Numeracy and Self Government

Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government. Numeracy helped participants weigh benefits and risks accurately when the data was presented on a politically neutral topic (skin rash treatment), but the same data was presented as a discussion of gun-control, those who were more numerate were more extreme and less objective in their views.  This was taken as support for Identity-Protective Cognition Thesis when the topic was hot, though Science Comprehension Thesis prevailed when the matter was cooler. 

Also as expected, subjects’ responses became politically polarized—and even less accurate—when the same data were presented as results from the study of a gun-control ban. But contrary to the prediction of SCT, such polarization did not abate among sub-jects highest in numeracy; instead, it increased. This outcome supported ICT, which predicted that more Numerate subjects would use their quantitative reasoning capacity selectively to conform their interpretation of the data to the result most consistent with their political outlooks.

We talk about this all the time here. Education, even in math, statistics, or hard science doesn't fix everything.  In a vacuum this study might even suggest it makes things worse. I have a slightly different take.  There is some correlation between general intelligence and education, especially in math. Those who are more numerate are likely more intelligent, and this isn't just book smarts but all manner of cognition, including social intelligence.  That is, they know which side their bread is buttered on and have been appraising that since childhood, so their acceptance of what they are supposed to know, what the preferred opinion is, is the path of least resistance.