Scientists I think are too ideological to make good leaders by themselves. It takes all kinds of kinds. You need historians, engineers, scientists, marketeers, salesman, and finally organizer-executors. Right now our government seems mainly ran by salesman...
Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office
41–50 of 190 posts
Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office
#42Ok, but please do not vote for anyone calling themselves "scientist" who practices NHST, you will only be perpetuating this nation- (even civilization-) destroying practice: "We are quite in danger of sending highly trained and highly intelligent young men out into the world with tables of erroneous numbers under their arms, and with a dense fog in the place where their brains ought to be. In this century, of course,…
Are you suggesting that use (or otherwise) of statistical significance tests in a scientific field would have an affect on your performance as an elected representative?
Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office
#43>For now, 314 Action will only back Democratic candidates. Great. When you're being accused of being partisan, the best way to come back is to form an organization backing potential political candidates of just one party. What a joke. This is a squandered opportunity to try to get scientific minded people into running for the republican seats, which is how you would get real change in the discourse. Anyone who thinks…
scientists are liberals, almost exclusively.
there are a few oddballs who aren't financially liberal, and a few oddballs who aren't socially liberal-- but we're talking like 1/100 for each of those cases.
realistically, most of the scientists i've ever met would fall into the green party best, but hold their nose and vote democratic party because it's the closest they'll get to actually liberal policies.
>to get scientific minded people into running for the republican seats
the republican electorate is largely anti-intellectual and distrustful of scientists, so that won't work. i don't mean to be dismissive here... but it just isn't going to work because of the culture. no way, no how-- those people are not accessible by the eggheads. i guess if you got a climate denier or creation scientist or some other quack out there, it might work... but that would defeat the point.
i do agree that the only way we'll survive is by driving a wedge within the republican party so that they don't vote as a unified bloc consistently. i'm really not sure what demographic to go after in order to make that happen, though.
Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office
#44What can a scientist do that no other person can at a macro-level?
On minimum wage, there are scientists who have two schools of thoughts:
a. Minimum wage can be increased without negative impact to individuals b. Minimum wage is a horrible action that harkens back to racist unions trying to keep black people out of jobs and has unseen consequences in a labor market.
In this instance, the answer from the 314 Action group is that those scientists that agree with Democrat policies are more equal to others.
Another example of this would be in the realm of climate change modeling. Let's say we have two climate models that utilize carbon dioxide as an input. Model A uses less of a feedback loop than Model B, resulting in less global average increase in temperature. Both were put together by top scientists, there is just an existing dispute in the scientific community as to the amount of feedback that can occur. Will these scientist politicians be able to allocate resources any better than a politician? If according to the Atlantic, the next five years is the time to act, will there be time to set up a committee to review the differences and make recommendations?
Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
First, realize that science is not just a partisan issue. The liberals in the United States hate science just as much when it's not on their side. They don't reason things through. I can't find it but there was an NPR story about a teach whose black students performed worse than the white students. The school's response, "Racist test!" The teacher reviewed the test, found nothing racist and looked further. The school…
>The liberals It's highly unscientific to make such a sweeping generalization. There are plenty of liberals and leftists who will accept science and data that doesn't match their political agenda, just as there are still some conservatives who will. However the GOP has official policies opposing such nefarious plots as 'critical thinking.'
Sure, it's a generalization. This, within the English language, means anything over 60% of the population in question. I've had multiple conversations with well over 120 self described liberals from multiple parts of the US. Most of their reason for hating guns fall on "they're scary". That's not scientific. The reason I bring this up is the scientists in question are backing the Democrats. This party, to use another generalization (an abstraction if you will), houses the majority of liberals in the country. Therefore, the Dems are not the paragons of rational thought.
Many of the Democrats are as much sheep as the Republicans. I've had fewer conversations with them about food. I eat eggs. I eat a high fat diet. They all tell me I'm going to get high cholesterol and be in worse shape. I try to explain the science of diet. They point me to old research that says eggs are bad.
Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
When science is a partisan issue, what else can you do?
Even if you don't expect any scientists to want to be on a Republican ticket, why refuse to support prospective scientists who would do so? There might not be many conservative scientists, but I'm sure they exist. The only answer that seems feasible to me is that they're not really interested in getting scientists elected, instead they're more interested in scientists who are willing to abuse their authority to promo…
Maybe it's just based on a political calculation that a candidate who believes in climate change would have a vanishingly small chance of getting elected on the Republican party ticket given that they'd be in direct opposition to a core plank of their national platform.
Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
The republican party is simply unacceptable on many levels for any intelligent, honest person. I realize that you, like many people, simply do not see it that way, and imagine that there is some kind of equivalence or near equivalence in how corrupt and crazy both parties are, but most of us don't. What we are seeing is horrific, a party that is against reason and goodness and civility at almost every step. They pick…
What you are advocating sounds like fundamentalism. That's a bad starting point for objectivity.
What part of that sounds like fundamentalism?
Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
When science is a partisan issue, what else can you do?
Even if you don't expect any scientists to want to be on a Republican ticket, why refuse to support prospective scientists who would do so? There might not be many conservative scientists, but I'm sure they exist. The only answer that seems feasible to me is that they're not really interested in getting scientists elected, instead they're more interested in scientists who are willing to abuse their authority to promo…
I'm all for changing parties from within, but with:
* Life starts at inception
* Man-made climate change
* Evolution (taught in school)
* Not a single payer healthcare system when comparing to any industrialized country on earth
* Anti-consumer ethics in FCC, compared to any other industrialized country on earth
* Tax policies clearly aimed at keeping money flowing upwards, only very slightly veiled, yet again compared to any other industrialized country on earth
all being partisan issues, can you rise in ranks and still be a republican while opposing those views?
While anti-vaccination movements and GMO fears are more prevalent in liberals, they ARE spread across the spectrum, as well as not being party issues. I have read no attempt to legislate against vaccinations.
If "progressive causes" == science backed causes, then go right ahead.
Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea that smarter people will be better at government is a fallacy which was conclusively disproved during 20th century. Since Plato's time there was this hypothesis that philosopher kings would somehow bring utopia or at least be better than the average ruler. Alas, the experiences of the 20th century belies that assumption. Communist parties were invariably led by formidable intellectuals (e.g. Lenin, Mao, Pol…
I don't disagree that it absolutely is no guarantee for success, but don't you agree that it's one requirement?
I believe you are applying a circular definition. We call people smart when we like a majority of the actions they take. Due to the unknowable causes of these "smarts", we have invented many memes to rationalize them - eloquence, colege education, street smarts, intelligence, philosophical wisdom, the list goes on.
Since we are good at hypocrisy as well as rationalization, we have left ourselves a back door for thebpeople we truly hate - he's not smart, he's lucky(or the opposite, if we are really sympathetic).
I believe you are right that "these qualities" are a "requirement", but only due to their flexible nature and our tendency to assign and strip them in order to meet our just-world view.
Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office
#50I think tech people should be doing this too.
You say that, but take a look at the HN thread on Peter Thiel's prospective gubernatorial campaign[0]. It's needless to say the idea of a Thiel governorship was not very popular. This isn't to say the criticism found there is unreasonable, just that it's not special. People in science and people in tech can get involved in politics, but most of the political issues out there are not scientific or technological so sup…
Hardcore libertarianism is the exception, not the norm in tech. Tech tends to float in big cities and as such is naturally liberal. A lot of the successes of early tech startups is in part due to liberal hiring policies welcoming women, gays, and minorities who otherwise had a hard time working or getting hired at the old conservative shops like IBM.
Its the weirdos who gave us the Apple // and the Mac. Not the button down conservative culture Thiel represents. I'm not sure its even fair to call Thiel a tech industry person. He's very much now a financier and investor. He's not making the future, he's worrying about what stocks to short and who to invest in.