For a long time, those wishing to claim that Democrats and Republicans both reject science—we’re all biased, just in different directions—have relied upon two key issues in making their case: vaccines and genetically modified foods, or GMOs.
The suggestion is that these are basically the liberal equivalent of evolution denial or global-warming denial. Skeptic magazine founding publisher Michael Shermer, for instance, prominently cited resistance to GMOs in a Scientific American article last year entitled “The Liberals’ War on Science.” As for vaccines? In a recent segment entitled “An Outbreak of Liberal Idiocy,” no less than The Daily Show suggested that vaccine denial is a left-wing scourge.
GMO concern appeared largely spread across the spectrum in a January 2013 CBS News poll, and while it was somewhat stronger among Democrats (and, as especially strong on the far left), it was also very strong among Republicans and independents. 92 percent of “very liberal” respondents were either “somewhat” or “very” concerned about GMOs, compared with only 71 percent of “very conservative” respondents.
So why, then, do people so readily assume that vaccine and GMO denial are fundamentally left-wing causes? I suspect because those of us who live in liberal, largely bicoastal cities meet vastly more liberals than conservatives; and thus, we are far more likely to actually encounter liberal or left-wing people who hold these beliefs.
Read the full, original article: Stop pretending that Liberals are just as anti-science as Conservatives
