In philosophy, there are two kinds of argument - rhetoric and dialectic. (And I am not using this in the terms that K. Marx used when he co-opted these terms for his own use, I am referring to the original 700AD Greeks.)
People tend to think either one way or the other - either rhetorically or dialecticaly. Rhetoric appeals to the heart. To tell your story and to profess your intentions. Dialectic is to reason based on observed data and facts. If someone presents data that disagrees with yours, you examine their data and change your ideas if you can see that their data better represents the actual truth. A give and take constantly refining (and improving) what you percieve as the truth.
Sufice to say, I think that liberals think rhetorically and conservatives think dialecticaly. Case in point from Ars Technica:
Less than 1 in 10 conservative Republicans trusts climate scientists
Last week, amid all the attention devoted to presidential polls, a couple of different polls came out examining how one of the issues in the presidential campaign is perceived by the voters. Climate change has come up in both presidential debates so far, and the positions of the candidates on this issue are radically different (stay tuned to Ars for more on that). But as the polls reveal, these differences reflect fundamental differences between the members of the two parties.
A bit more:
One of the new polls comes from the Pew Research Center, which surveyed more than 1,500 US adults (the survey has a margin of error of 4 percent). In addition to answering questions about their view on climate science and policy, the participants were asked about their political affiliations, which were divided into four categories based on strong or moderate affiliation with one of the two major parties.
A number of studies, using varied methodologies, have all indicated that an overwhelming majority of scientists accept the evidence for human-driven climate change. But it's clear the public doesn't know that. Barely more than half of liberal Democrats say that there's a scientific consensus. Less than a third of moderate Democrats do, and only about 10 to 15 percent of all Republicans do. Similar numbers were obtained when Pew asked whether scientists knew if climate change is occurring, what its causes are, and what the best ways to address it are. None of these issues is at all scientifically controversial, yet only 11 percent of conservative Republicans felt that we understand the cause.
That 97% consensus trope (from John Cook in Australia) was soundly debunked a few weeks after publication but it fits the rhetorical narrative so the warmists keep parroting it. The true believers fail to see that there has been a pause of 19 years in atmospheric warming and that all of the changes predicted by their computer models have failed to manifest. Do they re-examine their data and make changes? No - it is full speed ahead with even more rhetoric.
Conservatives like numbers - we look at them and analyze them. The earth's climate has more variables than anyone can model - it gets hot, it gets cold. Because of the increase in CO2 we are seeing the deserts become green again, we are seeing a 5% increase of cereal growth per acre and we are seeing plants being a lot more tolerant of drought. CO2 is the gas of life and carbon is our friend.
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