On the most politically polluted, tribal questions, where intelligence and education fail, this trait does not. And if you’re desperately, burningly curious to know what it is—congratulations. You may be inoculated already. Curiosity breaks the relentless pattern. Specifically, Kahan identified “scientific curiosity.” That’s different from scientific literacy. The two qualities are correlated, of course, but there are curious people who know rather little about science (yet), and highly trained people with little appetite to learn more.
