When the researchers are dumber than their test subjects

In an op-ed piece mostly about how conservatives are so stupid they won’t change their minds about ObamaCare even after they’re proven to be completely wrong about ObamaCare, Brendan Nyhan writes that conservatives are so stupid they won’t change their minds even when confronted by actual evidence that they’re so incredibly stupid.

He knows this, see, because he’s run experiments:

For example, in one experiment we found that the proportion of conservatives who believed that President George W. Bush’s tax cuts actually increased federal revenue grew from 36 percent to 67 percent when they were provided with evidence against this claim.

Evidence. What friggin’ evidence is that? This evidence?

The economy boomed after the 2003 tax cuts, leading to the highest level of corporate tax receipts in over 20 years

Or this evidence?

…. Revenues from corporate income taxes rose from 1.2 percent of GDP in 2003 (their lowest level since 1983) to 2.7 percent in 2006 (their highest level since 1978).

….Revenues from individual income taxes increased 0.6 percentage points, from 7.3 percent of GDP in 2003 to 8.0 percent in 2006.

…Revenues in the first seven months of fiscal year 2007 have continued to grow faster than GDP. Overall, revenues have grown by about 11 percent compared with what they were during the first seven months of 2006, although CBO estimates that the growth is closer to 9 percent when adjusted to remove the effects of more accelerated crediting of amounts paid with personal tax returns this year.

Or maybe this evidence – this handy little interactive thingy that lets you pick what you’re looking at and for what time period and compare it to other things:

That’s the evidence. And having looked at the evidence, Nyhan just can’t figure how people can become even more certain that the Bush tax cuts were good for the economy.

He just doesn’t get it.

Via Memeorandum. And Nyhan’s got his own blog here.