Ask a left-wing Briton what they believe about the safety of nuclear power, and you can guess their answer. Ask a right-wing American about the risks posed by climate change, and you can also make a ___26___guess than if you didn’t know their political affiliation. Issues like these feel like they should be ___27____by science, not our political tribes, but sadly, that’s not what happens. Psychology has long shown that education and intelligence won’t stop your politics from ___28___your broader worldview, even if those beliefs do not match the hard evidence. Instead ,your ability to weigh up the facts may depend on a less well-recognised trait-____29____. There is now a mountain of ____30____to show that politics doesn’t just help predict people’s views on some scientific issues; it also affects how they interpret new information. This is why it is a ___31___to think that you can somehow “ correct” people’s views on an issue by giving them more facts, since study after study has shown that people have a tendency to ___32___reject facts that don’t fit with their existing views. But smarter people shouldn’t be susceptible to prejudice swaying their opinions, right? Wrong. Other research shows that people with the most education, highest mathematical abilities, and the strongest tendencies to be reflective about their beliefs are the most ____33____ to resist information which should contradict their prejudices . This undermines the simplistic assumption that prejudices are the result of too much gut instinct and not enough deep thought. Rather, people who have the ___34___for deeper thought about an issue can use those cognitive powers to justify what they already believe and find reasons to dismiss apparently___35___evidence.