Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#141

Post by darasen » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 4:49 PM UTC

suresk wrote: post #65

rndmize wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American politicians decry climate change openly? The way things have been going the last few years, you could have fooled me. Huntsman was notable as the only republican candidate to say he believed in climate change. I think the idea behind the article is that scientists are generally trained to work with/find factual information and grow their understanding, while engineers are generally going to take scientific k…

While I believe that humans are having a significant, negative effect on the climate, I can see how there might be some doubt and skepticism as to the magnitude of the damage and how much of that is caused by humans. I'm not saying I agree with full-on denial, but there is probably some room for discussion. The problem is that we aren't really having that discussion. Our more fundamental science problem is that a sig…

To be fair you are a bit off. They tend to reject the concept of macro evolution of humans from primates/fish/randomly combining proteins.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#142

Post by ams6110 » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 5:01 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #75

yardie wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One example is president Jimmy Carter. Brilliant thinker, scientist and business man. Mediocre skills in leadership and absolutely dismal in working through beauracracy. He had the one-two punch of having an oil crisis and recession, unlike Obama he just couldn't get it turned around in time for the next election.

I could remember that Carter was in the US Navy - turns out he had a pretty interesting career there - including being in charge of a team disassembling an onshore experimental reactor after a meltdown! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter#Naval_career

Yeah I recall him touring Three Mile Island not long after the accident. Carter is not lacking intelligence, but his political skills were certainly lacking and his presidency was pretty much a debacle.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#143

Post by mynameishere » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 5:04 PM UTC

ashconnor wrote: post #110

smsm42 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People still go to lectures - or find them on YouTube, download them from the web or torrents, etc. And the debates are as much "attended" and more - people just don't have to be physically there anymore. It's all right with Americans and thinking - it's just most of them don't turn their thinking towards government. Which is a blessing - it is brilliant minds who brought us the current financial crisis, for example,…

You just got Marxism mixed up with the dictatorial regimes of the 20th century, such as the Soviet Union. Please read the Communist Manifesto before you lambast it with an uninformed critique.

This is called the "No true Scotsman" fallacy, and it's one of the sloppiest fallacies you can commit. It's astonishing how many people cling to it with regards to Marxism. The same thing can be said of anything. The Nazi regime wasn't really fascist. Obama isn't really a liberal. Bush wasn't really a conservative, etc, etc. All of those statements are true. And no true conservative would start a war of aggression. And no true Marxist would butcher millions.

In fact, the Soviets were constantly justifying their policies based on the writings of Marx and Lennon.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#144

Post by anamax » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 5:13 PM UTC

TwoBit wrote: post #51

olalonde wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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...

Of course Sowell would criticize intellectuals. He's an unapologetic conservative Republican.

> Of course Sowell would criticize intellectuals. He's an unapologetic conservative Republican.

Bravo! No need to look at whether he's correct, he's a Republican.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#145

Post by cdavid » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 5:15 PM UTC

dalke wrote: post #89

cdavid wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that gvt should be run by common people is quite old in the US (Jacksonian democracy). I am not American, and this traits always made me wonder every time I go the US, as this is the only developed country where I heve been to where this is so pronounced. This article by Fukuyama was quite interesting in that regard: http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/fukuyama/2012/01/31/w... . He explains it by the fact…

I don't think that essay says what you described. There was a bureaucracy before the US - how did the British, French, and Spanish Empires run without a bureaucracy? And of course the Chinese bureaucracy was established long before the Americas were settled by Europeans. It looks more like it's saying the US started with a distrust of bureaucracy, which it inherited from experience with the European empires, which ca…

This may be a syntax error of my part: I meant that the US existed as a nation before a bureaucracy existed in the US. Obviously, bureaucracies elsewhere predates the US declaration of independency.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#146

Post by anamax » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 5:22 PM UTC

jberryman wrote: post #127

thecabinet wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I absolutely despise about the phrase "anti-intellectual" is the ambiguity about what it means. There was a great explanation of why people should be suspicious of "intellectuals" in an HN comment from a year ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2400310 . ESR also had examined the various possible meanings: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4001 In general, though, "anti-intellectual" seems to usually mean, "Wh…

I think when people call the mainstream Republican party "anti-intellectual" they are referring to things like: the quite obvious skepticism of even the most mainstream scientific theories, constant rhetoric deriding intellectuals and artists, policies that are guided by puritan morality rather than a rational evidence-based approach aimed at a certain outcome (drug policy, abstinence-only sex ed., myriad other distr…

Surely you're not suggesting that the Democrats are more accepting of "science". (They're not - they just accept different things and want to do different things in response to said science.)

As to grant-supported "artists", they've entered the political sphere. That has consequences.

And, very little of it is art, let alone deserving of tax money. (Cowboys can pay for their own poetry and so can rich people.)

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#147

Post by UnFleshedOne » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 5:25 PM UTC

Erunno wrote: post #77

kolinko wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

There's also the fallacy that scientists will only make pure objective decisions but scientists are in the end only humans and have their own believes, failings and political agendas. The whole system of peer reviewing and the acknowledgement that every scientific theory can be falsified is a testament to this realization. Unfortunately I have the impression that in politics too often individual experts are only hear…

Not sure if that's the falsifiability you meant, but a scientific theory _must_ be falsifiable by definition. As in -- there must be a way to setup an experiment with a possible outcome that would prove this theory to be wrong. It is impossible to disprove a theory that "invisible pink unicorns exist" -- because for every suggested experiment you can just say "well, they are invisible, so we can't see them". Of course falsifiability is not the worst problem with this particular theory (how can something be pink and invisible bothers me more for example), but it is a necessary condition any scientific theory must meet.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#148

Post by jff » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 5:32 PM UTC

kolinko wrote: post #44

prewett wrote: post #22

Why 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 :)

I finished my master's degree in computer engineering in December 2010 and by June of 2011 was put in charge of a team of interns. They left at the end of the summer, but I'm now managing another intern on a year-long project. I'm the local PI on a large, multi-site project; every week, I have meetings and conference calls for that and other projects. I'm not a manager, just a member of technical staff in a research group, but I'm certainly expected to take leadership/management roles and interface with many different groups.

We're not all Doc Brown, weird and secluded in our labs as we work on solitary secretive projects :)

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#149

Post by lmm » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 5:40 PM UTC

twstws wrote: post #105

kolinko wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

This attitude is frustrating and sadly widespread. Basically, you're saying that you can trust someone with some scientific training, but only up to an arbitrary limit. You assume this is a zero sum game, that it is impossible to learn a lot about biology without simultaneously acquiring some compensating deficiency. Or that only the deficient personality would pursue a Phd. How is it anything but anti-intellectual t…

I can only trust someone with substantial experience outside of academia. While there are people who have this and also have a PhD, they're a vanishingly small minority compared to those who have that experience and an MSc.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#150

Post by stretchwithme » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 5:45 PM UTC

smokeyj wrote: post #128

stretchwithme wrote: post #32

Its not who you elect that matters. Its how decentralized the system is and how limited the power of the government is that matters. When the amount of power is great and concentrated, those lusting after power work very hard to get it. And they will do what they need to get it. And then use the power to keep it. But when the government is limited and very decentralized, its not going to attract sociopaths as much. I…

I have a theory that part of Europe's success was due to the fragmented nature of States. Within a small area you have independent nations with their own laws, currency, elections, etc. This represents less single points of failure IMO. I think the early U.S also had a similar model. State's had their own currencies and regulations, with the right to over-rule federal regulations. Now, the US is essentially one state…

Yes. And many of the most successful countries are tiny. And leaders accountable. Singapore and Switzerland spring to mind. Singapore isn't even a democracy, but it is very easy to leave, making it accountable, at least economically.

Back when we all lived in tribes, if a leader failed, people simply left the tribe. We need to be able to do virtually the same thing.

If we could remove our property from a city when corruption becomes more than membership is worth. That would impose some discipline. And cities should be able to leave.

And, predictably, Switzerland already has that. People can leave a canton to join a neighboring one or start their own. And it rarely happens. The possibility is a deterrent.