Believing astrology is scientific? Really, Democrats?

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The 7 political groups most likely to believe in astrology
By Jim Lindgren, February 16, 2014

A belief in astrology is surprisingly widespread in modern America. The National Science Foundation recently released a report reviewing scientific knowledge and attitudes. As noted by Chris Mooney at Mother Jones, perhaps NSF’s most striking finding was an increase in the belief in astrology from 32 percent in 2006 and 35 percent in 2010 to 45 percent in 2012.

At the Demography of Diversity Project at Northwestern University, we took the same astrology data from the General Social Survey that NSF used and broke it down further by political party and liberal-conservative orientation. The results can be found in a brief report that I put up at the Social Science Research Network: “Who Believes That Astrology is Scientific?”

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Which political groups are more likely to believe that astrology is “very scientific” or “sort of scientific,” as opposed to those who believe that it is “not scientific at all”?

1. Conservative Democrats
In the 2012 General Social Survey, 56.9 percent of conservative Democrats believe that astrology is very or sort of scientific, while only 43.1 percent believe that it is not scientific at all. This support for astrology is the highest among 15 overlapping political groups.

2. Moderate Democrats
The political group that is second most likely to believe in astrology is moderate Democrats. A majority of them — 52.0 percent — think that astrology is at least sort of scientific.

3. Democrats (overall)
Although liberal Democrats are insignificantly less likely than average to believe in astrology (43.5 percent), the difference is not enough to offset the beliefs of moderate and conservative Democrats. Thus, Democrats overall are in the third position, with nearly half (49.1 percent) believing in astrology.

4. Moderate Independents
Fully 48.9 percent of moderate Independents believe in astrology.

5. Liberal Independents

6. Moderates (overall)

7. Independents (overall)

About 48 percent of the independents (48.1 percent), moderates (48.2 percent), and liberal independents (48.3 percent) believe that astrology is at least sort of scientific.

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If we combine four GSS surveys on astrology from 2006 through 2012, liberal independents drop off the list, but the other six groups take the top six slots in a somewhat different order.

To find out which political groups are least likely to believe in astrology, see “Who Believes That Astrology is Scientific?” To explore the political dynamics on science issues other than astrology (using three decades of data from 1972 through 2002), see the paper, “Who Fears Science?”

UPDATE (Monday, 1:45 pm ET): Several commenters think that people may have confused astrology with astronomy.  Without looking as the GSS 1972-2012 Codebook (which can be downloaded at NORC) , one would find this speculation  highly plausible (actually, it’s quite clever). While certainly some may have confused the two, the context of the questions asked would have greatly reduced this possibility.
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