# Tea Partiers Are Well Versed in Science **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 18, 2013, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-are-well-versed-in-science/671574 "2013-10-18T13:53:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 19
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2013, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-are-well-versed-in-science/671574/19 "2013-10-18T16:28:03Z")
If I read the [original blog post](http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2013/10/15/some-data-on-education-religiosity-ideology-and-science-comp.html) correctly, it’s saying that those who identify as Tea Party test higher than the _rest of the sample, including liberals_. Look at the legend in the 4th plot, it says “teaparty member (n=430)” and “non-teaparty member (n=1886)”. Those numbers add up to the entire data set used in this analysis, not the number of conservatives. Anyway - a good understanding of basic science & math doesn’t mean they have an unbiased view of economics, or even about science. I used to know an engineer who had a Ph.D in astrophysics and still vehemently denied global warming. We debated a few times and it was clear that he had a good understanding of science, he was just biased in which studies he took seriously. (He also talked about Ayn Rand a lot and had a FairTax sticker, so I think it’s safe to classify him as a Tea Party person.) --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tea-partiers-are-well-versed-in-science/671574)._