Trust in science as a means of discovering and understanding reality has declined among self-identified conservatives since the mid-1970s, sociologists at the University of North Carolina found, and even more so in recent years for those who held high level university degrees.

That last fact suggests that social pressures peculiar to the contemporary conservative upper classes — a segment of society to which, increasingly, one must belong to gain access to higher learning — are trumping education to determine their stances toward controversial issues, global warming and evolution among them. –ARK