I've noticed, when speaking with my more Democratic-leaning friends, a marked versatility (shall we say) in relation to evidence. For example, when What's the Matter With Kansas? came under criticism [PDF] -- author Thomas Frank's various statements about demographics and politics being completely in conflict with the evidence -- Frank responded by discarding the idea we could understand what people think by conducting surveys:

I suppose I should be grateful to Larry Bartels. After all, it’s not every author who gets to have his work assailed by the director of a prestigious Ivy League political science research center...The fundamental assumption animating Bartels’ attack on What’s the Matter With Kansas? (WMK) is that studies like mine—based on movement literature, local history, interviews, state-level election results, and personal observation—are inherently inferior to mathematical extrapolations drawn from the National Election Surveys (NES). Indeed, Bartels seems to understand his assault on WMK as a blow struck for responsible academic professionalism against a contemptible “pundit literature.” My own feeling, after watching him steer his science around the proving ground, is that this vaunted research device is in reality a rickety and most unreliable contraption.

To begin with, consider the barren landscape of American politics as Bartels describes it—a featureless tundra swept of history, ideology, and any hint of the raw emotional resonance that everyone knows politics possesses. His NES America is not a place that I recognize. It might as well be the moon.

Amazing, especially given how often I've heard Frank's book echoed as "evidence" or a "study" showing that conservatives "don't vote their own economic interest" (yes of course -- socialism works just fine!), or some other assertion from book.

Yet when given the choice between Frank's "feeling" that NES data must be somehow wrong (it doesn't match his own assumptions — also drawn, no doubt, from his "feelings" and re-enforced by a few anecdotes), well the NES data must go. Frank doesn't bother to find any criticisms of the NES data, or determine if other reputable studies conflict with it. It's of no value whatsoever since it doesn't mirror his perceptions.

Another contemporary example might be the much-criticized (from the right) AP article "Obama left with little time to curb global warming", which screams "Global warming is accelerating!" despite continually declining temperatures since 1998. Facts, such as global temperature readings, shouldn't get in the way of a good narrative. Heck, we don't even need to explain why they're wrong or misleading: simply ignore them.

I encounter the same phenomenon sadly often: When discussing politics with left-leaning friends or relatives, it is not at all uncommon to see them switch stances on the importance of "evidence": A study comes out saying what they want, and evidence is important -- then when I offer to show them contrary evidence, suddenly, well, you can prove anything with "facts" or "studies" can't you? And yes, I can see holding that view — but they seemed a good bit more impressed with such just moments beforehand.

(One relative of mine even argues, I kid you not, sadly, that you can't look at unemployment statistics, for example, as even a partial measure of how many people may be suffering economic problems. So what does she do to figure this out? Sit in a darkened room and imagine what it might be like? No, in truth it seems more that she echoes whatever the media is saying that week. If statistics are unreliable, then journalism school graduates are far better?)

This attitude continually shocks me. If true, it means that there is nothing which science can do or find except confirm liberal-left talking points. Evidence has no intrinsic value, and studies should be evaluated on their conclusions, rather than by proving methodological flaws. If so science, and even critical thought itself, is dead in such a context.

Of course, this is what the Sokal Hoax demonstrated amongst a small but determined group of left-leaning partisans. Sadly, both the news media, writ large, and my own group of associates (of varying ages) include a quite a lot of determined left-leaning partisans.

Sorry, just another personal rant from a conservative who's continually frustrated as his own apparent inability to even change one or two minds on one or two very simple, well-documented points. (And I wouldn't care otherwise, except that these beliefs cause very real harm.) It never fails to astound me how those who argue the world is "complex", and that they're deeply in favor of "reason" and "science" can be so impervious to examining even rather reliable and otherwise uncontroversial forms of evidence which contradict their pat assumptions.