Politics Over Reason

One would hope that even in a contentious political argument, facts would be persuasive.  But a study by Dan Kahan, Ellen Peters, Erica Cantrell Dawson, and Paul Slovic demonstrates how political views can impede mathematical reasoning.

The researchers asked participants to interpret the results of a fake study.  The numbers were misleading--a calculation was needed to get the correct answer.  Each participant was presented with one of four scenarios--two about politically neutral skin cream and two about politically charged gun control.

Some people were determined to be more numerate than others and everyone performed about the same on the skin cream questions.  But when it came to gun control, conservatives were likely to misinterpret when the scenario depicted a decrease in crime and liberals would misinterpret when an increase in crime was depicted.  In fact, the differences between correct and incorrect interpretation increases for those who are better at math.  These are people who could easily understand the problem--unless the results go against their political views.

Unfortunately, this seems to show that having more information or better reasoning ability isn't enough.  We'll continue to see what we want to see.

Update (March 1, 2014):  Research by Emily Pronin and Katherine Hansen at Princeton University demonstrates that people maintain the belief in their own objectivity even when they know the process they are using is biased.  We have a blind spot when it comes to recognizing our own biases.

Update (June 28, 2014):  In a paper called "Climate Science Communication and the Measurement Problem", Dan Kahan demonstrates that the phrasing of science questions can avoid challenging one's personal beliefs.

It goes on to show that conservatives aren't ignorant about the science of climate change, they just don't choose to believe it.