A Democrat Undermines Science
planb_200x170.jpg In my debate a few months back with Kenneth Green about the left, the right, and science, my colleague really could have used some more strong examples of left…
Chris Mooney
The Science of Debiasing: The New “Debunking Handbook” Is a Treasure Trove For Defenders of Reason
dbh_large.gif For quite some time here at DeSmogBlog, I’ve been writing about the growing science of irrationality—in other words, our ever-better scientific understanding of why people reject clearly correct information.…
Do Developing Nation Journalists Cover Climate Science Better (or at Least Better Than U.S. and U.K. Papers)?
ronaldo-brazil-world-cup-top-scorer.jpg As the European debt crisis scrapes along, there has been talk about the possible need for developing nations, like China and Brazil, to ultimately help bail out some spendthrift…
Fox News Viewers are the Most Misinformed: A Seventh Study Arrives to Prove It (and to Vindicate Jon Stewart!)
cavuto-20070117-global-2.jpg Two of my most popular posts here at DeSmogBlog were a pair of items documenting 1) just how many surveys have found Fox News viewers to be more misinformed…
Anthony Watts and Defensive Reasoning: Three Episodes
anthony-watts.jpg Over the last year, I’ve had numerous blogospheric encounters with the conservative climate “skeptic” Anthony Watts, the author of WattsUpWithThat. In the process, I’ve been particularly struck by how…
Conservatives Attack and Misunderstand A Book They Haven’t Read…A Book About Flawed Conservative Reasoning
mooney.jpg This would be sad, if it weren’t also so telling. On Monday I announced my new book The Republican Brain, which will be due out next spring. And I…
Rush Limbaugh: Meat Eater, Science Denier
Rush_Limbaugh.jpg Recently, Rush Limbaugh went on another of his anti-science rants. This one was particularly fascinating, though, because of the things he actually got right—even as he &n...
The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Don’t Believe in Science (or Many Other Inconvenient Truths)
mooney.jpg Over the last year here at DeSmogBlog, my writings have converged around a set of common themes. On the one hand, I’ve shown just how factually incorrect today’s political…
Score Another Victory for Scientists, Michael Mann, and the Freedom of Inquiry
495px-Mann4.jpg Yesterday in a Virginia courtroom, Michael Mann—who is quickly becoming the Galileo of climate science—triumphed over the conservative American Tradition Institute, an...
Is There a Bias Asymmetry Between Democrats and Republicans?
democrat_and_republican_symbols.jpg There’s a must read item today at the Huffington Post by Jonathan Weiler, co-author of the excellent book Authoritarianism and Polarization in American P...
Why Hard Core Climate “Skeptics” Don’t Change Their Minds
Muller001.jpg I’ve been watching with interest the blogosphere uproar over the release of results from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project centered around physicist Richard Mulle...
Why Communicating Science is So Money
schmidt2-300x300.jpg I’ve been meaning to thrown in my congratulations to Gavin Schmidt of NASA and RealClimate.org, who is the first recipient of the American Geophysical Union’s new...
Why Did Climate Progress Stall? It’s Called Conservative Ideological Activation
HideTheDeclineShirt.jpg There has been much reaction to this weekend’s Elizabeth Rosenthal New York Times piece—“Where Did Global Warming Go?” Clearly, the issue has falle...
The Old War on Science Returns Under Rick Perry
Galveston Bay.gif In an August post about the return of the “war on science”—prosecuted by the political right—I drew a key distinction between attacks on knowledge that h...
Once And For All: The Precautionary Principle is Not Unscientific
Sharp Edges.jpg Some conservatives are immensely more fun to debate than others. In the past month, a debate over left-right science abuse with Kenneth Green of the American Enterprise Insti...
Evolution and Climate Deniers: Natural Allies?
Churchsign(1).jpg On the face of things, there is no clear reason why the same person—like, say, Rick Perry—ought to deny accepted science about both evolution, and also global warmin...
Unequivocal: Today’s Right is Overwhemingly More Anti-Science Than Today’s Left
reality.jpg Last week, I took to task a really poor USA Today op-ed making the following claim: "In short, for every anti-science Republican that exists, there is at least one…
Science Communication: Training for the Future
Mississippi State.jpg Yesterday I arrived in Las Vegas, Nevada, for another installment of an enterprise to which I’ve been increasingly devoted over the last year: Training scientists in c...
New Record or Not, the Arctic Sea Ice Alarm Bells Keep Ringing
N_daily_extent_hires.png Last week, the National Snow and Ice Data Center came out with the estimate that we did not quite set a record for the minimum extent of Arctic sea…
Want to Sway Climate Change Skeptics? Ask About Their Personal Strengths (And Show Pictures!)
509983main_adjusted_annual_temperature_anomalies_final.gif Readers of my posts over the last half year will be familiar with the phenomenon of motivated reasoning, in which people’s subcons...