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Comment by proamdev123 | Hacker News Reader

I’ve heard this quote before, but I don’t understand what it means.

Can you elaborate?

Democrats, which is often used synonymously with Liberal in the United States, use this saying because they see the major opposing side, the Republicans, as needing to deny scientific evidence to push agendas. (sometimes true)

Democrats would point to climate change as an example of this. They then extrapolate too far, in my opinion, and declare that Liberal=Science therefore Liberal=Objective therefore Republican != Objective.

I think it's clear that this kind of tribal-based reasoning hurts objectivity.

And Republicans would claim that Democrats deny scientific evidence when it comes to gender and race.

Tell me more about the scientific evidence that Democrats ignore when it comes to race?

They deliberately ignore established scientific consensus with regards to the biological and physical differences between men and women. That’s why they say “men can get pregnant!” and insist that MtF transgenders should compete in women’s sports. They have eroded definitions of terms like “gender” which used to be synonymous with “sex” to push a narrative, and silenced physicians/pediatricians who (correctly) voice observations that the hormone-altering drugs given to children sterilizes them. Climate change is another issue. No democrat had ever been able to demonstrate in a manner which its falsehood could can be verified, the degree to which human activity contributes to climate change (e.g. is it 2%? 5%? 50%?). Even though there’s a large push to “go green” and tear down the foundation to our modern infrastructure and energies (coal, petroleum, and gas). Just now there’s been a large push to ban gas stoves as an element to “combat climate change” despite the insignificant contribution to the global-warming pie chart.

There’s a lot more, and there’s a lot that the republicans & democrats are both guilty of (e.g. the suppression of studies of cognitive abilities between the races e.g. the gaussian distributions of IQ, despite IQs being comparably reliable in predicting academic success, job performance, career potential and creativity). They like to say “race is skin deep”, while ignoring the fact that even children of mixed-race parents cannot accept a bone-marrow transplant from their own parents - it will be rejected. It literally goes further than bone deep. These are just a handful of observations anyone can verify for themselves.

The people who created that quote were probably thinking of the American political landscape, and in terms of issues like whether evolution is real; whether anthropogenic climate change is real; whether vaccines are broadly safe and beneficial; whether abstinence-only sex education is the most effective kind; and suchlike.

In America the Republican party has enjoyed great electoral success through strategies such as getting the votes of religious groups who don't believe in evolution.

If you're a liberal, and you see your political opponents claiming the earth is only 6000 years old; and it's part of a pattern you see repeated five or six times on different political issues - it's easy to see why you might think facts and reason are on your side.

Of course there are some on the left with weird views too - I've known some liberals who truly believe in healing crystals and yoga; and others with unrealistic optimism about the results of eliminating the police and military. So I don't claim everyone on the left is a paragon of reason.

"Republicans don't believe in science; Democrats don't believe in math."

The nature of belief is that generally speaking one cannot tell the difference between one's worldview and objective fact. It takes a type of metacognitive (self?) training to really understand that there may be a difference.

It's from a comedy show, but it does describe a part of the current US political spectrum well. A significant part of US conservatives make claims that are simply wrong, not just a different political opinion but just outright contradicting reality. Trump is probably one of the more extreme versions of this, though the quote precedes his presidency.

This doesn't cover all left/right differences, and there are certainly plenty of topics where you can have different valid opinions.

First thing the understand is that isn't really a quote by "Stephen Colbert" the person it is a joke made via "Stephen Colbert" the character from the Colbert Report which was a caricature poking fun at Bill O'Reilly (mostly).

This character is a conservative infotainment host. And so when reality ultimately flies in the face of his conservative viewpoints the joke is that he merely dismisses reality because "reality has a liberal bias".

Within this context I imagine the argument is that in many cases what is perceived as a "political bias" by some might just be considered "reality" by others. For example there was the issue from the early 2000s of "teach the controversy" where some conservatives would have argued answering truthfully about the scientific consensus on evolution or global warming was "leftwing bias".

The most important thing I think is that it is a joke that simply rings true with a lot of people as time has passed.

Not OP, but it's probably a feel-good low-resolution bonmot that resonates with certain demographics.

On the resolution level of "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money" and "If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it" and similar.

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