

Politics Wrecks Your Ability to Do Math - krg
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/09/new-study-politics-makes-you-innumerate

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brownbat
I was underwhelmed at the end of the article when it becomes clear that
another interpretation of the results is "People presented with shocking
results tend to scrutinize them."

A lot of Kahan's research can be read as "polarization dooms us all, careful
discussion and thought are useless." I think you could find the opposite
conclusion here, that communities with strong adherents of competing views are
more likely to have some members discover errors in hard problems that might
otherwise go unnoticed.

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alexandros
Interestingly, communities like HN and LessWrong have banned political
discussion, or tried to, for its particularly deleterious effect on
conversation.

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/)

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willvarfar
Still a shame that people are flagging this particular article, though. This
is factual and not partisan.

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jackjet
It is a good article. But putting out shit stirring garbage on a daily basis
makes it so everyone immediately skips over it when their eyes grace
_motherjones_ next to the link.

