Maggie's Farm

I think we're centrist.

The problem is how you define "centrist". I wish I could find it, but somewhere around ten years ago or so I read a treatise on defining political positioning by a PoliSci Prof from the University of Florida.

He maintained that a definition of political "centrist" could not be determined in any rational way. Normal political views are not subject to one dimensional thinking - meaning that if you look at a flat plane and define what you regard at right or left political orientations, you can average political positions or issues in a X/Y graphic and come up with an orientation that indicates if you are in the right, middle or left.

The problem is that the definition is only one dimensional. He came up with a 3D graphical model asking the standard questions with additional probing questions so that you could get an idea of the subtleties in political thought. What he found that there isn't anything that can be closely related to the concept of "centrist". The data points showed up all over the 3D space and what he found was rather curious - with the exceptions of outlier positions, that a globular cluster gathered around the center data point with very few in close orbit to the center.

I'm rambling - sorry, but I thought it was interesting. I don't know if any further work was done on this theory of his and I can't find a reference to it on the web.

Why do people still deny climate change?

Because they can't see any evidence of it in their daily lives and are sick and tired of seeing money being pored down the drain in pursuit of technologies that may only become viable in the future. The average Joe or Jane may not have a Harvard economics degree or a PhD in Atmospheric Science from Penn State, but they know when they are being baffled with bullshit instead of dazzled by brilliance.