Posted on 02/17/2014 2:29:25 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Via Brendan Nyhan, there’s no better way to celebrate a day of national unity like Washington’s birthday than by sneering at the ignorance of our political opponents.
Okay, fine. Relative ignorance.
Why the disparity? One possibility is education. Follow the last link and scroll down to Table 7 and you’ll see, as expected, that the more educated you are, the less likely you are to see astrology as scientific. According to the very first polls taken on the tea party movement in 2010, TPers are better educated (and wealthier) than the population on average. That probably explains why “conservative Republican” is at the bottom of the list above. On the other hand, exit polls from election day 2012 show Obama winning only narrowly among voters without a college degree. Maybe the education gap between the parties isn’t so pronounced. Or maybe income is somehow a better peg for astrological belief than education is: O did win heavily among poorer voters.
Another possibility is faith. It may be that the more devoutly you believe in a religion, the less likely you are to give credence to a quasi-religious belief system (which nonetheless purports to be “scientific”) like astrology. That would help explain why Republicans, the more religious of the two parties, are more skeptical. On the Democratic side, it’s a mirror image of the same story: Liberals are more likely to be religious skeptics than other Democrats and that bleeds over into skepticism of astrology, which pushes their numbers lower than moderate or conservative Dems. But not too low — one of the striking findings here is that even lefties are more than 10 points more likely to find scientific value in astrology than righties are.
The third possibility is that this is, to some degree, a byproduct of age demographics. You ready for this?
You get a 10-point drop with every 20 years of age. Republican voters skew older and young voters, famously, skew Democratic. It’s the ignorance of the millennials and the comparative wisdom of the elderly that’s pushing Democrats down and Republicans up, respectively. (Although … what’s up with the 70+ crowd?) Not only that, but according to another study of Americans’ confidence in astrology released last week, most of the population — but millennials especially — have seen their credulousness about astrology increase since 2005. Nine years ago, just 40 percent or so of the 18-29 age group believed that astrology was sort of scientific; today it’s nearly 60 percent. How come?
Maybe we can figure this out. Click the last link and eyeball the two graphs there. In the first graph, the number of skeptics (people who think astrology is “not at all scientific”) starts to climb halfway through Reagan’s first term, as America recovers from recession, and stays relatively high throughout the prosperous 90s. It starts to dip around the time Clinton was impeached — and then skyrockets right after 9/11, falling gradually but consistently since then. The second graph, tracking the number of believers (people who think astrology is at least sort of scientific) falls until 2005 and then increases only modestly — until around 2008, when it soars and keeps on soaring. Put all of that together and what we’re seeing here, I think, is people’s faith in astrology waxing and waning as their faith in public institutions rises and falls. A rosy economy in the 80s and 90s made them skeptical; the big swell of national unity after 9/11 made them even more skeptical. But as the Iraq war wore on and then, especially, the financial crisis and ensuing recession hit, they’ve lost faith in the economy and the government. Obama’s term in office has done little to repair it, so they start dabbling with alternate belief systems to impose order on the world. That’s not the only explanation for what’s happening, as I’ve already noted, but it ain’t just poor schooling, I think, that explains why millennials in particular are more susceptible to this. They’re the ones getting hit hardest in recession-era America. As is the lower class, which might account for the income link I suggested earlier.
I’ll leave you with this in lieu of an exit question:
Over at DU they’re claiming that the people who don’t know the earth revolves around the sun are TP members. Shows you what they (don’t) know.
Astrologists, psychics, mediums, fortune tellers. I hope hell has a special place reserved for these charlatans.
Probably the same percent of Dims who laughed at nancy reagan...
I know a lady who beleives in astrology but who has an intense hatred towards christian religion because she belives and i quote “That it is nonsense about a an invisble person in the sky”....
Despite the fact that astrology is pretty much that in a nutshell exactly...
“I know a lady who beleives in astrology but who has an intense hatred towards christian religion because she belives and i quote “That it is nonsense about a an invisble person in the sky”....
Despite the fact that astrology is pretty much that in a nutshell exactly...”
This is an excellent point. I think I know that same lady;)
Back when I was a confused kid who thought he wanted to become a lawyer I had the opportunity to work for a several lawyers. More than a couple would try to organize their schedules based on astrology. One didn’t want to do jack when Mercury was in retrograde. Another wasn’t crazy about anything being scheduled when the moon was full. This would have been mildly amusing, but both went on to become judges. The important take away from this is not if you believe in it, it’s that THEY do.
All of those numbers are too high
Non-Geo-centrism. For Astrology to be true the Earth would have to be both the center of the universe and stationary. Neither of those two things is true, therefore; Astrology is not true.
For Astrology to be true all of the stars would have to be equidistant from the Earth. Since the stars are not equidistant from the Earth Astrology is not true.
For Astrology to be true relative position of stars as they move through the sky would never change. Since that is demonstratively not true Astrology is not true.
Lastly for Astrology to be true the “signs would need to be the same regardless of where you were born. What if, and this may happen in the next 50 to 100 years, Someone is born on Mars. The stars will appear different there and there will be at least one missing planet (Mars) in the persons star chart and one unexplained planet (Earth) to be accounted for.
If you believe in Astrology you are a fool.
Astrology is so idiotic that I am tempted to say anyone who believes it is to dumb for political office.
Note: I realize Nancy Reagan evidently believed it but she was never president.
They think “Global Warming” is scientific too.
Most of them at DU probably think Astrology is the Study of Gay Males
“They think “Global Warming” is scientific too.”
I suppose if your good at beleiving what people tell you regardless of wether or not it fits a working model, or even lines up with real world observations. Then your inclined to be a democrat.
Everybody knows astrology is scientific. They make predictions about the future and their predictions always come true, just like their predictions about global warming will. You say climatologist, I say astrologist. What’s the diff?
Oh, yeah, I think Oprah or Algore or MooBama or someone said that scientific consensus if that astrology is real science. There is no disagreement.
And, those darn conservatives think it is fake just as they think man-made global warming is fake.
This story is headed straight for the Memory Hole - doesn’t fit the MSM narrative.
WHAT is a conservative democrat?
Something like a hot snowstrom?
Those must be bizarre people.
Bada bing!
I’m not sure any more, but evidently on this evidence conservative democrats are a fairly stupid lot. Which is hardly surprising: you’d have to be stupid to stay in the ‘Rat party if you consider yourself conservative.
Note: this topic is from 02/17/2014.
Why is it so farfetched to believe that each of us will have one of twelve possible days? It's "totes" scientifical! Thanks SeekAndFind.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.