative has a high fear disposition. "It's not that conservative people are more fearful, it's that fearful people are more conservative," as she puts it.

  • The second study referred to in the article

    > Darren Schreiber, a political neuroscientist at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, first performed brain scans on 82 people participating in a risky gambling task, one in which holding out for more money increases your possible rewards, but also your possible losses. Later, cross-referencing the findings with the participants' publicly available political party registration information, Schreiber noticed something astonishing: Republicans, when they took the same gambling risk, were activating a different part of the brain than Democrats.

    > Republicans were using the right amygdala, the center of the brain's threat response system. Democrats, in contrast, were using the insula, involved in internal monitoring of one's feelings. Amazingly, Schreiber and his colleagues write that this test predicted 82.9 percent of the study subjects' political party choices—considerably better, they note, than a simple model that predicts your political party affiliation based on the affiliation of your parents.

  • Chris Mooney's book The Republican Brain

    > There is a growing body of evidence that conservatives and liberals don't just have differing ideologies; they have different psychologies. How could the rejection of mainstream science be growing among Republicans, along with the denial of expert consensus on the economy, American history, foreign policy, and much more? Why won't Republicans accept things that most experts agree on? Why are they constantly fighting against the facts? Increasingly, the answer appears to be: it's just part of who they are.

    > Mooney explores brain scans, polls, and psychology experiments to explain why conservatives today believe more wrong things; appear more likely than Democrats to oppose new ideas; are less likely to change their beliefs in the face of new facts; and sometimes respond to compelling evidence by doubling down on their current beliefs.

    > The answer begins with some measurable personality traits that strongly correspond with political preferences. For instance, people more wedded to certainty tend to become conservatives; people craving novelty, liberals. Surprisingly, openness to new experiences and fastidiousness are better predictors of political preference than income or education. If you like to keep your house neat and see the world in a relatively black and white way, you're probably going to vote Republican. If you've recently moved to a big city to see what else life has to offer, you're probably going to vote Democrat. These basic differences in openness and curiosity, Mooney argues, fuel an "expertise gap" between left and right that explains much of the battle today over what is true.

  • 2011 Psychology Today article "Conservatives Big on Fear, Brain Study Finds" that refers to this study which says:

    > We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala. These results were replicated in an independent sample of additional participants. Our findings extend previous observations that political attitudes reflect difference in self-regulatory conflict monitoring and recognition of emotional faces by showing that such attitudes are reflected in human brain structure. Although our data do not determine whether these regions play a causal role in the formation of political attitudes, they converge with previous work to suggest a possible link between brain structure and psychological mechanisms that mediate political attitudes.
u/0ldgrumpy1 · 12 pointsr/Trumpgret

Actually it's way worse than that. Emotional reasoning affects people of all I.Q.s, they can be completely able to make rational decisions as long as they are not emotionally invested in it. As soon as it is something emotional, their reasoning goes to shit. The more intelligent they are, the better they are at defending the emotional position to themselves. And no, this isn't a false equivalence argument , there is a ton of evidence that the right wing are way worse, plus fox etc use it deliberately and always lead with something fear or anger inducing so they can get their bullshit in while logic is effectively switched off. Good sources, https://www.amazon.com/Republican-Brain-Science-Science-Reality/dp/1118094514

And

https://www.amazon.com.au/d/ebook/Know-What-Isnt-Fallibility-Human-Reason-Everyday/B001D1SS2M/ref=sr_1_6?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1496189722&sr=1-6&keywords=Reasoning+everyday

u/JohnnyValet · 11 pointsr/politics

There is a recent book about just this phenomena.

The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science- and Reality

u/epiphanot · 7 pointsr/politics

Chris Mooney's The Republican Brain has some interesting things to say related to this. As does John Dean's Conservatives Without Conscience.

u/l0rdishtar · 7 pointsr/politics

I found this to be a fairly decent book on the subject, it involved a lot of neuroscience and cogsci studies.

u/seanosul · 5 pointsr/politics

Actually have a read of this
http://www.amazon.com/The-Republican-Brain-Science-Science/dp/1118094514

just as a starting point.

u/AetheralCognition · 4 pointsr/JoeRogan

>You'll need to think of a better ad hominem.

I addressed the position you've taken and the reasons why you see things that way. If you found that offensive, i'm sorry but that is a personal problem. Insulting you was not the point or the totality of what i said.

>And you probably think NYT is unbiased also.

Strawman

>"conservative christian right" hasn't been a boogey man since 1997

Are you serious? Have you watched any of the red debates? Its like 90% theocrats.

Since Nixon/Reagan and the merging of religion and politics the right has gone so much further right and into science and fact denial that it's ridiculous to anyone that isn't brainwashed by it, and repeatedly told to dismiss any dissenting information on any desperate and falsified grounds they can find

Id like to give you some homework.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Republican-Science-Chris-Mooney/dp/0465046762

http://www.amazon.com/The-Republican-Brain-Science-Science/dp/1118094514

The first is more about ideological factors driving the detachments from reality

The second is more about psychological factors driving those same detachments.

"Reality has a well known 'liberal bias' " - Stephen Colbert

u/Bilbo_Fraggins · 4 pointsr/politics

9/11 is one of the major things that made it took a turn for the worse.

Experimental psychology has consistently shown existential risk and a culture of fear drives a turn to the right politically.

I highly recommend the book The Republican Brain for the full story, but this article shares the basic point and a podcast with the author of the book is here.

For a good overview of what the differences between the right and the left are which might help you think about why people move to the right in times of uncertainty, I recommend this infographic.

u/Mofaluna · 4 pointsr/worldpolitics

Here's a good read on that fenomenon https://www.amazon.com/Republican-Brain-Science-Science-Reality/dp/1118094514

The scary part is that the more educated they are, the more susceptible they are to that kind of nonsense.

u/josefjohann · 3 pointsr/IAmA

The question isn't whether or not they have both, which they certainly do, so much as it is the proportions they occupy in their respective bubbles of conversation.

Also I'm drawing from themes from Chris Mooney's Republican Brain, which I think is a decent starting point for a lot of summarized research on the matter.

u/DigitalPsych · 3 pointsr/atheism
u/Random_Thoughts_Gen · 3 pointsr/politics

Saved you a click: Emmett Rensin

Try this one instead: The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science- and Reality

u/EvanYork · 3 pointsr/Conservative

If you really believe that conservatives aren't biased you're really only giving evidence that conservatives aren't any less biased then anyone else. But, since you asked, here's a well-known book on the topic. I don't endorse the book or the slant it uses to discuss the issue, but it's the most famous popular work on the topic and sources a whole wealth of science to support the fact that everyone has cognitive biases.

The most important concept here isn't that conservatives are biased or that liberals are biased, it's that the difference between liberal and conservative is essentially the difference between two different sets of cognitive bias.

u/AndAnAlbatross · 2 pointsr/atheism

As a brief matter of convention, I like that definition of indoctrination and it is functionally very close to the way I intended to use the word in my previous post.

---

> Yes ... They have not given up.

All scientific inquiry is driven by a lack of knowledge of a subject that is suspected to be adjacent to either known information or theorized information. Everything beyond that adjacency is speculation and unscientific.

That process can be thought of as the scientist's puzzle drive. To translate your statement into these terms, you're saying an agnostic who claims unknowability can't possibly have a puzzle-drive. This is incorrect.

The agnostics puzzle drive is just one level abstract from the scientist's puzzle drive. The agnostic could be driven by a presumed lack of knowability of a subject that is adjacent to either verifiable evidence or epistemological theory. Everything beyond that adjacency is absurdity and gnostic.

>Well, intensity is a feature of all education ... to attend a regimen of Sunday School and so forth.

>Ideally, we humans would be presented with a proposition ... more likely he is to be persuaded.

That is a lot of discussable/disputable information, but since I agree with most of it, I suggest we save it for a different conversation. Very interesting stuff.

> (1) the relatively automatic filtration by cognitive bias ("your GF is cheating on you." "Impossible! She's much too pretty to cheat on me!") based on previously known information

> (1), and they get better at it as they gather more reference material.

This is called motivated reasoning and it models and predicts the smart idiot^Mooney effect very well. I would definitely be an audience to the argument that there is some overlap with critical thinking (in practice).

> Aside from religion, they become poor marks for conspiracy theories, magical cures, horoscopes, ghost sightings and so on

Again -- have you seen the way popular media co-opts skeptical language to these ends!? Ghost Hunters, popular conspiracy theories etc... these groups draw power from ridiculing religion just like we do. If it's a religious thing, the anecdotal precedence is not readily available to me, and I would feel more comfortable deferring to topical data.

I agree, teaching actual critical thinking skills is vital, but I'm not so sure (read: convinced) the lack of critical thinking skills offers a significant in-religious correlation when you adjust for population. Maybe the subtext here is people are fucking stupid, but I'd rather make that as a global claim than a religious claim. /rant (sorry.)

> Err no, that's most likely type (1) processing, it's more cognitive bias than "real" critical thinking.

I don't completely disagree, but I've got several different models of this to compare it to, so I'm going to challenge it. Can you demonstrate this? What are you thinking of?

Also there's something I call the chaos theory of religious world-view which basically holds the following:

  • The earlier in a world-view system that spooky thinking is integrated, the more capacity for cohesion and reason that system has. (This helps me empathize with people like Bill Craig)

  • The later in a world-view system that spooky thinking is challenged, the more that challenge needs to explain in order for it be seen as a useful world-view component. (This helps us understand why paradigm shifts are so difficult inside a generation.)

    Let me know if you're interested in hearing about that.

    > In science education, at least as far as through grade school, any claim can usually be supported, if questioned, by referring to and explaining the historic experiments by which it was arrived at.

    But, practically these is superficial regress. You explain the experiments but if the explanation is questioned you can only fall back on the concept. If the concept is rejected, the instructor can't really be expected to demonstrate further. The model still supports fabrication, it just shifts it. Can we demonstrate that it shifts it to a point where fabrication is too difficult? (Maybe... I would argue this is the importance of peer review and try to demonstrate it's relevance.) Your thoughts?

    The rest of that paragraph I readily agree with (even if your terms are usually far more graphic than I would use).

    > After being made to swallow that the Bible is God's word and therefore necessarily true (that establishes its authority once and for a long time), pretty much the first lesson is "questioning is inappropriate in a religious context."

    Again -- this assumes a certain type of Christianity. The kind that is employing this method of inculcating. There are two things here, a cautionary message and a disagreement.

    (1) If the religious group was not doing this, then you would need to move goal posts to re-establish their badness or look elsewhere. Don't do that.

    (2) The religious groups who aren't doing this are probably not doing this for a reason! Could there be any reasons you would agree with? As a call back to the original discussion, wouldn't that make them sort of viable candidates to being on your side?

    > I don't have good backup material for the claim that critical questioning is discouraged in Sunday School. If you have a problem with that claim, I'll have to retract it.

    No, it can stay. Just as a matter of contingency, imagine if that factor was removed -- so too would your problem with sunday school. I never get too bent out of shape over contingent conclusions because somewhere, somehow, they won't apply and then I'll need to go back to the drawing board.



    ---
    Mooney:

    > But it’s not just global warming where the “smart idiot” effect occurs. It also emerges on nonscientific but factually contested issues, like the claim that President Obama is a Muslim. Belief in this falsehood actually increased moreamong better-educated Republicans from 2009 to 2010 than it did among less-educated Republicans, according to research by George Washington University political scientist John Sides.

    > The same effect has also been captured in relation to the myth that the healthcare reform bill empowered government “death panels.” According toresearch by Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan, Republicans who thought they knew more about the Obama healthcare plan were “paradoxically more likely to endorse the misperception than those who did not.” Well-informed Democrats were the opposite—quite certain there were no “death panels” in the bill.

    Chris Mooney, The Republican Brain
u/Mormolyke · 2 pointsr/politics
u/eurodditor · 2 pointsr/france

> Elle a perdu parce qu'elle a été victime d'attaques incessantes contre les démocrates pendant des mois, des attaques infondées et risibles.

Non. Si c'était ça qui faisait perdre une élection aux États-Unis, Obama n'aurait jamais pu être président. Trump non-plus d'ailleurs.

> Est-ce que c'est les démocrates qui écrivent des livres intitulé

Sans dec, tu crois que les démocrates sont des anges ou bien tu viens de découvrir que la politique aux US c'est encore plus violent que chez nous ? Bien-sûr que les démocrates écrivent aussi des horreurs sur les Républicains. Comme The Republican Brain, Idiot America, après l'élection de Trump on a déjà sorti Insane Clown President, Too dumb to fail, et autres bouquins écrit parfois par des élus Démocrates et contenant des illustrations telles que des images "dépeignant les républicains comme des éléphants rouges maléfiques portant une crosstika" (mélange de croix chrétienne et de swastika)...

Si tu crois que les démocrates sont tendres avec les républicains et que seuls les républicains tapent fort sur les démocrates, tu planes à 10 000. Mais tout ça c'est pas grave, ça n'a pas vraiment d'importance : les attaques contre tel ou tel bord politique, ça ne trigger que les militants convaincus de chaque bord. Or c'est pas ceux-là qui font une élection, puisqu'ils votent à peu près toujours pareil.

Le problème des démocrates, c'est pas qu'ils ont attaqué les républicains.

C'est qu'ils ont attaqué des tas de gens qui n'étaient pas spécialement politisés et qui à vrai dire auraient pu pencher du côté démocrate, mais que les élites démocrates méprisaient profondément parce qu'ils avaient le tort de pas penser comme il faut ou de manquer d'éloquence face au titulaire d'un PhD en liberal arts, et que ces petites gens, de dépit, alors qu'ils auraient dû être défendus par les démocrates justement parce que ce sont des petites gens (ce qui ne veut pas forcément dire leur donner raison sur tout hein, mais déjà chercher à les comprendre plutôt que de les traiter de débiles et de racistes/sexistes/homophobes/xénophobes/etc. ça aurait été un bon début) sont allés se réfugier dans les bras des républicains. Qui les ont accueilli à bras ouvert parce qu'ils ont bien compris, eux, que c'était ces gens là qui allaient faire pencher l'élection d'un côté ou de l'autre. Et ça n'a pas manqué.

u/shadmere · 1 pointr/politics

This is a great book about that very subject.

It's not that Republicans are mentally wrong, but they do tend to think differently than liberals in many areas. Many of those differences, while they might be useful in certain situations and contexts, are pretty awful when dealing with a modern, free society.

u/QEDLondon · 1 pointr/skeptic

Agreed, but according to Chris Mooney (FWIW) conservatives are more likely to stick with their ideology despite evidence to the contrary. The Republican Brain

u/Exsanguinatus · 1 pointr/politics

So, what you're telling me is that you're not biased, don't think it's possible to search for the statistics around the topic at hand, believe that everyone abuses the welfare system, yet when presented with evidence gathered by the federal agency responsible for the welfare program that contradicts your non-biased view of the matter, you dismiss it immediately as preposterous without needing to provide any counter-examples proving that it is indeed preposterous?

There's a book out I think you should read.

It cites all sorts of lovely studies. Studies that "show conservatives more likely to defend their beliefs against new evidence and highly-educated conservatives are even more prone to do so." (Kulinski is the name of the guy who ran the study, but I'm having trouble finding a link to the paper at the moment, and I have to get to work)

But nobody's trying to tell you you're not biased at all. No. I'd never tell you to your face that you're not, in fact, in possession of the truth (big T, or little t - take your pick).

edit - started on a cell phone, and the damned thing thought it was time to post half-way through my comment.

u/jonathan881 · 1 pointr/videos

have you read this? disregard the politics it's worthwhile for the psychology.

u/Benegger85 · 1 pointr/trump

https://www.amazon.com/Republican-Brain-Science-Science-Reality/dp/1118094514


Bestselling author Chris Mooney uses cutting-edge research to explain the psychology behind why today’s Republicans reject reality—it's just part of who they are.

From climate change to evolution, the rejection of mainstream science among Republicans is growing, as is the denial of expert consensus on the economy, American history, foreign policy and much more. Why won't Republicans accept things that most experts agree on? Why are they constantly fighting against the facts?

Science writer Chris Mooney explores brain scans, polls, and psychology experiments to explain why conservatives today believe more wrong things; appear more likely than Democrats to oppose new ideas and less likely to change their beliefs in the face of new facts; and sometimes respond to compelling evidence by doubling down on their current beliefs.  

Goes beyond the standard claims about ignorance or corporate malfeasance to discover the real, scientific reasons why Republicans reject the widely accepted findings of mainstream science, economics, and history—as well as many undeniable policy facts (e.g., there were no “death panels” in the health care bill).

Explains that the political parties reflect personality traits and psychological needs—with Republicans more wedded to certainty, Democrats to novelty—and this is the root of our divide over reality.

Written by the author of The Republican War on Science, which was the first and still the most influential book to look at conservative rejection of scientific evidence. But the rejection of science is just the beginning…

Certain to spark discussion and debate, The Republican Brain also promises to add to the lengthy list of persuasive scientific findings that Republicans reject and deny.

u/MrOrdinary · 1 pointr/IAmA

I just heard there is a new book out about the Republican Brain. About how differently Reps and Dems think. Sounded interesting on the radio review. It may enlighten some.

edit: ok it's due out this week. link

u/jadenton · 1 pointr/worldnews

I'm not projecting, you're just a fucking filthy liar.

The letter is a hoax. You've admitted that is doesn't exist, and yet your somehow still defending it. Here the book that really explain why you do this : http://www.amazon.com/The-Republican-Brain-Science-Science-/dp/1118094514/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404233833&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=the+reblican+mind

Unlike your source, which is just one quake ranting about his political opponents, the author of this book pulls togther study after study after study into neroscience to present his thesis about how cognitively defective and morally deficent right wingers are. Funny enough, it's a branch of study that got started back in the 1950s as people tried to figure out how so many Germans could be made to go along with the Nazis. Turns out, 30% of the population is just evil, right wing filth that really really has a hard time confronting reality.

u/weshallrise · -1 pointsr/progressive

You would do well to read the book The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science - and Reality by Chris Mooney. You may be able to find it at your local library. If not, it is worth the price to purchase it, especially if you have lots of Right Wing folks in your family. I learned so much reading this book and cannot recommend it highly enough!

And thanks for the link at the end of your post! I've been laughing my ass off for the last 15 minutes!

u/Mistbeutel · -1 pointsr/worldnews

>but I will say that most conservatives I know at least understand the liberal position and disagree with it, while lots of people like the redditor above you seem to have trouble grasping the idea.

It's quite undeniably the exact other way around.

What do you believe do I not understand about the right wing position?
You see, understanding a position doesn't mean you agree with it.

Because you commented on my personal position: I understand right wing positions quite perfectly. Which is why I fundamentally disagree with it. I have thorough debates about politics every day. I have a thorough education about these topics. I discuss my views and those of others every day. I constantly improve my views and reject ideological reasoning. If I am confronted with evidence, I will change my views. In fact, I won't even express views that I haven't already seen evidence of.

And one of the problems with right wingers is that they don't do these things. As becomes evident by their type of argumentation and the way they conduct debates alone. If right wingers understood their own position, they would stop supporting it. And if they understood the left wing position (not liberal, by the way) they would start supporting it.


As you might have notice: I am literally am asking people to justify their right wing position. Because that way they themselves have to critically think about the things they believe and have to formulate falsifiable statements so I can be convinced by them or refute them. But it turns out that most of the time they can't even do that. Unlike left wingers they don't even provide falsifiable arguments and aren't really willing to debate in the first place. And it's not that they won't for whatever reason they tell themselves (e.g. "The evil libtards never listen to me or tolerate my valid opinions anyway!"). It's that they simply just can't. Even if you can get them to actually discuss their views, ultimately always abandon rational debate and start blindly dismissing arguments of others or attacking people personally (see: your own comment).

In the meantime: Ever saw a right winger try and understand positions that differ from his/her own? Because I sure didn't. Just look at all the replies I get here. Non of them is actually interested in reasonable conversation or understanding what I said. They just got enraged by my criticism and become defensive and attack me personally or blindly dismiss what I said. No serious questions, no serious attempt to answer mine. They aren't interested in understanding things and choosing what is better based on evidence and arguments. They make their choice first and then spread relativism to justify their position. "My position is just as valid as yours, it's all just different opinion." That's simply not how logical reasoning works.

>For more reading look at research done into confirmation bias, the difference between the values of conservatives vs liberals, and egalitarian communitarianism vs heirarchal individualism.

Yes, please do.

http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/367/1589/640.full?sid=95b65067-2a89-4cfa-abbf-a30069789213
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/01/04/0956797611421206.abstract
http://personal.lse.ac.uk/kanazawa/pdfs/SPQ2010.pdf
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/26/liberals.atheists.sex.intelligence/
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289609000051
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289608001049
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289610001339
http://www.amazon.com/The-Republican-Brain-Science-Science/dp/1118094514
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/09/liberals-care-more-about-empathy-than-conservatives/380404/

You will notice that left leaning people are far more open to discussing ideas and considering the views of others. They are also more rational and base their opinions on reason and logic rather than emotions and ideology. That doesn't mean they are more accepting of opinions that are evidently bad for society. Which right wing views simply quite often are (if they were evidently good for society, left wingers would immediately adopt them).

You will also notice that there is a positive correlation between the level of intelligence and education and left wing thought. While the dumber and less educated you are the more likely you are to fall for right wing propaganda.

The problem with what you said is that it's flawed based on a very fundamental level of definitions: Left wing politics is inherently open-minded. The entire purpose of left wing politics is to do what's best for society and the people and the planet as a whole. It is based on evidence and reason. It stands directly in contrast to right wing politics, which is based entirely on establishing hierarchy and doing what's best for an elite (e.g. nationalist, religious, economic, etc.).

Research shows us that, on average, left wingers are: Significantly more empathetic, educated, intelligent, open-minded and unbiased. Left wing politics is inherently more evidence based and progressive. These things are thoroughly confirmed through evidence (and, as was already said, are a consequence of the very definitions of these tenets).

Sorry, but reality doesn't support your views and relativism.

Politics isn't about left vs. right and the truth being somewhere in the middle. It's pretty much about the people who care about society as a whole (i.e. the left) fighting against people who put themselves or elitist groups over the general population and the planet (i.e. the right). Centrists are simply people who try and find a middle ground because they implicitly believe the elites in power can't be stopped in their quest to consolidate it and the left wing won't stop defending the interests of the general population and the planet, either, so they "compromise" regardless whether or not one side is objectively superior to the other. Seriously, look up what left and right mean, understanding the definitions of these terms alone should already do away with most of your opinions.

Edit: Notice how right wing apologists are making blind accusations and unsubstantiated claims and when met with evidence of them being wrong and thorough and falsifiable explanations, they just downvote and refuse to even expose themselves? It's always like that. Right wingers are simply never demonstrating reasonable behaviour. I haven't met a single reasonable right winger in my life (if they were reasonable, they wouldn't be right wingers). Yet here we had a person making excuses and actually accusing the left of not being open-minded. What /u/chintzy claimed was effectively a lie and instead of fessing up to it and apologizing or deleting their comments, they keep up their lies. It's impossible to reason with people that display such behaviour and that's why right wing thought keeps existing.

u/ru-kidding-me · -1 pointsr/Liberal

I am not questioning their methodology, I am questioning their motives. Reading the citations at the end sounds like a reading list for young progressives. I am sorry, but it sounds like AGW believers that conservatives are irrational and here, we have the "hockey stick" (i.e. heart rate) to prove it.

Check out the Republican Brain book which basically says conservatives don't have the empathy gene, so they are emotionally inferior to the morally superior liberals.

It really smacks of 1984 to prove a political point more than research designed to show some innate difference.

Sorry if you wrote the study. Did you base your thinking on the book?