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Most Scientists in the U.S. Are Democrats. That's a Problem

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Re: Most Scientists in the U.S. Are Democrats. That's a Problem

#51

Post by WalterBright »

narkee wrote: post #10
CWuestefeld wrote: post #4

I would claim that there are two factors that lead to the fact that most scientists are Democrats: the overall lean of universities, and the source of funding. First, scientists tend to work in academia. It's well documented that universities are strongly slanted to the left. It seems reasonable to expect that when the left-leaning universities are looking to hire, they will tend to (possibly not intentionally) favor…

>It's well documented that universities are strongly slanted to the left I think that this just deflects the question. Why is it that universities are left-leaning? The implication is that knowledge acquisition is co-related with left-leaning politics? I'm not about to go into the implications of such an assertion, lest a political flame-war break out, but I think answering that more general question will explain the…

>Why is it that universities are left-leaning?

My father taught free market economics at a small private college. His students would regularly comment to him that they'd never heard that stuff before, that they didn't even know there was a rationale behind free market economics.

Re: Most Scientists in the U.S. Are Democrats. That's a Problem

#52

Post by sandipc »

jobeirne wrote: post #49
hristov wrote: post #32

That is a problem. But it is not a problem for science, it is a problem for the republican party. For the last ten years they have been so aggressively pro stupidity that intelligent people are embarrassed to be affiliated with them, even if their general political beliefs are closer to the republican than to the democrat side.

The Democratic party has exhibited a ``pro-stupidity'' attitude on the same order of magnitude, just in more subtle ways. Instead of damning stem cell research, the Dems champion Keynesian economics, seek to implement entitlement programs, and push protectionism (``buy local''). Which is more harmful?

"Which is more harmful?"

As a scientist, the damning of stem cell research.

Re: Most Scientists in the U.S. Are Democrats. That's a Problem

#53

Post by philwelch »

hristov wrote: post #32

That is a problem. But it is not a problem for science, it is a problem for the republican party. For the last ten years they have been so aggressively pro stupidity that intelligent people are embarrassed to be affiliated with them, even if their general political beliefs are closer to the republican than to the democrat side.

Yes! It's not difficult to meet physicists or engineers with conservative politics. But thoughtful, intelligent conservatism has more or less left the scene, which means thoughtful, intelligent conservatives don't really have much representation. (In other words, American politics is deeply suffering at the loss of William F. Buckley.)

Re: Most Scientists in the U.S. Are Democrats. That's a Problem

#54

Post by Jun8 »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #37

This is a problem, and it really has nothing to do with specific policies or parties. Any democracy will evolve into a multi-party system. In the U.S. we've basically went with two parties, and it looks like we are stuck with it. So in a two party system, any group that completely affiliates with one party, either by membership or just tradition, both damages that party and the group itself. What I love about politic…

Very well put! What keeps amazing me about US politics is that (as in other places) there is a small number, n, of top issues, e.g. gay marriage, abortion, off-shoring work, gun control. I think n~10. Assuming the simplistic approach that your stance on of these issues are binary valued, there are 2^n ~ 1000 different positions available. Since these are highly correlated, the real value is much lower than this, though. The thing is: we are trying to cram all those different stances into two parties! Your vote is in essence binary valued.

Why should I be shoehorned? I am a gnostic, against excessive off-shoring, pro-choice, against gun banning and so on. It's a curious mix. Yet, I have to choose between two packages.

Re: Most Scientists in the U.S. Are Democrats. That's a Problem

#55

Post by quanticle »

araneae wrote: post #5
CWuestefeld wrote: post #4

I would claim that there are two factors that lead to the fact that most scientists are Democrats: the overall lean of universities, and the source of funding. First, scientists tend to work in academia. It's well documented that universities are strongly slanted to the left. It seems reasonable to expect that when the left-leaning universities are looking to hire, they will tend to (possibly not intentionally) favor…

to the extent that the GOP favors a smaller government (and though they say this, they don't actually do so, but that's a different discussion), this would make one expect that those against such governmental funding would be morally bound to find other means of employment. I can support this with anecdotal evidence. I have a friend who got his Ph.D. in physics, but decided to work outside of academia. His primary re…

Libertarian doesn't automatically mean Republican, though. Again, speaking anecdotally, I know of a fair number of libertarians who switched party affiliations when the Patriot Act was passed, and the Bush Administration started its warrantless wiretapping program (a program that the Obama administration has sadly continued).

Re: Most Scientists in the U.S. Are Democrats. That's a Problem

#56

Post by joe_the_user »

jobeirne wrote: post #49
hristov wrote: post #32

That is a problem. But it is not a problem for science, it is a problem for the republican party. For the last ten years they have been so aggressively pro stupidity that intelligent people are embarrassed to be affiliated with them, even if their general political beliefs are closer to the republican than to the democrat side.

The Democratic party has exhibited a ``pro-stupidity'' attitude on the same order of magnitude, just in more subtle ways. Instead of damning stem cell research, the Dems champion Keynesian economics, seek to implement entitlement programs, and push protectionism (``buy local''). Which is more harmful?

We can debate whether Keynesianism is actually stupid elsewhere. Maybe it's the worst possible policy.

But stupid or smart Keynesianism is not certainly "pro-stupidity" economics in the sense that's obvious aiming to be smart. It's endorsed by lots of apparently smart economists, it uses coherent mathematical models etc.

You might argue that the positions of Glen Beck or George Bush would be smarter to adopt than those of Lawrence Summers. Whatever. You could hardly argue that these folks took a "pro-science" approach in defending their positions.

Re: Most Scientists in the U.S. Are Democrats. That's a Problem

#57

Post by narkee »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #37

This is a problem, and it really has nothing to do with specific policies or parties. Any democracy will evolve into a multi-party system. In the U.S. we've basically went with two parties, and it looks like we are stuck with it. So in a two party system, any group that completely affiliates with one party, either by membership or just tradition, both damages that party and the group itself. What I love about politic…

I don't see why the premise that "There should be as many scientists roughly in each party" is pre-supposed to be true. It's not self-evident at all.

Re: Most Scientists in the U.S. Are Democrats. That's a Problem

#58

Post by orangecat »

hugh3 wrote: post #41
orangecat wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly true, but conservatives hardly have a monopoly on willful ignorance. Ask the stereotypical liberal what he thinks of nuclear power or GMO crops, and you're not likely to get a response based on sound science.

True, but on the other hand arguing against nuclear power or GMO crops isn't nearly as crazy as arguing against evolution. One is based on a misconstruing of risks (some of which remain a bit fuzzy anyway) while the other is based on being a complete fricking wacko. To put it another way, you can easily have two honest and sensible scientists arguing about whether nuclear power is a good idea; you can't have two hone…

Agreed. Religion is the differentiator, not political ideology. You can also have rational disagreements about whether global warming is a serious threat.

Re: Most Scientists in the U.S. Are Democrats. That's a Problem

#59

Post by DanielBMarkham »

Jun8 wrote: post #54
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #37

This is a problem, and it really has nothing to do with specific policies or parties. Any democracy will evolve into a multi-party system. In the U.S. we've basically went with two parties, and it looks like we are stuck with it. So in a two party system, any group that completely affiliates with one party, either by membership or just tradition, both damages that party and the group itself. What I love about politic…

Very well put! What keeps amazing me about US politics is that (as in other places) there is a small number, n, of top issues, e.g. gay marriage, abortion, off-shoring work, gun control. I think n~10. Assuming the simplistic approach that your stance on of these issues are binary valued, there are 2^n ~ 1000 different positions available. Since these are highly correlated, the real value is much lower than this, thou…

This leads to a very curious phenomenon: pick any 2 random U.S. Citizens of either party. Take them out for a beer and start talking politics.

If both of them are fairly secure in their beliefs, within a very short amount of time you'll realize that they are very close on maybe 80-85% of all these issues, although they each adopt talking points from their chosen party to describe their differences!

This is a natural consequence of only having two parties to choose from. Extremely fascinating stuff.

I wonder how the parallels hold out in multi-party systems?

EDIT: Wanted to clarify that I agree with you that folks have a huge variety of opinions on all sorts of issues. I just wanted to point out that even then, they are much less attached to the issues themselves as they are to the talking points their party has around those issues

It's a strange thing.

Re: Most Scientists in the U.S. Are Democrats. That's a Problem

#60

Post by hugh3 »

drKarl wrote: post #2

I don't see why that should be a problem. There is also a clear correlation between scientists and religion (or lack of belief).

Science and religion are about what is, while politics is about what ought to happen.

There's no reason why your views about whether Jesus rode a dinosaur or whether global warming will kill us all should be correlated with your views on issues like "Should taxes be lowered?" and "Should the Government subsidize health care?" and "Should [whatever random complicated policy issue you like]?" And yet, they so often are.

In a two-party system, people who don't spend all that much time thinking about politics often seem to wind up buying their political opinions in job lots. Part of this is due to the success which the Democrats have been having with their "If you don't believe that Jesus rode a dinosaur then you need to support all our left-wing economic policies" line, but this is a serious problem both for Republicans and for Science. (And as a Republican scientist, it's a doubly important issue for me.)

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