The report also confirms that Republicans and Democrats—especially on the parties’ respective right and left wings—hold differing views on climate change. But it finds that, especially on the left, these views are modestly moderated by someone’s understanding of general science. In other words, a Democrat with a high amount of science knowledge (including on health and biological concepts) is more likely to correctly state that humans are causing climate change than a Democrat with low science knowledge. Whereas being highly educated or having a high amount of science knowledge doesn’t make Republicans any more likely to say the same.

Generally, Democrats and Republicans performed about the same on the study’s tests of scientific literacy that did not ask about the climate. “Thus, it could be the case that people’s political orientations are an anchoring point for applying their knowledge—rather than the other way around,” says the report.

“Pew is more than just a public polling firm. They generate knowledge that is relevant to scholarly opinion,” said Dan Kahan, a professor of law and psychology at Yale Law School who researches how group identification shapes public understanding of risk. He praised the study’s comprehensive evaluation of its respondents’ scientific literacy, something he said is rare for polls on climate issues.

“It is very striking how sharp the polarization is on climate change issues and even on some energy issues, like fracking and nuclear, but then not on things like solar,” Kahan told me. “That can mean that people don’t really have the same level of interest in solar energy as they do on the issues that are polarizing them.”

The Pew study found that more than 80 percent of Americans support expanding wind and solar energy. Somewhat counterintuitively, Kahan said that this broad support may mean politicians can’t build campaigns around them: Because wind and solar are so popular, support for them is unlikely to shape people’s decisions about whom to vote for.

“That may just mean that [the public] is not intensely interested in it,” he said. “People tend to fixate on issues that are really divisive.” Many people support campaign-finance reform, for instance, but political-science research indicates few people make voting decisions based on it.

That said, these healthy majorities haven’t translated into party platforms yet—at least on a national level. Hillary Clinton’s energy plan is far more amenable to renewable energy (and also far more specific) than Donald Trump’s. But some state-level Republican leaders have been praising renewable energy lately, and all 10 of the congressional districts supplying the most wind power are GOP-controlled.

Here are a few more interesting factlets from the Pew study:

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.