Why Even Educated Conservatives Deny Science -- and Reality

Here’s a mind-blowing surprise: For Republicans, having a college degree didn’t appear to make one any more open to what scientists have to say. On the contrary, better-educated Republicans were more skeptical of modern climate science. Only 19% of college-educated Republicans agreed that the planet is warming due to human actions, versus 31% of non-college-educated Republicans. For Democrats and Independents, the opposite was the case. More education correlated with being more accepting of climate science.

This is called the “smart idiots” effect: The fact that politically sophisticated or knowledgeable people are often more biased, and less persuadable, than the ignorant.

Tea Party members appear to be the worst of all. In a recent survey, they rejected the science of global warming even more strongly than average Republicans did. For instance, considerably more Tea Party members than Republicans incorrectly thought there was a lot of scientific disagreement about global warming (69% to 56%). Most strikingly, the Tea Party members were very sure of themselves—they considered themselves “very well-informed” about global warming and were more likely than other groups to say they “do not need any more information” to make up their minds on the issue.