In her editorial in the Boston Globe, Ellen Goodman complains about the lack of change in the “political climate” with respect to global warming. Dafydd ab Hugh comments on most of her points better than I could, but there was one quote that caught my eye:

One reason is that while poles are melting and polar bears are swimming between ice floes, American politics has remained polarized. There are astonishing gaps between Republican science and Democratic science. Try these numbers: Only 23 percent of college-educated Republicans believe the warming is due to humans, while 75 percent of college-educated Democrats believe it.

I read that, and I can’t help thinking that that tells me absolutely nothing. First of all, it’s hardly surprising that, on an issue where the correct answer isn’t yet known (see Dafydd’s post — there are many variables not at all under human control that could be influencing the global climate, and regardless of what some people want you to believe, we don’t know exactly what’s causing it), it is hardly surprising that people tend to believe the possible answer that fulfills their worldview. If I told you that 70% of college-educated Democrats believed that gun control laws reduce violent crime, and 30% of college-educated Republicans believed that gun control laws increase violent crime, would you be surprised?

Second of all, what the heck does “college-educated” mean in this context? Appeals to Authority are logically questionable in any case, and in this particular case, the authorities in question may or may not have any specialized knowledge about the topic being discussed — someone with a doctorate in literature is college educated, but they’re hardly someone I’d go to for an expert opinion on global warming.

Though, that did raise an interesting question for me — I can’t help wondering if there is any correlation between a person’s field of study in college and their political affiliations. I would imagine that, say, social workers are primarily Democratic, but I don’t know of any way to be sure.

Finally, let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that among climatologists who had personally looked at and analyzed the data, the split was more or less the same as the one among college educated individuals in general. What would that tell us? It would certainly raise an eyebrow, and would lead me to believe that one side or the other (or possibly both) was being influenced more by their beliefs than by the actual scientific evidence. But while Ellen Goodman obviously believes that it would be the “Republican” scientists’ agnosticism that is being influenced by factors other than evidence, I remain unconvinced. I simply haven’t seen enough of the evidence, and the “We’re not sure” camp seems a lot more willing to share actual evidence than the “if you argue with us, you’re just like a holocaust denier” camp.