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I am a former middle and high school science teacher pursuing a doctorate in Science Ed. at George Mason University, with a concentration in cognitive science and the evolution of cognition and learning. Postings on this blog represent my own views, not those of my employer or school. All writing displayed on this page is original work unless otherwise noted, and thus copyrighted.

20 February 2010

Ideological nonsense...

is ideological nonsense, regardless of the source, and it crosses lines of religious belief, political affiliation, and education level.




Self-identified Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats to have 4-year college degrees.


Low-income voters tend to favor the Democratic Party while high-income voters tend to support the Republican Party. President George W. Bush won 41% of the poorest 20% of voters in 2004, 55% of the richest twenty percent, and 53% of those in between. In the 2006 House races, the voters with incomes over $50,000 were 49% Republican, while those under were 38%.[55]


from Wikipedia, so we can take it with a grain of salt (the figure is from a Pew survey).

The point of sharing this is to debunk the notion that the feelings of anti-intellectualism, exemplified by Palin, have roots in a class/educational divide. The teabagger, Glen Beck bullshit spewed forth by Repubs is certainly a function of something, but the data suggests that Repubs are also more likely to be educated and have a greater income than those who are not subscribing to an anti-intellectual agenda. They may hate what they perceive as liberal and educated, but they themselves are also educated, and make the same or better money than those they disparage. Irrationality is irrational, however you choose to frame it. Some people need to adjust their bullshit detectors to home in on liberal bullshit, rather than just that put forth by the right.
To relate this directly to a previous post and it's comments: It's nice to be able to say that the reasons behind the attempted segregation in Wake Co. and the backlash against Ms. Hussain are for reasons of class, but both are coming from the same source: middle to upper class, college-educated whites. Race issues anyone? Perhaps not, as that requires examination as well, but let's not project our beliefs onto the situation without examining the data.

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