How Democrats and Republicans Cite Science (nature.com)
- Reference: 0177141111
- News link: https://politics.slashdot.org/story/25/04/25/1854224/how-democrats-and-republicans-cite-science
- Source link: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01311-9
> The United States is known for the deep polarization between its two major political parties -- the right-wing Republicans and left-wing Democrats. Now an analysis of hundreds of thousands of policy documents reveals striking differences in partisan policymakers' use of the scientific literature, with Democratic-led congressional committees and left-wing think tanks more likely to cite research papers than their right-wing counterparts. The analysis also shows that Democrats and left-leaning think tanks are more likely to cite high-impact research, and that the two political sides rarely cite the same studies or even the same topics.
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> "There are striking differences in amount, content and character of the science cited by partisan policymakers," says Alexander Furnas, a political scientist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and a co-author of [2]the analysis , published in Science on 24 April. The researchers used the government-policy database Overton to assemble around 50,000 policy documents produced by US congressional committees in 1995-2021 and around 200,000 reports from 121 ideologically driven US think tanks over a similar period. These documents contained 424,000 scientific references.
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> A statistical analysis revealed that congressional reports are now more likely to cite science papers than before. But, in each two-year congressional cycle, documents from committees under Democratic control had a higher probability of citing research papers, and the gap between the two parties has increased. Overall, documents from Democratic-controlled committees were nearly 1.8 times more likely to cite science than were reports from Republican-led ones. The differences were starkest for reports produced by partisan think tanks, which the researchers say are "key resources for partisan policymakers." Left-leaning think tanks were 5 times more likely to cite science than right-leaning ones. And there was little overlap between the science referenced by the two sides: just 5-6% of studies were cited by both groups.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01311-9
[2] https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adt9895
Reality has a well-known liberal bias (Score:1, Informative)
And Republicans are increasingly interested in enforcing their vision of what social hierarchies should be rather than making peoples' lives better.
When you're focused on dictating behavior, the only authority you're citing is violence.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Trump 2028 for Ayatollah.
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Guns won't protect you from the FBI or the CIA. However, if you check
[1]https://www.forbes.com/sites/a... [forbes.com]
you'll see that even a right wingnut rag like Forbes can explain to you that guns won't protect you from guns, although they will help you exit the gene pool.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/04/28/red-states-have-higher-gun-death-rates-than-blue-states-heres-why/
Re: Reality has a well-known liberal bias (Score:2)
Violence *is* the teeth behind all other authority except perhaps the religious variety. Though one could easily make the case that the threat of eternal damnation or simply oblivion as punishment for sin is also a threat of violence.
The only difference is what kind of behavior the threat of violence is used to coerce. Jail for "not paying your fair share" of taxes or for misgendering some beardo in a dress? Or for performing a purely elective abortion?
The U.S. Doesn't Have a Left-Wing Party... (Score:3, Informative)
...only a conservative party (the Democrats) and an ultra-conservative party (the Republicans).
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> Conservative implies safe and well thought out. That's what the word means in every other context.
I disagree. The meaning of conservative is unambiguous: keep the status quo. Nothing to do with safe and well thought out.
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Right, preserving slavery was once a conservative value, but it was not safe or well thought out. Banning abortion is not conservative either, it is radical.
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> Right, preserving slavery was once a conservative value, but it was not safe or well thought out. Banning abortion is not conservative either, it is radical.
Overturning Roe in the US did not 'ban' abortion here.
It was based on bad law...even the hero of the Left Ruth Bader Ginseberg stated as such....
And geez, even most places in the EU have more rules on abortion than the US does in some of the more ultra liberal states in the US.
By the way, I'm VERY much pro-choice.
And if you want to get an abortion
Re: There's nothing conservative about Republicans (Score:1)
Ever heard of the "Southern strategy?"
Basically, it was racists who fought for slavery, and back in the day the racists were mostly in the Democrat party. I think we can all agree on that.
But in the 60s and 70s, the Republican party decided that they wanted the racists in their camp. They courted the racists actively, deliberately, and with a paper trail.
[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
And they succeeded.
So I'm glad you brought this up. It's an important chain of events, and I wish more people in the Unite
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
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> PS. It was the Republicans that fought and won the war against slavery....just saying.
Republicans of the Civil War era were progressives . Or do you think that conservatives of the time would have been willing to pass the Reconstruction Amendments?
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You might want to lookup a little on the history of slavery.
Even if that's true (Score:2)
Then you better stop voting Republican because they are not in favor of the status quo. They're all about hierarchy and your place in it and their place in it. And they will do absolutely anything to maintain that rigid hierarchy and structure. That makes them radical extremists.
The Republican party isn't conservative no matter what definition you want to pick. They're about wielding power and maintaining a strict social hierarchy of their personal preference, with the occasional person allowed to climb
The Democrat party is a coalition party (Score:1)
America has a two-party system because we have winner take off first past the post voting. It's not correct to say we don't have a left-wing party. Because for all intents and purposes the Democrat party isn't one party. It's a network of sub parties that operate under a single brand name because of how our electoral system works.
It would be more convenient for people who don't pay a lot of attention to politics if we could have a voting system that allowed people to be more obvious about it. So the peo
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Republicans are radical, the opposite of conservative. Democrats are non-functioning, once a tent becomes too large it ceases to be a tent at all. There is neither a left wing party nor a right wing party.
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Do you know where the term right and left wings come from? The sides of the room they sit on. So as long as there are right and lefts sides of a room, there can always be a right wing party or left wing party.
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> ..only a conservative party (the Democrats) and an ultra-conservative party (the Republicans).
Oh please...not this same OLD trope again.
Look, please don't try comparing US political parties to the EU....it just is apples to oranges and doesn't mean shit in any intelligent conversation about politics IN THE US.
We don't give a fuck what you think left of right is over there....do what you want, bless you, enjoy it, but don't try to lay any comparison or suggestions our way.
The dems ARE the liberals over
Science (Score:2)
Sounds to me like either conservatives can't understand these studies or they are afraid they will find out something they don't like about the world in them. Either way it's a difficult thing to defend, making up your own truth about something that was studied and found to be different.
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Academia is predominantly left wing and the aggregate of their work will reflect that. Take covid for example, the studies coming out were 10, 50 or even 100:1 talking up the vaccines versus having a critism of it. The opinions and beliefs of the leaders in the top science positions, like NIH, determine the direction science takes. They hand out grant money for running studies, and there's not a lot of money going against Big Pharma. But what we want is quality over quantity. Science can whip up a pile of j
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being pro vaccines is not left wing, it is following the scientific evidence. Likewise being against vaccines isn't right wing, it is just stupid.
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But it is a simple fact of life that not everyone will agree on everything. Would be nice to stop having crimes so that we could divert resources away from fighting criminals and into more interesting endeavors. Doesn't mean that this will happen. Ever.
I try to do what I believe is right, which is to put myself in other's shoes. Others will simply take your shoes because they like them more than their own, and they can justify their decision to themselves as perfectly as I can justify mine.
And so some parti
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> A thousand years ago, if the villagers on the other side of the river decided to start eating poop and all caught some form of deadly illness, it was their issue.
That's not how things work though, just because they were not aware of germ theory doesn't mean the actions didn't affect them, especially when even in your scenario, they share the river. Sure today the scale is bigger but life is immeasurably better for every human alive today than that time. The foundation of civilization is through some means forcing people into some mold of what we all consider "right", law is effectively morals with enforcement. We "force" people not to murder each other but now we
Keep politics away from science, engineering, etc. (Score:2)
> being pro vaccines is not left wing,
I seem to recall a famously right wing President being very pro-vaccine recently. And his rival left wing Presidential race opponent being skeptical of that same recent vaccine. After attaining office the left wing president experienced a transformation, embraced the vaccine, and became quite aggressive regarding it use.
To me, it seems as if both sides are quite capable of playing politics with vaccines. They are politicians after all, and politics comes first in their minds.
Politics can corrupt anyth
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Give one example quote of Joe Biden being "skeptical of the vaccine"
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> Sounds to me like either conservatives can't understand these studies or they are afraid they will find out something they don't like about the world in them. Either way it's a difficult thing to defend, making up your own truth about something that was studied and found to be different.
Or maybe it does not matter. Even if there is science on a particular subject, that in no way means you agree with any particular policy in response. Not every scientific paper means "we have to do something", though busybodies and zealots are always looking for any excuse and government has a lot of those types. It's even not at all unusual with governments for a response to a problem being worse than the original problem. All the science in the world unfortunately can't fix that part.
Left and Right embraces science ... (Score:2)
The Left and Right absolutely understand science behind closed doors. Both will publicly embrace science when it COINCIDENTALLY aligns with their politics.
Politics always corrupts science, logic, etc. If you do science, engineering, etc ... always keep politics away from your work. Politics will just f' things up in the long run.
Left-wing Democrats? (Score:2, Insightful)
Anywhere else in the world the core of the US Democratic Party would be firmly somewhat to the right of center. The US Republican Party is just an outright fascist party.
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The Republican party used to not be fascist; it also used to stand for something. Not anymore. It did have fascist elements and leanings but those fringes have taken over but they still stand for less than probably any fascist party has. It's a cult.
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> Anywhere else in the world the core of the US Democratic Party would be firmly somewhat to the right of center.
What left/right means in the rest of the world means fuck all when talking US politics....it's not worth bringing up....we don't give a fuck what the rest of the world thinks....why do you give a fuck so much about our left/right dividing lines?
> The US Republican Party is just an outright fascist party.
If they were facists....they do a REALLY BAD job at it.....by promoting more free firearm owners
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Yeah bad fascism is still fascism. Just like Jan 6th being a bad and failed insurrection doesn't make it not an insurrection, that's not how things work and you all know that. This is literally a Sideshow Bob argument. "Attempted murder! Now honestly what is that? Do they give a Nobel prize for attempted chemistry?!"
Also the current admin is literally using the government to shut down speech on campuses with the argument that if they receive Federal money then the Federal Government can control their speec
False in the very first sentence. (Score:2, Interesting)
"The United States is known for the deep polarization between its two major political parties -- the right-wing Republicans and left-wing Democrats. "
The US no longer has two major political parties differentiated by right wing and left wing. This is a fundamental falsehood designed to suggest that what we have is business as usual. The US does not have functioning political parties at all and Republicans are only right wing by coincidence, the party displays the opposite of conservatism.
Of course Democra
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Everywhere is polarized, it is not just the US. The problem IMHO is that there is no longer a concept of "live and let live", nowadays everyone wants to run everyone else's life, and not only that they want to be as douchey as possible about it. When they are in power the cons want to own the libs, but when power changes the libs absolutely want to own the cons every bit as badly. The agendas are different, but they are all exactly the same kind of people underneath - and none of them are decent human be
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> Republicans use Common Sense
You can call it whatever you want. In my lifetime there has been little sense coming from the Republican party. Their version of common sense seems to be some combination of "whatever is in the bible" and "whatever serves the rich".
> Common Sense has an unbeatable track record with zero retractions
You sure about that one? During my parents' generation the "common sense" was that having segregated water fountains was correct. Hell, some people to this very day think it's "common sense" that marriage is limited to a biological male and a biological female.
> Which one do you trust?
Science. Every time
Cite Science? (Score:1)
Political Science, Climate Science, Gender Studies Science?
What does cite science even mean?
Are we supposed to forget the amount of junk and non-reproducible science?
"Nature", which most of us can agree holds a certain standard for science, has issued reports trusting science: [1]https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03974-8
NPR once told me that according to science (Score:3, Insightful)
some women have penises.
Feynman warned about shoddy thinkers adopting the trappings of science, hoping to bask in the glory of a spectacularly and conspicuously successful enterprise.
He was quite right. Many things that call themselves "science" aren't science.
Now's a good time to remind the audience that I'm watching this from somewhere quite close to the belly of the beast. And I've watched it all get stupider and more explicitly partisan and politically-motivated over the past two decades. With my own eyes.
#shutdownstem for example.
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> With my own eyes.
and thus we have have right-wing "science"
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You are correct. I would say that on average the democrats have typically had science on their side more often than not, particularly when it came to stuff like cigarettes causing cancer, seat belts reduce fatalities, and so on. But both sides are guilty of using science when it suits them and ignoring it when it doesn't.
I remember an interview with David Suzuki when he was talking about what got him into activism. He's trained as a geneticist. One day a protester approached him and basically told him t
Republicans know what a woman is (Score:1)
Republicans know what a woman is. No citation needed
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[Citation Needed]
When you don't have first-hand knowledge... (Score:2)
You must answer the question, "Who should I trust?"
Commonly, people tend to trust those with the same ideological background.
The article uses the phrase "left-wing" Democrats, whereas the spectra of both parties overlap. The closer to the centre a person is, the more likely they are to trust peer-reviewed science.
If you've decided to trust a paper based solely on ideology, you need backup.
Boy... (Score:3)
Boy, there are a lot of pissed, angry conservatives in this thread.
False equivalence. It's not right-wing vs left-win (Score:1)
In no way are the Democrats left-wing. They are overwhelmingly of the centre. It is center/right Democrats vs far-right Republicans. Calling the Democrats left-wing is just nonsense.
US democrats are "left-wing" (Score:2, Informative)
Citation needed
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Why are Democrats afraid of being called liberals? Ashamed?
Re: US democrats are "left-wing" (Score:1)
[1] www.nytimes.com/opinion
[2] www.nytimes.com/news
But I repeat myself.
Re: US democrats are "left-wing" (Score:3)
I usually vote for Dems, and I disagree with Gavin Newsom on many idealogical and philosophical points.
But right now I am mainly focused on criticizing authoratarians that have infiltrated the federal government. It's a matter of priorities, and a matter of not every instance of accusing your opponent of being like Hitler is hyperbole.
At this stage, I'll work with wall street friendly Third Way Democrats, old guard neoliberals, New Left Democrats, actual card carrying communists, conservative independants,