pch1013 – Nature is peer-reviewed. The claims of the original study were limited and judicious. I was impressed with the lead researcher’s proper caution.
The subsequent claims made by others not connected to the research, sought out by the LA Times, were irresponsible, and that is what is addressed here. Those claims were made in the LA Times, not Nature, for the good reason that the speaker knew that his career would be over if he tried to sell that crap to a peer-reviewed journal. He might sneak it by in the Letters to the Editor. Those irresponsible remarks were made by professionals in the field. There is a profound difference between a professional saying “in my experience, conservatives do not tolerate ambiguity well” and saying “this research shows that conservatives do not tolerate ambiguity well.” The former is quite clearly an assesment, an opinion, subject to the usual constraints of debate about definition, reinterpretation, etc. The latter purports to be a statement of fact and is subject to stricter criteria. By those criteria, it fails miserably.
