According to the Pew Research Center, the nation is more polarized than at any time in recent history. While some of the issues dividing us boil down to ideology and preference, there is at least one on which hard science should have a strong say — climate change. But do numbers and figures change people’s opinions?
Apparently, they do — they result in a deeper divide.
more…
CrazyNeutrino said:
Why Facts Don’t Unify UsAccording to the Pew Research Center, the nation is more polarized than at any time in recent history. While some of the issues dividing us boil down to ideology and preference, there is at least one on which hard science should have a strong say — climate change. But do numbers and figures change people’s opinions?
Apparently, they do — they result in a deeper divide.
more…
This US article is written very much from an American perspective, and the fact that the lessons only apply to the US should probably tell them something. In the scheme of things, this is a fairly recent political problem in the USA. It is not an immutable law of human behaviour.
dv said:
CrazyNeutrino said:
Why Facts Don’t Unify UsAccording to the Pew Research Center, the nation is more polarized than at any time in recent history. While some of the issues dividing us boil down to ideology and preference, there is at least one on which hard science should have a strong say — climate change. But do numbers and figures change people’s opinions?
Apparently, they do — they result in a deeper divide.
more…
This US article is written very much from an American perspective, and the fact that the lessons only apply to the US should probably tell them something. In the scheme of things, this is a fairly recent political problem in the USA. It is not an immutable law of human behaviour.
There is an immutable law of human behaviour that is quite similar.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarization_
“Polarization in communications and psychology, is the definition given to the behavior of a social or political group to split based on opposing views. Over time, more and more members of the original group join one or the other split group and fewer and fewer members remain neutral. This brings the two sides or “poles” further and further apart. During polarization, there is a tendency for the opposing sides of the argument to make increasingly disagreeable statements, thereby creating more and more distance between the two sides. Thus, it is commonly observed in polarized groups that judgments made after group discussion on a given subject tend to be more extreme than judgments made by individual group members prior to the discussion. This process is also known as ‘group polarization’.”
dv said:
CrazyNeutrino said:
Why Facts Don’t Unify UsAccording to the Pew Research Center, the nation is more polarized than at any time in recent history. While some of the issues dividing us boil down to ideology and preference, there is at least one on which hard science should have a strong say — climate change. But do numbers and figures change people’s opinions?
Apparently, they do — they result in a deeper divide.
more…
This US article is written very much from an American perspective, and the fact that the lessons only apply to the US should probably tell them something. In the scheme of things, this is a fairly recent political problem in the USA. It is not an immutable law of human behaviour.
I doubt that is true. It’s just the people who are regarded as unarguable authority that have changed.
Facts or the disputing of facts often seem to be attached to agendas or profit so you will have large divides between the opposing parties