Germany did: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Merkel
Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?
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Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?
#12From the opinion piece kindly submitted here, which is by mathematician and popular author on mathematics John Allen Paulos: "I’ve visited Singapore a few times in recent years and been impressed with its wealth and modernity. I was also quite aware of its world-leading programs in mathematics education and naturally noted that one of the candidates for president was Tony Tan, who has a Ph.D. in applied mathematics.…
I have great sympathy for the position proposed in the article, with one major fear: those trained in science typically traffic in ideas that are either right (true) or wrong (false). I fear that this would dispose them toward authoritarianism, which is in fact the first word that comes to mind when I hear about Singapore. How does this compare to your personal experience?
those trained in science typically traffic in ideas that are either right (true) or wrong (false).
Just make sure you have plenty of string theorists and perhaps some archeological geneticists and exoplanet meteorologists as well. That should even things out.
Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?
#13Do scientists want to be elected ?
I work in science, and the answer is basically no. In order to be a successful scientist, you have to be fascinated, even obsessed with your topic of study, sometimes to the point of not really caring about the wider world. This means that, in general, those who have the most success in science are also those who have the least desire to run for public office.
Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?
#14Do scientists want to be elected ?
I was thinking the same thing. They're rarely elected because they're rarely on the ballot.
Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?
#15At least part of the problem is structural. One contributing factor could be that the US uses direct regional elections, instead of a parliamentary system.
In a parliamentary system, the people vote on a party, rather than a person, and the party decides the individuals who get elected. There's less of an emphasis on individual charisma, and charismatic leaders only need appear at the top of the ticket. A party with sufficient representation is free to fill out the bottom of its ticket with "specialists" whose expertise is valuable, but who wouldn't win a general election on their own.
Meanwhile in the states, every ticket is one member deep so there are no specialists, only generalists. While they can be advisors, the only official positions they can take are cabinet members (where we do see lots of scientific degrees). Further, the lack of scientists in low-ranking elected positions (like House of Representatives) means that there's less of a science+politics talent pool to draw from for the high-ranked positions (Executive branch).
Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?
#16From the opinion piece kindly submitted here, which is by mathematician and popular author on mathematics John Allen Paulos: "I’ve visited Singapore a few times in recent years and been impressed with its wealth and modernity. I was also quite aware of its world-leading programs in mathematics education and naturally noted that one of the candidates for president was Tony Tan, who has a Ph.D. in applied mathematics.…
An interesting post; I'm assuming your later references to Taiwan are actually to Singapore?
Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?
#17The biggest barrier to mounting a credible election campaign is getting funding. Scientists are good at getting funding when it comes to writing grant applications, but raising real money in most elections means spending a couple hours every night of the campaign calling people and begging for money.
They don't talk about this and you don't see it on TV, but that's actually the biggest challenge most new candidates face. Policy statements, talking to voters, and giving speeches is a pretty minor part of it.
Most scientists just aren't going to be successful in that environment.
Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?
#18I think there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this.
What I suspect is going on is that if Americans elected scientists, then hurricanes and earthquakes would increase dramatically, partly because the scientists would use the military to cause them on purpose to justify their budgets, and also because it would make god mad as many scientists are godless communists, and everybody knows that god hates communism.
So it is a completely sane and rational form of self-preservation against activist geologists and a possibly capricious deity, and as such I would ask what the New York Times thinks it is doing by publishing an article that could possibly immanentise the eschaton before we have even had a chance to straighten out the economy.
[edit] To retain the utmost standards of fairness and academic rigour, the research for this post was comprised exclusively of the stated opinions of elected officials, and a selection of comments posted to youtube videos about penguins.
Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?
#19Science can only describe the physical world, it can't tell you what to do about it. The Nazis had plenty of highly placed scientists. Woodrow Wilson did too and they were in favor of eugenics.
The deification of science is a life raft post adolescents cling to as they try to swim away from the inherent corruption of mankind. Scientists are no less afflicted with selfishness, vanity or pettiness than people in any other industry. Striving toward scientific objectivity is a wonderful pursuit. So is striving toward the ideal of many religions. But practicing a religion does not make you god and practicing science does not make you science.
Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?
#20From the opinion piece kindly submitted here, which is by mathematician and popular author on mathematics John Allen Paulos: "I’ve visited Singapore a few times in recent years and been impressed with its wealth and modernity. I was also quite aware of its world-leading programs in mathematics education and naturally noted that one of the candidates for president was Tony Tan, who has a Ph.D. in applied mathematics.…
I have great sympathy for the position proposed in the article, with one major fear: those trained in science typically traffic in ideas that are either right (true) or wrong (false). I fear that this would dispose them toward authoritarianism, which is in fact the first word that comes to mind when I hear about Singapore. How does this compare to your personal experience?
I share this fear as well. I love the raw honesty most technical people have, but this characteristic seems to be correlated with narrowmindedness, stubbornness, and extremism. Think about how many tech folk you know with nuanced political views. Almost every one I know is either a far left socialist or far right libertarian. Given the array of fuzzy issues civilization faces, it would seem that extreme mindsets are not suited to the political arena.