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We like to think that education changes people for the better, helping them critically analyze information and providing a certain immunity from disinformation. But if that were really true, then you wouldn't have low vaccination rates clustering in areas where parents are, on average, highly educated.
Vaccination isn't generally a political issue. (Or, it is, but it's rejected both by people who don't trust pharmaceutical companies and by those who don't trust government mandates; these tend to cluster on opposite ends of the political spectrum.) But some researchers decided to look at a number of issues that have become politicized, such as the Iraq War, evolution, and climate change. They find that, for these issues, education actually makes it harder for people to accept reality, an effect they ascribe to the fact that "highly educated partisans would be better equipped to challenge information inconsistent with predispositions."
http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/01/education-plus-ideology-exaggerates-rejection-of-reality/
[Paper]: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12098/abstract
Why do you think this is ? Would you agree with their premise ?
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday January 13 2015, @02:50PM
You have no idea how right-wing NPR is, do you? If they had a segment about Monsanto, one of their two guests(it's always two) for discussing it would be from Monsanto. Try to believe me when I say this that I'm not anti-monsanto, except to the extent that I have a general preference for locally owned farms(who still sometimes buy Monsanto products).
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 13 2015, @04:44PM
Those who get their news from right-wing sources assume that PBS and NPR are liberal news outlets, because those right-wing sources regularly refer to those networks as "liberal". And in their fictional shows they do make some decisions that are absolutely motivated by liberal ideas, such as very intentionally making the human cast of Sesame Street a very diverse group with the goal of presenting American kids compelling characters that are more like themselves and the people around them.
But the NPR and PBS news shows are mostly friendly to the political establishment: The "liberal" position will generally be represented by a Democratic Party hack, and the "conservative" position by a Republican Party hack. That means that (a) both positions get approximately equal airtime, regardless of who's right and who should be in trouble, and (b) positions agreed upon by both parties are never challenged. On any political issue right now, if you listen to All Things Considered or watch Newshour, you'll find that the two sides represented are the President's side, and the Republican Congressional leadership's side. This does you no good if one or both of those sides is completely wrong or lying, or if there is significant dissent within either major party, and neither NPR nor PBS will tell you when this is the case.
One reason for this phenomenon is that part of their funding comes from Congress, and Congresscritters have threatened to cut off that funding when they get too critical of political leadership.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Wednesday January 14 2015, @09:48AM
NPR and PBS news shows are mostly friendly to the political establishment: The "liberal" position will generally be represented by a Democratic Party hack, and the "conservative" position by a Republican Party hack.
Except that doesn't mean that NPR/PBS don't favor a conservative stance — by just about any other First-World nation and our own definitions from prior to 2001, the Democratic Party has actually been conservative for some time. They just don't look like it to us because the Republicans are so far rightward at this point that it'd be fairly difficult to not look quite liberal by comparison.
Back on-topic: I think that education can teach or strengthen critical thinking skills, and I did take one mandatory college class in 1996 that did a pretty good job of it. Trouble is, it's not initially taught at an early enough phase in the student's life (we need the student questioning reflexively long before they reach adulthood), it's an elective at best at most schools — people that believe the only thing they'll benefit from is classes related to their planned career aren't likely to bother with it, especially if it's taught through an entirely different department.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 14 2015, @04:51PM
This. I used to know someone who was a manager of some sort at a fairly large and well-funded public radio/television complex in Virginia. I was much younger and much more into politics at the time, and the topic of Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now" came up in conversation with her: I asked why the local public stations weren't carrying it. She explicitly said that they were afraid that it would alienate their Republican listeners, and that the public radio and television networks make a pronounced effort to include both Republican and Democrat viewpoints, because they're constantly under fire for not being sufficiently neutral. Their funding is basically always under implicit threat from the Republicans and sometimes from the Democrats. Moreover, their listeners who send money to pledge drives include a lot of wealthy Republicans (who like listening to old music).