Fortunately (for them; so far) They Never Let The Facts Confuse Them Too Much

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

Prof. Brad Lewis writes:

"There's a major growth industry lately in the apocalypse-because-of-fiat-money [ideologues]. They've been wrong every time before, and Stockman never seems to have recognized that the Reagan administration's stimulus, with budget deficits to match, is a major reason the economy did well during his 1st term."

What Is Around the Corner Is a Flaming Meltdown of the Fed's Third Financial Bubble* 

"But fortunately (for whom?), they never let the facts confuse them too much.

Alas, Stockman provides a very predictable template."

* plus, the sky is falling

Study rules out stupidity as a cause of disbelief in climate science

"The aim of the study was to test two hypotheses," said Dan Kahan, Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology at Yale Law School and a member of the study team. "The first attributes political controversy over climate change to the public's limited ability to comprehend science, and the second, to opposing sets of cultural values. The findings supported the second hypothesis and not the first," he said.

"Cultural cognition" is the term used to describe the process by which individuals' group values shape their perceptions of societal risks. It refers to the unconscious tendency of people to fit evidence of risk to positions that predominate in groups to which they belong.

The results of the study were consistent with previous studies that show that individuals with more egalitarian values disagree sharply with individuals who have more individualistic ones on the risks associated with nuclear power, gun possession, and the HPV vaccine for school girls.

Read it at Environmental Economics
Study rules out stupidity as a cause of disbelief in climate science

(h/t Mark Thoma)

Another way of putting this is that facts are non-neutral and are formed by the consensual reality of the group to which a person belongs.