The Republican Brain , livre ebook

Turner Publishing Company - Chris Mooney

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187 pages

English

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Description

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.
Introduction: Equations to Refute Einstein 1

PART I POLITICS, FACTS, AND BRAINS 17

Prelude: Liberal Fresco on a Prison Wall 19

1. Denying Minds 26

2. Smart Idiots 42

PART II THE “NATURE” HYPOTHESIS: DANGEROUS CERTAINTY 57

3. Political Personalities 59

4. For God and Tribe 77

5. Don’t Get Defensive 89

6. Are Conservatives from the Amygdala? 111

PART III ENTER THE “ENVIRONMENT”: TURNING AGAINST CHANGE 127

7. A Tale of Two Republicans 129

8. The Science of Fox News 147

PART IV THE TRUTH: WHO’S RIGHT, WHO’S WRONG, AND WHO UPDATES 169

9. The Reality Gap 171

10. The Republican War on Economics 187

11. The Republican War on History 202

12. What the Frack Is True? 219

PART V THE POLITICAL LABORATORY 239

13. A Liberal Confronts New Data 241

Conclusion: Rescuing Reality 261

Acknowledgments 275

Notes 279

Index 311

Sujets

Political Science

Republican

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Publié par	Turner Publishing Company
Date de parution	27 mars 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781118236741
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1400€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Contents
Introduction
Part I: Politics, Facts, and Brains
Prelude: Liberal Fresco on a Prison Wall
Chapter 1: Denying Minds
Chapter 2: Smart Idiots
Part II: The Nature Hypothesis: Dangerous Certainty
Chapter 3: Political Personalities
Chapter 4: For God and Tribe
Chapter 5: Don t Get Defensive
Who s a Conservative?
What Do Conservatives All Share?
Why Don t You Psychoanalyze Liberals, Too?
What about the Difference between Economic and Social Conservatives?
What about the Cultural Cognition Model?
What about Leftist Regimes?
What about Left Wing Ideologues?
Why Not Better Distinguish Conservatives from Authoritarians?
What about Centrists and Independents?
What about Political Conversions?
Chapter 6: Are Conservatives from the Amygdala?
Part III: Enter the Environment : Turning Against Change
Chapter 7: A Tale of Two Republicans
Chapter 8: The Science of Fox News
Iraq War
Global Warming
Health Care
Ground Zero Mosque
The 2010 Election
Part IV: The Truth: Who s Right, Who s Wrong, and Who Updates
Chapter 9: The Reality Gap
Chapter 10: The Republican War on Economics
Chapter 11: The Republican War on History
Chapter 12: What the Frack Is True?
Part V: The Political Laboratory
Chapter 13: A Liberal Confronts New Data
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Index

Copyright 2012 by Chris Mooney. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
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Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Stephen Colbert
Introduction
Equations to Refute Einstein
We all know that many American conservatives have issues with Charles Darwin, and the theory of evolution. But Albert Einstein, and the theory of relativity?
If you re surprised, allow me to introduce Conservapedia , the right-wing answer to Wikipedia and ground zero for all that is scientifically and factually inaccurate, for political reasons, on the Internet.
Claiming over 285 million page views since its 2006 inception, Conservapedia is the creation of Andrew Schlafly, a lawyer, engineer, homeschooler, and one of six children of Phyllis Schlafly, the anti-feminist and anti-abortionist who successfully battled the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. In his mother s heyday, conservative activists were establishing vast mailing lists and newsletters, and rallying the troops. Her son learned that they also had to marshal truth to their side, now achieved not through the mail but the Web.
So when Schafly realized that Wikipedia was using BCE ( Before Common Era ) rather than BC ( Before Christ ) to date historical events, he d had enough. He decided to create his own contrary fact repository, declaring, It s impossible for an encyclopedia to be neutral. Conservapedia definitely isn t neutral about science. Its 37,000 plus pages of content include items attacking evolution and global warming, wrongly claiming (contrary to psychological consensus) that homosexuality is a choice and tied to mental disorders, and incorrectly asserting (contrary to medical consensus) that abortion causes breast cancer.
The whopper, though, has to be Conservapedia s nearly 6,000 word, equation-filled entry on the theory of relativity. It s accompanied by a long webpage of counterexamples to Einstein s great scientific edifice, which merges insights like E mc 2 (part of the special theory of relativity) with his later account of gravitation (the general theory of relativity).
Relativity has been met with much resistance in the scientific world, declares Conservapedia. To date, a Nobel Prize has never been awarded for Relativity. The site goes on to catalogue the political aspects of relativity, charging that some liberals have extrapolated the theory to favor their agendas. That includes President Barack Obama, who (it is claimed) helped publish an article applying relativity in the legal sphere while attending Harvard Law School in the late 1980s.
Virtually no one who is taught and believes Relativity continues to read the Bible, a book that outsells New York Times bestsellers by a hundred-fold, Conservapedia continues. But even that s not the site s most staggering claim. In its list of counterexamples to relativity, Conservapedia provides 36 alleged cases, including the following:
The action-at-a-distance by Jesus, described in John 4:46-54, Matthew 15:28, and Matthew 27:51.

If you are an American liberal or progressive and you just read the passage above, you are probably about to split your sides-or punch a wall. Sure enough, once liberal and science-focused bloggers caught wind of Conservapedia s anti-Einstein sallies, Schlafly was quickly called a crackpot, crazy, dishonest, and so on.
These being liberals and scientists, there were also ample factual refutations. Take Conservapedia s bizarre claim that relativity hasn t led to any fruitful technologies. To the contrary, GPS devices rely on an understanding of relativity, as do PET scans and particle accelerators. Relativity works -if it didn t, we would have noticed by now, and the theory would never have come to enjoy its current scientific status.
Little changed at Conservapedia after these errors were dismantled, however (though more anti-relativity counterexamples and Bible references were added). For not only does the site embrace a very different firmament of facts about the world than modern science: It also employs a different approach to editing than Wikipedia . Schlafly has said of the founding of Conservapedia that it strengthened my faith. I don t have to live with what s printed in the newspaper. I don t have to take what s put out by Wikipedia. We ve got our own way to express knowledge, and the more that we can clear out the liberal bias that erodes our faith, the better.
You might be thinking that Conservapedia s unabashed denial of relativity is an extreme case, located in the same circle of intellectual hell as claims that HIV doesn t cause AIDS and 9/11 was an inside job. If so, I want to ask you to think again. Structurally, the denial of something so irrefutable, the elaborate rationalization of that denial, and above all the refusal to consider the overwhelming body of counterevidence and modify one s view, is something we find all around us today. It s hard to call it rational-and hard to deny it s everywhere.
Every contentious fact- or science-based issue in American politics now plays out just like the conflict between Conservapedia and liberals-and physicists-over relativity. Again and again it s a fruitless battle between incompatible truths, with no progress made and no retractions offered by those who are just plain wrong-and can be shown to be through simple fact checking mechanisms that all good journalists, not to mention open-minded and critically thinking citizens, can employ.
What s more, no matter how much the fact-checkers strive to remain bipartisan, it is pretty hard to argue that the distribution of falsehoods today is politically equal or symmetrical. It s not that liberals are never wrong or biased; a number of liberal errors will be described and debunked in these pages. Nevertheless-and as I will show-politicized wrongness today is clustered among Republicans, conservatives, and especially Tea Partiers.
Their willingness to deny what s true may seem especially outrageous when it infects scientific topics like evolution or climate change. But there s nothing unique about these subjects, other than perhaps the part of campus where you ll find them taught. The same thing happens with economics, with American history, and with any other factual matter where there s something ideological-in other words, something emotional and personal-at stake.
As soon as that occurs, today s conservatives have their own truth, their