I think a more interesting question is: why do Americans elect Lawyers? It's the most common profession in Congress (not including the self-referential "politics" answer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_111th_United_Sta... ). Both presidential candidates are Harvard Law students as well. I understand why Lawyers would want to become Lawmakers. I don't understand however such an unpopular field manages to g…
Do you really want random, uneducated people wielding that much power? People who idolize celebrities?
Because elections are a poor way to elect competent people, overall? The best democratic system in the world won't help anything if the population is not educated or interested enough to make an informed decision. Democracy itself is distorted because it doesn't thrive for optimal solutions, instead, it thrives to please the people. The people who get elected are detached from the population to begin with. Being a "p…
There was that popular link being circulated a while back... Democracy does not aim to select the optimal candidate but to minimize the damage caused. The candidate chosen is the "least bad", not the most optimal.
Many scientists are atheists or at the very least not strictly religious. It seems that you currently have to believe in God to be elected. Is this keeping many of them from even running?
And scientists aren't very good liars. If you could science your way through a campaign then there would be more scientists going for it, but unfortunately that doesn't work.
You know what else scientists aren't? A group that can be generalized about that easily. Are you seriously willing to put forth scientists 'can tell no lies'? Do you have any evidence to support this generalization?
As an earlier poster has said, being a scientist doesn't make you any less human and subject to everything that goes along with that - emotions, irrationality, ego, and so on.
Are there scientists to vote for in the US? I would love to vote for one, but they're are no scientist candidates in my country. And virtually every academic I know, openly hates politics and wants to stay away from it. "The largest punishment for those who are not interested in politics, is that they'll be governed by those who are." Maybe the best solution would be to teach politics to scientists, and not the other…
Many scientists are atheists or at the very least not strictly religious. It seems that you currently have to believe in God to be elected. Is this keeping many of them from even running?
The last study on this I read said that only 20% of scientists believe that science and religion are in constant conflict with each other. So the pool is not as small as you might think, if that is your requirement.
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…
Those individuals are using science to support their pre-existing narrowmindedness, stubbornness, and extremism. Science is not making them those things. On the contrary, the fundamentals of science lie in questioning pre-conceived notions in the face of findings that conflict them. This is how scientific progress is made.
Right. No point of conflict there. All I'm saying is that many technically trained and minded people, in the arena of dealing with human/political issues, seem to rely on idealizations, not unlike mathematical models, when in truth they are too complicated to be represented as such. Maybe the prediliction for mathematics and science betrays a deeper desire for a clean, concise, comprehensible truth, which rarely exists in the social/political realm.
Science 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 ot…
So to follow your argument, being a lawyer does not make one "law". Shouldn't people other than lawyers have input on laws? :) Also: Godwin's law.
Neil deGrasse Tyson was asked this very same question and he basically said: scientists are not interested in politics. They are interested in their field because they spend years going to school to learn and want to do research.
I think a more interesting question is: why do Americans elect Lawyers? It's the most common profession in Congress (not including the self-referential "politics" answer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_111th_United_Sta... ). Both presidential candidates are Harvard Law students as well. I understand why Lawyers would want to become Lawmakers. I don't understand however such an unpopular field manages to g…
Do you really want random, uneducated people wielding that much power? People who idolize celebrities?
It's this kind of attitude that makes geeks / scientists generally disliked by the 'celebrity-idolizing' masses. My guess is the average person who would meet the qualifications to represent in the house (i.e., read, write, good standing with the law, etc) is probably more intelligent than you think, and a basic competency test could weed out those who aren't.