"Choice Blindness" Can Transform Conservatives Into Liberals - and Vice Versa
ananyo writes "When U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney said last year that he was not even going to try to reach 47% of the US electorate, and that he would focus on the 5–10% thought to be floating voters, he was articulating a commonly held opinion: that most voters are locked in to their ideological party loyalty. But Lars Hall, a cognitive scientist at Lund University in Sweden, knew better. When Hall and his colleagues tested the rigidity of people's political attitudes and voting intentions during Sweden's 2010 general election, they discovered that loyalty was malleable: nearly half of all voters were open to changing their minds. Hall's group polled 162 voters during the final weeks of the election campaign, asking them which of two opposing political coalitions — conservative or social democrat/green — they intended to vote for. The researchers also asked voters to rate where they stood on 12 key political issues, including tax rates and nuclear power. The person conducting ...
affiliation
blindness
choice
coalition
election
experiment
hall
intention
lars
lund
mitt romney
opinion
rigidity
scientists
sweden
swedish
university
vice
The World Remains Five Minutes From Midnight
Lasrick writes "The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announces whether their Doomsday Clock has been moved with this open letter to President Obama, outlining progress on a number of fronts, but also detailing what still needs to be done to avoid various threats to humanity." From the article: "2012 was a year in which the problems of the world pressed forward, but too many of its citizens stood back. In the US elections the focus was "the economy, stupid," with barely a word about the severe long-term trends that threaten the population's well-being to a far greater extent: climate change, the continuing menace of nuclear oblivion, and the vulnerabilities of the world's energy sources."
election
humanity
lasrick
oblivion
population
president obama
scientists
vulnerability
Found more than 1 month ago on channel
Slashdot
Ask Slashdot: Should Scientists Build a New Particle Collider In Japan?
gbrumfiel writes "The world's most powerful particle collider ended an epic proton run yesterday morning, and researchers are already looking to the future. They want to build a 31-kilometer, multi-billion-dollar International Linear Collider (ILC) to study the recently-discovered Higgs boson in more detail and to look for new things as well. Japan has recently emerged as the front-runner to host the new collider. The Liberal Democratic Party, which won this weekend's elections, actually support the ILC in its party platform. But it's not yet clear whether real money will be forthcoming, or whether European and American physicists will back a Japanese bid. What do Slashdotters think? Does particle physics need a new collider? Should it go to Japan?"
american
collider
democratic
election
european
higgs
ilc
japan
japanese
physicists
scientists
slashdot
slashdotters
Found more than 1 month ago on channel
Slashdot
It’s Incumbency, Stupid: Romney’s Fail Was Fate
President Obama won the election for the same reason George W. Bush was re-elected: Americans overwhelmingly favor the incumbent. Sitting members of the House of Representatives have been re-elected over 85 percent of the time since 1964. For 2012, almost identical numbers of women, Latinos, and young people voted for Obama this year as they did four years ago. While many in the media have blamed the epic Election Day crash of Romney’s volunteer digital ecosystem, “Project Orca,” for his electoral demise (among many other blunders), nothing can compete with the power of a sitting president to command media attention, appear presidential in last-minute crises, and reach voters who supported him four years before. Since winning the Republican nomination, Romney was in a constant scramble to be on par with Obama’s media dominance. The battle between Romney and Obama for online attention is illustrative of the larger media battle. For instance, with a few easy social media tricks ...
additionally
american
americans
attention
bush
carter
chris christie
clint eastwood
clinton
convention
cooperation
dominance
election
facebook
george
hurricane sandy
incumbency
instance
latinos
national
office
position
president obama
reagan
recession
reddit
representatives
republican nomination
romney
scientists
white house
Is Election Predictor Nate Silver A Witch? Probably. And Quantified Self Data Will Make You One Too
Scientists are yesterday's wizards and demigods. And Nate Silver is a scientist. One who's ability to predict the outcome of elections is so precise, it's nearly indistinguishable from magic. That's why IsNateSilverAWitch.com is so funny. But really what his flawless prediction of the presidential election signifies is the coming of age of the quantified universe.
ability
election
isnatesilverawitch
nate
predictions
scientists