The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science – and Reality

Chris Mooney

Wiley | 336pp  | £17.99

Understanding why the US elected George W Bush not once but twice will fascinate Europeans for years to come. Understanding how to stop something similar happening again is currently absorbing Democrats. This fascinating, frustrating and ultimately dangerous book helps us with the former but does little for the latter.

Chris Mooney builds on a growing body of evidence from the worlds of neuroscience, psychology, and political science to paint a picture of ‘liberals’ who are inquisitive, open to new experiences and responsive to counter-argument and ‘conservatives’ who are orderly, conscientious and anchored to their views, often in spite of the available scientific evidence. Indeed, Mooney cites an experiment showing that Republican obstinacy in the face of evidence on global warming takes place despite the level of education. Among conservatives, having ‘more science knowledge and more skills in mathematical reasoning tended to make you even more dismissive [of climate science], not more open’.

Mooney finds that a combination of nature and nurture accounts for the ‘conservative denial of reality’. Thus, someone genetically predisposed to have a more ‘liberal’ approach could end up taking on ‘conservative’ characteristics if they were born in Kentucky and watched nothing but Fox News. After all, our brains are highly adaptable.

If true, this is all pretty depressing and he is clearly defeated by his own evidence. ‘This unending [partisan] combat is terribly destructive for America’, he writes, ‘and I don’t really know of any good way to bring it to an end.’ He concludes that liberals should start acting a little more like conservatives, stop being so fractious, and come up with a uniting purpose. Kudos for the idea but this man has clearly never sat in a compositing meeting. Rather, unity on the left, like in 1997 in Britain and 2008 in the US, tends to come from desperation at electoral defeat.

Another weakness is that the book only appears to explain American conservatives. Mooney regards European failure to solve the eurozone crisis as due to ‘physchological liberalism’ rather than (conservative) German fetishism for austerity.

While it would be foolish to dismiss the emerging science out of hand, it also seems rash to jump to his conclusions. Framing our messages, understanding our opponents, and learning to lead can all benefit from these insights. But the left on both sides of the Atlantic have beaten conservatives before and so have no need to join them.

Will Straw is Associate Director for Globalisation and Climate Change at IPPR