If you are wondering why the Republican base is screaming about science and mocking global warming and thinks Jesus rode a dinosaur, it is because that is what the GOP elites want them to believe:
This is not because conservatives are a bunch of undereducated yahoos. In fact, quite the opposite:
Conservatives with high school degrees, bachelor’s degrees, and graduate degrees all experienced greater distrust in science over time….In addition…conservatives with college degrees decline more quickly than those with only a high school degree []. These results are quite profound, because they imply that conservative discontent with science was not attributable to the uneducated but to rising distrust among educated conservatives.
In other words, this decline in trust in science has been led by the most educated, most engaged segment of conservatism. Conservative elites have led the anti-science charge and the rank-and-file has followed.
Just another arrow in the quiver for the next time you hear a “reasonable” Republican lament the behavior of the party. None of this was an accident.