Tea Partiers Have Higher ‘Scientific Comprehension’ - Study.

While conducting an analysis of the scientific comprehension of various political and religious groups, Yale professor Daniel M. Kahan discovered that self-identified tea partiers had slightly higher “scientific comprehension” than their non-tea party counterparts.

Using data from the National Science Foundation’s “Science Indicators,” the Cognitive Reflection Test, and a “nationally representative sample of U.S. adults recruited to participate in a study of vaccine risk perceptions,” Kahan developed a series of “science comprehension” scales to analyze a variety of groups.

Source

Didn't stop them from hating on gays which is biologically (sciency) based.

"...self-identified tea partiers had SLIGHTLY higher “scientific comprehension” than their non-tea party counterparts."

"non-tea party counterparts" means OTHER REPUBLICANS. That's like being being the smartest idiots at the Stupid Rodeo.

It'd be sad if someone thought a quantitative study with a sample size of 430 was able to achieve sufficient representation of an entire political group. Heck, even the person who made the dang study called the results "trivially small," meaning he agrees that it's not really going to stand on its own.

I thought the Tea Party wasn't a big fan of vaccines

I love you.

I comprehension of proper manners is required at my tea parties.

Except many wealthy people are Republican because they cater to that party. I don't think they are all idiots....after all....they know who has their interests. Your statements lacks logic.

@deeliman said:

There does seem to be some disagreement about whether the tea party is actually considered a part of the republican party or a third party, especially from the elected tea party officials. It seems to be back and forth from them whether or not they represent a third party or that they are trying to change the republican party from within. That being said the policies that they have supported would largely point to them being incredibly hard right wingers.

I would have to assume the disagreement among those elected stems from being politicians and the hope that by being indecisive revolves around getting more moderate republican votes.

@THE_DRUGGIE said:

Agreed, I'd also point out that comprehending something doesn't necessarily equate to agreeing with it and acting accordingly.

*points and laughs at those who call the Tea Partiers idiots*

Well we all have hobbies....enjoy.

Where do you see that in the study? It just compares the Tea Party to to people outside of it, it says nothing about comparing them only to Republicans. Seems you're seeing what you want to see. I remember reading in the NYT that Tea Partiers tend to be wealthier and more educated than the average American, so it's not so outlandish.

It's comparing them to other republicans, who are also made fun of for being backwards on scientific and medical issues.

Smartest idiot in the room is what I got from this.

People in general are so full of themselves

Their platforms generally include a denial of global warming and evolution, so yea they're fucking idiots.

I am pretty sure that this isn't a case of "the biggest idiot in the room." In a certain respect, this makes sense in that people who most vocally object to government taking their money probably have a decent amount to begin with (IIRC, Tea Party wing of the GOP is pretty well off on average), and that, to a large extent, is enabled by education. Also worth keeping in mind is that the differences were very, very slight.

So, where is the background to the study? What are the variables decided upon to measure the "scientific comprehension" of tea-partiers?

This is what I was thinking

Holy shit r=0.05. How the **** can they make this kind of conclusion when their correlation coefficient is so hilariously weak? Adding in the small size of the differences and this is basically random errors making the TP look smarter than the average person. When you consider that TPers are wealthier and "whiter" than the average American you should probably expect a much stronger correlation than this.

And also Scientifically wrong and incompatible, and internally damaging.

Did they go to school in Kansas?

True; at that point it ceases to be a correlation and crosses into coincidence territory. Idiotic study is idiotic.

So much liberal damage control going on here. Lol.

You are overlooking the fairly common idea that tea-partiers are a bunch of stupid crazy people who are bringing down the rest of the GOP.

what is?

so it seems unclear upon reading the article if this is greater than all who are not Tea partiers, or just greater than republicans who are not tea partiers

False quoting is cheap.

Not surprising at all. Liberals have a tendency towards art, journalism, etc.

And this is obviously correlational

you've obviously never worked in a lab.