Political Dimensions

(Moderators: I really don't know where this goes, although I'm very interested to see how board members will respond.)The research of Hans Eysenck uncovered dimensions of political values which appear to underlie differences in people's acceptance of evolution vs. creationism, and these can be measured with an inventory found online here:childrenofmillennium.org -Acceptance of evolution was found to be a Tough, Radical value, while acceptance of Creationism was a Tender, Conservative value; this means that a person's opinion on the evolution debate is diagnostic of opinions on seemingly unrelated issues (traveling without a ticket, or the legalization of marijuana).Anyone care to post their scores on the test, along with their position on the evolution debate?

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Interesting, in that I would have thought of myself as more "tender"

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Well Chiroptera, are you an evolutionist or a creationist? If you are an evolutionist, your radicalism would be expected to exceed your tender-mindedness, and that is indeed how you scored (95 vs 44).

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Maybe I'm getting old.

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I think people grow more tender as they age - or else, the studies investigating the interactions between tenderness and age merely revealed cohort effects.Have any creationists yet taken the poll?

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But maybe my vegetarianism and acceptance of evolution cancel each other out, and that is why I'm near the middle (44), eh?

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Conceivably, although not necessarily; right now the median T-score is currently 42. The question is whether this is a result of restricted sample, or if it's inherent in the questions as they were modified from Eysenck's original wording. I am myself a textbook tough-minded capitalist radical, so most of the people I've contacted to take the text would be expected to have similar views. We won't have a very good idea of whether the test is skewed until we see some dyed-in-the-wool back-to-religion creationists taking the inventory.(By the way, can you suggest better site I ought to try to find tender-minded types? They don't have to be right-wing; they could also be anti-death penalty, anti-intolerance, pro-UN, lacto-ovo leftists.)

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I appreciate that's how it works, but I'm arguing that it is flawed. How can anyone with such extreme and contradictory opinions be fairly labelled moderate? It shows a flaw in the conclusions when it says that the person in question has moderate attitudes towards religion when the opinions put forward were that religious people are all hypocrites, God created the world and that God is just a figment of our imagination.

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Just so! It's unfortunate that the programmers don't seem to have the time or interest required to provide the insane, illiterate, and generally bored with more appropriate results.

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Hans Jrgen Eysenck, Ph.D., D.Sc. (1916-1997)

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this survey is certainly not his, it has nothing to do with the two "dimension" he used according to:
Hans Eysenck

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From wikipedia:Political spectrum - WikipediaHans Eysenck, in his book Sense and Nonsense in Psychology (1956), proposed a two-axis system to explain political values... Eysenck submitted value questionnaires to the process of factor analysis, finding two factors, the first of which was easily identified as the classical "left-right" dimension, and the second of which he labeled as "tough-mindedness" versus "tender-mindedness." Tough-minded conservatives distinguished themselves from tender-minded conservatives in their heightened support for militarism and harsh punishment and their less favorable attitudes towards religion. Tough-minded radicals were more likely to favor easier divorce laws and fewer restrictions on birth control and abortion, whereas tender-minded radicals were more interested in pacifism and racial equality...You will notice that the Wikipedia article references a book; you can find one chapter from this book online:politicsScrolling to the bottom will take you to Eysenck's old test, where you will notice that the items were not originally worded even by Eysenck himself but instead were "selected from speeches, books, newspapers, and other sources"; although some efforts have been made to revise the test to bring it more up to date and introduce items that load on the third (S) factor, some items from the online test you took should still be easily recognizable, such as:Conscientious objectors are traitors to their country, and should be treated accordingly.There is no harm in traveling occasionally without a ticket, if you can get away with it.The practical man is of more use to society than the thinker.Note that some of these questions, such as the last question, are not scored; they are "dummy" questions.Note also that Eysenck's discovery was empirical rather than theoretical in nature; he discovered two factors (initially) and decided to interpret them as R and T. Specifically, the decision to associate the second of these factors with "toughness" and "pragmatism" vs. "tenderness" and "idealism" was his. Eysenck's research and his interpretations were championed by many but also disliked by many; see for instance _Hans Eysenck: Consensus and Controversy_ where Chris Brand defends Eysenck's model and John Jay Ray attacks it.

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welcome to the fray Lykaios.

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Thank you, but now I think I'll leave. I was hoping to test, informally, whether the original finding (which is by now almost a century out of date) that acceptance of evolution was a tough, radical value, and also to see whether the modified test was well balanced regarding the T dimension, but I think I've learned all that I can on this board. I never had any intention of entering any "fray," and while there were a few posters whom I found both reasonable and pleasant, by and large it has been a long time since I found myself in company so obnoxious.