Overall, although differences in issues partisans work on may drive some of the observed differences in the sets of science that partisans cite, our results demonstrate that these differences alone do not fully account for the partisan differences in either content or volume of science cited in policy. Another explanation is that policy-makers are citing different science because they hold different positions on the same issues. The lack of overlap in the science they cite, however, implies that politicians and ideological think tanks are not considering all the relevant science to a particular policy. Evidence-based policy-making in its idealized form synthesizes all relevant arguments and evidence (1, 3). By contrast, our analysis suggests that committees in Congress and ideological think tanks do not appear to create these broad syntheses, instead focusing on different sets of impacts for the same policy, and citing substantively different sets of science when working on the same policy issue. The observed partisan disparities hence may not necessarily reflect a different willingness to engage with science, but instead may reflect their differing priorities, goals, or stances within issues
#SciencePolicyForum Partisan disparities in the use of science in policy
Documents from 🇺🇸Congress and think tanks reflect differences in how #science is cited
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
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