Posted: Jul 18, 2016 5:53 pm
Thommo wrote:SkyMutt wrote:
What sort of political bias do you identify in examining the benefits of social media? Given that the majority of conservatives in the US are users of social media (Facebook in particular), one would surmise that they have an interest in the topic. I think that even a non-user would tend to exhibit natural curiosity about such information.
Does that follow? Let us suppose a majority of 51% of conservatives use social media and a majority of 81% of liberals use social media, would that not reflect a different level of interest and thus a potential source of bias? *See edit.
It could, and I guess we'll just ignore natural human curiosity.
Thommo wrote:SkyMutt wrote:In discussing this article with conservatives, what I have encountered is rationalizations of this behavior ("data can be twisted" "many scientists are biased") rather than denial that the results present an accurate reflection of conservatives' interest in data. Anecdotal, not scientific evidence, I grant you, but I thought it was interesting.
Sure, it might be true, but I did wonder. I don't think scrutiny, questions about replication and analysis of possible alternative explanations of the finding lie outside the scope of science!
Certainly. The paper is up on ScienceDirect, but I don't have access.