The Dish has been spotlighting two writers, Jonathan Haidt and Chris Mooney, who attempt to use psychological studies to explain political debates. Andrew Ferguson thinks they're both full of it:
The studies rely on the principle that has informed the social sciences for more than a generation: If a researcher with a Ph.D. can corral enough undergraduates into a campus classroom and, by giving them a little bit of money or a class credit, get them to do something—fill out a questionnaire, let’s say, or pretend they’re in a specific real-world situation that the researcher has thought up—the young scholars will (unconsciously!) yield general truths about the human animal; scientific truths.
His point:
We all of us, on the right and left and in the middle, outsource our understanding of large swaths of the world to authorities we deem trustworthy, from oncologists to plumbers to priests. Mooney shuts off his skepticism when he is confronted with what other people tell him is Science.
The Dish 