Theory: Liberals use deductive thinking, Conservatives rely on inductive reasoning.

[The Backlash Cometh]

Think of Sherlock Holmes. He gathered clues and then reached a conclusion. That's deductive reasoning.

But coming up with a theory and then looking for clues to support that theory is also valid in detective work. That's called inductive reasoning.

Now, Liberals, with their critical thinking skills, are deductive reasoners. They look at the facts and then, reach a conclusion. If the facts change, their conclusions change. It's all based on the facts.

Conservatives, who are more ideologues, are more inductive. Perfect example was the study of the Bell Curve where someone came up with a theory and used existing data to put together like a montage puzzle to prove that I.Q. was based on race. The key problems with the study, was that the researchers were biased, and the data they used was weak and refutable.

By the way, the Bell Curve, in case anyone forgets, was an early effort from the Right to use bad science to eliminate public money for social programs like head start which benefited poor black areas.

This is key to understanding the conservative mind. They are influenced by their ideologies and prejudices. They reach conclusions, and then pull in all the studies and information that supports that conclusion. Then they go on a full offensive strategy to (1) spread the meme so that people in their political camp can echo their soundbites and (2) flat out attack any data that challenges their conclusion. That includes rewriting reports and discrediting anyone who questions them.

And then, to further show the destructive nature of the inductive method as used by the conservatives, when liberals change their conclusions to fit new data as it comes up, the conservatives call them weak. This is why they saw Bush as a strong leader. Because Bush stuck to the same premise and never varied in his eight years of office. People who questioned his facts were attacked. Their patriotism was also questioned.

So the more we can take the time to dismantle their poor reasoning methods, the more a pattern will emerge. And once we have the evidence, we need to put it out there so that even their own people can see how their thought process is being hijacked by an ideologically driven reasoning method.