Thinking about those cultural "heat map" memes
- sciart0
- Mar 6
- 1 min read
Excerpt. "The heatmaps might seem to offer scientific proof for what millions of conservatives already thought, summarized by one poster on X as: “Liberals are mentally ill!”
This, however, is a rather partisan reading of the data, which was first presented in an article in Nature in 2019 before being weaponized into a meme that has been misinterpreted by countless people on social media.
The main misinterpretation: The heatmaps do not convey that liberals or conservatives “care more” about any particular category within the moral circle..."