"To give an appearance of solidity to pure wind”

In the article Looking Back, Looking Forward: ISPP at 40 and Future Directions for Political Psychology author Katherine Reynolds covers a wider range of topics. After reading this, we discussed in class,a few topics, but really dug into the section entitled The Erosion of Scientific Rationalism?

The subsection discusses the perception that the gulf between the scientific community and the general public is growing. Which from studies cited in the article, is proven not to be true. Although, within those same studies is the concerning fact that almost almost 1/4th of the United States does not "trust" science. Further, we applied that to the very controversial topic of Abortion which is incredibly personal, nuanced and convoluted. While not only being an interesting in class conversation, it helped really highlight the concept of motivated reasoning. As most of us did not cite science but only personal experience, or how our values interacted with the issue. Few, if any made arguments based on scientific fact. Which drove home the point of how natural motivated reasoning is.

Motivated reasoning is a term that essentially means "a person’s deference to scientific evidence depends on the specific policy under consideration." Which means that people defer to science/evidence/numbers only when they are in line with their argument, otherwise, they can shrug off evidence. An easier example of this, is the issue of climate change, which most of the scientific community has said is real. Speeches and articles like this Article from the New Yorker that says "sea level is projected to rise more than one foot by 2045, which would put a fifth of Miami underwater at high tide." Lets just say that info has been fact checked, a climate skeptic, should logically change their opinion when presented with this evidence. However this quote from a former New York real estate mogul, highlights the concept of motivated reasoning: "Ice storm rolls from Texas to Tennessee - I'm in Los Angeles and it's freezing. Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax!" The quote does not stand up on scientific fact, and stands literally in opposition of evidence, calling it a "hoax". Yet the same man gave the reason of “25,772,342 [undocumented immigrants]” that have come through the Southern border of the United States, as reason to declare a state of emergency. Here we have a clear example of using numbers and evidence when it suits an argument. Which falls perfectly into the definition of motivated reasoning we gave at the beginning of this paragraph.

All of this points to the idea that, feelings, allegiances and emotion, have taken over for evidence in being the barometer of a sound argument. Which while not always a bad thing, can be a dangerous thing when it decides the future and safety of millions. So it can be seen that while scientific rationalism may not be falling out of fashion, motivated reasoning is becoming more fashionable.