I believe one of the main points the article is highlighting is that science would have better representation in U.S. law if more elected representative were scientists, but this is not really true. Most laws aren't derived from regulatory law, but rather from common law set through court cases. In my opinion scientists are most useful as scientists, expert witnesses, and lobbyists in that order.
Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?
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Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?
#42What is the article arguing? Is there even an argument made? Why should Americans elect more scientists? Will it lead to a higher quality of living or more wealth or what? It mentions China as a pro-scientists country, but why? It's riddled with human rights violations, corruption and environmental pollution. While American politicians decry climate change openly, China just seems to ignore it. Singapore is a city-st…
China is socially repressive and an environmental catastrophe in progress, but it's also one of the fastest-advancing nations in the world. Chinese citizens were starving to death en masse as recently as the 70's. The fact that they've pulled themselves out of that kind of industrial slump is amazing. Wikipedia says that Singapore is the best trade center in Asia and one of the best in the world. It also has the best…
What I tried to say (and perhaps didn't) was scientists won't necessarily be good for a country, not that they'd be bad.
The german minister of justice, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, did a lot of good for the german internet. Her decisions were very rational and fact-based, yet she holds a law degree.
There just are too many good politicians without science degrees for the sweeping generalisation "scientists are good and lawyers bad".
Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?
#43Who is a scientist? If you scope this to PhDs who have done serious research in academia, you pretty much just said "no ex-university career before the age of 40." That is going to make it very hard to develop the networks you'll need to advance up the ranks of either party. You'll also likely require substantial external support for initial campaigns because relative to the lawyers, doctors, businessmen, undertakers, and pilots in your cohort you are, ahem, kinda poor. This would be easier if you had married well, and indeed having the right kind of spouse is a huge asset to your political career, but the academic lifestyle is notorious for inducing prolonged singleness.
For a broader definition of scientist which e.g. includes engineers or doctors, Americans elect them quite regularly.
Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?
#44Why don't Americans elect scientists? Because current American culture is anti-intellectual. I can't really back this up concretely, but as an American, it's hard to find anything intellectual around. A long time ago, people went to hear lectures on the weekends, and the Lincoln-Douglas debates were well attended. Now, TV "news" is a joke, and even NPR is becoming a bit entertainy. I get the feeling that few American…
Anti-intellectuality aside. Understanding science is important, but a good scientist ≠ good manager. A scientist is usually someone with narrow, but deep knowledge/experience, as a politician I want someone with a broader set of experiences & knowledge.
I mean, MSc president - sure. PhD president - probably no, thank you :)
Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?
#45If you take the view that government is needed to protect people's rights (you know, "to secure these rights governments are instituted among men") as opposed to providing people with solutions for their problems - then the question becomes easy. Why should we? Who said scientists are better in protecting one's rights than, say, cops or doctors or lawyers or plumbers? I do not see anything in scientific training that makes scientists uniquely suitable for that. I would prefer, naturally, to have smart people protecting my rights, as this way they will be more effective in it, but one can be smart without being a scientist.
Of course, the government would always have a lot of purely technical questions where scientific training would allow one to decide them efficiently - but these always would be secondary roles and rarely need to be elected, but rather properly hired, which can be done by any decent manager. So why should we elect more scientists?
Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?
#46Why don't Americans elect scientists? Because current American culture is anti-intellectual. I can't really back this up concretely, but as an American, it's hard to find anything intellectual around. A long time ago, people went to hear lectures on the weekends, and the Lincoln-Douglas debates were well attended. Now, TV "news" is a joke, and even NPR is becoming a bit entertainy. I get the feeling that few American…
"Intellectuals and society" by Thomas Sowell is an interesting book on the subject. His central thesis is that intellectuals -- "people whose occupations deal primarily with ideas - writers, academics, and the like" - are having negative effects. http://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Society-Thomas-Sowell/dp...
Fantastic book. He also talks a lot about how being good at one thing doesn't make you good at another. Sowell's notion of effective intelligence is rooted more in experience than in aptitude. So a scientist with no political experience is less likely to be good at politics than someone of lesser intellect with that experience.
Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?
#47That is an easy one. Scientists are good at objective truth, facts, etc.
Most political decisions are however highly subjective, and based on values, principles and opinions.
Scientists are great for advising politicians on things that are obviously and provably correct or false, but once it gets beyond that, their biases tends to get in the way.
Asking a scientist if NASA should get more or less funding is about as useful as asking the chief bishop if the church should get state funding as a silly example.
Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?
#48What is the article arguing? Is there even an argument made? Why should Americans elect more scientists? Will it lead to a higher quality of living or more wealth or what? It mentions China as a pro-scientists country, but why? It's riddled with human rights violations, corruption and environmental pollution. While American politicians decry climate change openly, China just seems to ignore it. Singapore is a city-st…
Singapore is also a very wealthy state, and it has nothing to do with the population size and the costs of living there. You are comparing countries on a single factor, the population - how is that variable relevant? Then why don't you compare with Turkmenistan, also 5 million people, no scientists in charge and a ridden with poverty ? How about Sierra Leone, 5 million people. no scientists, ridden with civil war? On…
Just to clarify: I didn't want to say that Singapore is successful due to its small-ish population size, just that another country is almost as successful _without_ scientists at the top of the government. I chose Finland as an example since its population size is the same, the per-capita income is similiar and it enjoys a low rate-of-crime as well.
Actually, the president of Turkmenistan has a PhD in medical science [1] and the vice-president of Sierra Leone has a bachelors degree of science [2]. So both have more scientists in the top government positions than Finland. The politicians education really doesn't seem to be an important factor for the countrys success.
Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?
#49Why don't Americans elect scientists? Because current American culture is anti-intellectual. I can't really back this up concretely, but as an American, it's hard to find anything intellectual around. A long time ago, people went to hear lectures on the weekends, and the Lincoln-Douglas debates were well attended. Now, TV "news" is a joke, and even NPR is becoming a bit entertainy. I get the feeling that few American…
"Intellectuals and society" by Thomas Sowell is an interesting book on the subject. His central thesis is that intellectuals -- "people whose occupations deal primarily with ideas - writers, academics, and the like" - are having negative effects. http://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Society-Thomas-Sowell/dp...
Negative effects on what?
Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?
#50I think the really big factor here is that scientists don't want to go into politics! Maybe I'm painting the world with an overly broad brush here, but politics and science approach the truth in exactly opposite ways. I'm not going to say that politics is a game of lies, because it's not, but politicians essentially invent the truth as they go along. It's similar in some ways to law or the humanities, where the truth…
Plenty of other countries have had memorable scientist leaders. The article itself opens with a picture of Merkel, and then of course, there's Thatcher... And most of the Chinese Communist Party Glitterati are engineers.
Angela Merkel was a physicist before she entered politics, but you have to take into account two things:
1) She was heavily involved in politics while a student and researcher.
2) Even more importantly, she came into politics right after the fall of the Berlin Wall - right after they threw away all the old career politicians. At this point, she abandoned her scientific career to fill this enormous vacuum.
Thatcher got a bachelor's degree in Chemistry, but within three years of graduating college she was in politics and another three years later she had a law degree, I don't think I'd call her a "scientist leader".
I'll admit my ignorance about the Chinese Communist party. But that whole system is very different, especially because the leaders don't need to get elected, so it's a much more technocratic system in general. In the US, there's a difference between people who come up with new policies and the politicians who get them implemented, I suspect this is less true in China.