One reason why America is lagging behind in math and science education, is that conservatives take many anti-scientific positions based on religion and corporate interests. If the science contradicts the bible, tells us we need to move away from fossil fuels or should think about banning guns, then the science is a liberal conspiracy.
Minorities typically live in cities and areas with a dense population. A lot of guns in high density areas with a lot of poor people and gangs is going to lead to more gun violence than area where a person has to drive 1 mile to see their closest neighbor. It’s perfectly rational to argue that gun control largely be based on local governments rather than national legislation.
One of the biggest reasons blacks get hurt by gun legislation is because police and politicians specifically target blacks more than whites. White people use drugs just as often as blacks for example, but blacks are way more likely to go to jail for selling or using drugs. That doesn’t mean all drug laws are inherently racist.
Yes, the flatearthers. Our current federal government aided and abetted by the American Rupert Murdoch’s owned local newspapers and Sky News (Australia) is full of flatearthers. The current LNP government will even argue against their own electric car policy.
People across the political spectrum are guilty of having anti-scientific views… but conservatives suffer from this to a much larger extent. They reach a conclusion first and then any evidence that does not validate their opinions is either false, inconclusive, “just an opinion” or whatever else they need to label it in order to deny the evidence and objective reality.
What’s even more sinister though, is that when they do use statistics, it’s often in a way that takes advantage of people who don’t have a sophisticated understanding of how to interpret statistics.
You have to look no further than how they use statistics to vilify immigrants, minorities and Muslims.
For example, if I give an easy problem like: “John is from the US and he is shy. 80% of mathematicians are shy, but only 20% of construction workers are shy. Is John more likely a mathematician or a construction worker?” A person whose not trained to analyze such a statistic might quickly say that John is more likely a mathematician. However, given that there are millions of construction workers and only thousands of people with the title of mathematician in the US, John is more likely to be a construction worker.
So they can then use a statistic like Blacks commit more crime to come to the conclusion that most blacks are criminals…or that if most terrorists are Muslim, it means that most Muslims are terrorists.
Since they know how to use statistics in a manipulative way, they will say all use of statistics is manipulative or just an opinion when it comes to providing evidence against what they believe in, without even attempting to do any unbiased critical analysis of the facts.
Agreed. But that also does not mean that the statistics are leading you to the right conclusion, particularly when the topic is political.
But we aren’t discussing science here, we are discussing politics.
I was saying that our political decisions should be influenced by scientific evidence… science and politics mix together all the time. Statistics are a fundamental scientific tool.
You seem to think that just because you can use statistics to push whatever agenda you want, that the validity of each statistical argument can’t be evaluated in an objective way. That’s false. You can test how valid a statistical model is by how predictive it is when you isolate as many other factors as possible.
So we can conduct a variety of scientific studies and see how much does owning a gun increase the likelihood of a person getting killed or harmed.
Now if you want to argue that we can drastically decrease gun-related deaths without gun restriction, then you should offer those solutions. However, to say that science doesn’t matter just means that you think we should base politics on completely arbitrary preferences rather than analyzing the facts.
Well since one of the 2nd’s primary functions has so far failed I’m skeptical.
Yeah, I mean if owning guns or some fantasy of using guns to fight off the military is more important to them than reducing the number of people who get killed every year, then they should just say that.
Logically why do you think the per capita gun related death rate is so much higher in the USA than it is Australia?
Gun control reduced gun deaths in Australia, but as I mentioned before…living situations will have an effect on gun deaths as well…which is why I suggested a lot of gun control laws be local instead of national. High density areas where poverty, unemployment, gangs and things of that nature exist will be breeding grounds for gun violence way more so than the suburbs or people who live in rural areas.
America also has a higher gun suicide rate so that would suggest either we don’t deal with mental health issues as well as Australia or we have more stressors that lead to suicide.
The ease of access to guns in the USA would be a major contributing factor to a higher gun suicide rate in the USA.
With respect to mental health issues, whilst we don’t have a perfect health system we do have universal health care; so those suffering from mental health issues in Australia are more likely to be able to receive help irrespective of that person’s socio-economic circumstance.
I’d guess that belief systems and compassion also play a role. When you look at people with mental and/or behavioral issues as being bad people vs people who need help, you create a system that perpetuates crime and self destruction.
We jail more people than anywhere in the world and instead of pouring the money into intervention programs, we privatize the jails and look to see how we can lock up more people. When you get out of jail, we make it so it’s hard for you to find a good job so the only thing you can think to do next is to commit more crime and go back to jail.
It is my understanding that the reason the CDC can’t use government appropriated funds to research gun violence is because of lobbying by the NRA. Do you think that the influence of the NRA is decreasing?
Not as long as they can buy off or threaten politicians. Most Americans are already for sensible gun control.
Your understanding is wrong.
The 2020 elections will see how wrong you are.
The 2020 elections have nothing to do with you being completely wrong about the CDC.
Nope its completely accurate.
When the research gets in the way of your agenda, defund the researchers
