The following reveals why even democracy falters despite an educated populace...they, like ignorants and the uneducated mass, fail to make the right choice to elect the person to govern them...
We all think we form opinions by carefully weighing the evidence. But
that's rarely the case, especially when it comes to politically
divisive issues such as global warming, GMOs, vaccinations, and
fracking. Luckily, there's a cure.
A 2016 study by Yale University researchers
set out to determine what impact scientific knowledge and curiosity had
on people's opinions of polarizing scientific topics. They began by
measuring these two elements in the participants. Scientific knowledge
was determined with a set of questions about basic scientific facts and
quantitative reasoning, and scientific curiosity was measured with a set
of questions and a choice of material to read—those who chose to read
science stories over sports or politics got a higher curiosity score.
With
these characteristics measured, the participants then judged how
concerned they were about politically charged issues. Predictably,
liberal Democrats were more likely to judge global warming and fracking
as significant risks to the planet, and conservative Republicans were
less so. But strangely, the more scientific knowledge a person had, the
more likely they were to be polarized—scientifically knowledgeable
liberals were most concerned about the risks, and scientifically
knowledgeable conservatives were least concerned. Scientific curiosity,
though, showed something different. The more curious people's opinions
got closer to converging politically, with more concern over fracking
and global warming from curious liberals and conservatives alike. This
shows that reaching across the aisle for bipartisanship doesn't require more knowledge; it just requires a more curious mind.
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