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Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

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Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

#121

Post by forensic »

Zakharov wrote: post #110
justin wrote: post #102

If you are going in for heart surgery, you probably want a team of surgeons and anaesthesiologists to perform your operation. You wouldn't want a team of lawyers to do it -- you would die. It boggles the mind that we don't hold the same standards for decision making in our government: environmental policy is decided by a team of lawyers, military spending is decided by lawyers, security policy is decided by lawyers.…

The people who acquire power tend to be those skilled at acquiring power. To be more accurate, those who acquire power tend to be those who are good at acquiring power under the system for doing so. Existing political systems favor the most charismatic politicians. What system would encourage the most able technocrats, instead of the most ruthless? This isn't a rhetorical question.

Meritocracy. The new word is "Meritocracy" and it will be the successor to Democracy.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

#122

Post by DanielBMarkham »

wheels wrote: post #30
ta12121 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You're probably not a scientist. Mathematics mostly traffics in things which are right or wrong; science rarely does. That's one of the criticisms that the peanut gallery often lobs at it: that it's just based on theories . When ideas are actually being trafficked -- that is when they're new and struggling for breathing room, they're rarely clearly right or wrong. Consensus forms over a fairly long amount of time. Wi…

"That's one of the criticisms that the peanut gallery often lobs at it: that it's just based on theories."

Speaking from the peanut gallery, more specifically, it's much more Bayesian than people would have you believe. Popular literature and most science instructors are not a very good source of context.

The hype does not equal the delivery.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

#123

Post by jeffdavis »

"A more politically sensitive approach to problems and issues, on the other hand, often leads to positions that simply don’t jibe with the facts, no matter how delicately phrased. Examples as diverse as stem cell research and the economic stimulus abound."

It bothers me that the author states the existence of examples, without actually telling us what the example is.

Reading between the lines, it seems like the author is implying that some (unstated) policy positions related to stem cells and the economic stimulus are refuted by scientific facts.

Although science might inform people on either issue, or cause people to change their minds, I don't see how science or logic could make strong conclusions in either case. That the author implies that science can answer these questions is a big part of the reason that people are skeptical of scientists in government.

EDIT: I suppose questions about economics could, in theory, be answered in a compelling way by science. But in reality, the economy is so complex that I just don't regard an economic opinion by an economist as anything more than an informed opinion. Interesting, but it's not like it's a repeatable experiment that anyone can verify.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

#124

Post by pserwylo »

Zakharov wrote: post #110
justin wrote: post #102

If you are going in for heart surgery, you probably want a team of surgeons and anaesthesiologists to perform your operation. You wouldn't want a team of lawyers to do it -- you would die. It boggles the mind that we don't hold the same standards for decision making in our government: environmental policy is decided by a team of lawyers, military spending is decided by lawyers, security policy is decided by lawyers.…

The people who acquire power tend to be those skilled at acquiring power. To be more accurate, those who acquire power tend to be those who are good at acquiring power under the system for doing so. Existing political systems favor the most charismatic politicians. What system would encourage the most able technocrats, instead of the most ruthless? This isn't a rhetorical question.

I don't know the answer, but your use of the word "ruthless" brings up a good point.

I seem to remember hearing about studies[0] which showed that to be a politician (or even a CEO of a large company) required certain psychopathic traits. This is because making decisions like, e.g.:

- Sending people to war, knowing that many will not return

- Changing laws which will result in many being worse off

- Firing hundreds/thousands of people, with potential disastrous consequences for many of them

Would be very difficult to be made by somebody who possesses a strong sense of empathy.

I wonder if lawyers tend to posses the same traits, because often they are asked to defend people, even if the persons crimes were indefensible. Likewise, I wonder if this is related to why other professionals are underrepresented? I am doing my PhD in Australia, and despite the occasional crazy academic, I don't think (many of) my colleagues show psychopathic tendencies that I am aware of.

[0] - I don't recall where I heard this, so no citations forthcoming.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

#125

Post by jeffdavis »

forensic wrote: post #121
Zakharov wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who acquire power tend to be those skilled at acquiring power. To be more accurate, those who acquire power tend to be those who are good at acquiring power under the system for doing so. Existing political systems favor the most charismatic politicians. What system would encourage the most able technocrats, instead of the most ruthless? This isn't a rhetorical question.

Meritocracy. The new word is "Meritocracy" and it will be the successor to Democracy.

Wasn't there an episode of The Simpsons about this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Saved_Lisas_Brain

Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

#127

Post by jeffdavis »

Zakharov wrote: post #110
justin wrote: post #102

If you are going in for heart surgery, you probably want a team of surgeons and anaesthesiologists to perform your operation. You wouldn't want a team of lawyers to do it -- you would die. It boggles the mind that we don't hold the same standards for decision making in our government: environmental policy is decided by a team of lawyers, military spending is decided by lawyers, security policy is decided by lawyers.…

The people who acquire power tend to be those skilled at acquiring power. To be more accurate, those who acquire power tend to be those who are good at acquiring power under the system for doing so. Existing political systems favor the most charismatic politicians. What system would encourage the most able technocrats, instead of the most ruthless? This isn't a rhetorical question.

"What system would encourage the most able technocrats, instead of the most ruthless?"

In general, I think in the US, we torture politicians and bureaucrats far too much.

However, I don't think putting smart people in government is going to solve all of our problems, and it could make things much worse (I'm serious when I say that -- sometimes smart people make extremely unwise policy decisions).

I think, what we really need, are people that:

* Have not publicly stated a bunch of opinions. The more clearly you state an opinion in public, the more it becomes a part of your identity no matter how ridiculous.

* Have been wrong enough times that they aren't afraid of being wrong one more time. They expect a high likelihood of being wrong, so build safeguards into their policies for when they don't work.

* Are willing to cede power. Maybe some federal laws could be state laws, instead? Or maybe state laws could be local laws? Or maybe they don't need to be laws at all, and the goal can be accomplished in some less-forceful way.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

#128

Post by trips2 »

wheels wrote: post #30
ta12121 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You're probably not a scientist. Mathematics mostly traffics in things which are right or wrong; science rarely does. That's one of the criticisms that the peanut gallery often lobs at it: that it's just based on theories . When ideas are actually being trafficked -- that is when they're new and struggling for breathing room, they're rarely clearly right or wrong. Consensus forms over a fairly long amount of time. Wi…

I agree with your first paragraph. Science is based on consensus. You have to convince your peers you are "right". But what makes science worthy of being taken seriously is that it follows a defined procedural method of doing the convincing; and most everyone involved in science accepts that general method as being a sound one. People can actually agree on things because we all follow the same general method of arriving at conclusions. And... this works across a variety of disciplines.

Does maths use the scientific method to answer questions? Do the questions maths can answer concern areas outside of just maths? Is maths something that is used _within_ the scientific method to answer questions, in a variety of different disciplines?

It's a lot easier to approach and attempt to answer questions (get consensus) when you have a generally accepted method for doing so. It seems like maths entusiasists, e.g. the kind who love computers, can take widely different approaches to answering the types of wide-ranging questions addressed in the sciences. They may even disregard the scientific method altogether.

If Usenet/WWW is any indication I'm guessing this leads to a lot of disagreement between maths devotees if the topic at hand is anything but pure maths and logic.

Not taking anything away from people who love maths. In fact, one of the major problems in the sciences is the lack of mathematical rigor by far too many scientists when analysing results.

tl;dr Scientific method + maths = good. Need both for solid analysis and reasoning.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

#130

Post by tokenadult »

mynameishere wrote: post #107
tokenadult wrote: post #2

From 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.…

People from Singapore are so ethnically diverse that Singapore has four official languages #1 Language and ethnicity are not the same. #2 Singapore is 74 percent Chinese. Do a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of research before copy-pasting nonsense. Leterally, 10 seconds of research would be plenty. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Singapore

I am a Wikipedian. So I immediately noticed that the Wikipedia article you kindly recommended has been flagged for revision for a year. I dig into its sources and note it largely reflects the official view of the Singapore government, which, as the thread has already noted, is not fully democratic. Anyway, the article SUPPORTS my claim that the generation in Singapore that grew up when I grew up mostly didn't speak the language of school instruction at home and came from such a diverse language background that there was no spoken language that was a majority (rather than plurality) language for school pupils in Singapore.

Because I am a Wikipedian, I don't rely on Wikipedia to tell me things that I know more thoroughly from better sources, including but not limited to personal experience. I speak Chinese (the four Sinitic languages Mandarin, Cantonese, Taiwanese, and Hakka), and I can understand the jokes that people of differing Chinese ethnicities tell about people of other Chinese ethnicities. All I can say is that if you think "Chinese" is one ethnic group practically or for purposes of educational policy, you should have another think coming. Even in China itself that is an issue. By official Chinese government survey,

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/07/content_5812838...

barely more than half of the population in China is even conversant in the national standard language.

So thank you for your suggestion. My suggestion is next time, please, do more than 10 seconds of research. You might learn something if you are open to more sources than just the University of Google.

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