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study and statistical modeling of a previous survey by the Pew Research Center concludes that Americans are much more likely now than a few decades ago to line up on scientific issues according to their ideological leanings and party identification. But this alignment is not uniform and how tightly partisanship links to opinions on scientific issues depends a great deal on what those issues are:
"In this politically polarized culture, there is a strong temptation to think that people's partisan connections and their ideology dominate their thinking about every civic issue," said Cary Funk, associate director for science research and lead author of the new Pew Research analysis. "What's striking about these findings is that politics sometimes is at the center of the story about public attitudes and sometimes politics has very little to do with the way people think about science issues in the public arena. We find there are striking differences that center on age, educational attainment, gender, and race and ethnicity."
Okay. That's not exactly surprising. But the details are nonetheless interesting.
Everyone who follows such matters is familiar with the way this works in one key area: climate change. Of Democrats and independents who lean Democratic, 71 percent say the Earth is warming due to human activity, compared with 27 percent of Republicans (a difference of 44 percentage points). These differences hold, according to Pew's statistical modeling, even when accounting for other characteristics of Democrats and Republicans, such as their different age and racial profiles.
Factoring in gender also doesn't change that alignment. But age does. Only 31 percent of seniors say the Earth is warming due to human activity compared with 60 percent of Americans under age 30 who say that. And seniors are more likely to reject stricter control of power plant emissions and favor offshore drilling and other fossil fool development over adding to sources of power by using the wind and sun.
After controlling for political leanings, there are gender gaps when it comes to animal research, food safety and energy. For instance, 60 percent of men favor using animals in scientific research, but 62 percent of women oppose this. Only 28 percent of women but 47 percent of men think eat genetically modified food is safe. A 60 percent majority of men favor more offshore drilling, but only 44 percent of women do.
Race and ethinicity also have an impact. For instance, blacks are more likely (57 percent) than whites (36 percent) or Hispanics (34 percent) to say that world population growth will not be a problem because we will find ways to stretch natural resources.