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Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#151

Post by stretchwithme »

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…

We have this thing in California where a large city can basically harass smaller ones they wish to take over. San Jose recently extracted millions from the city of Campbell which is within its borders to avoid being taken over.

We actually need the opposite thing happening. We need MORE choice about how we choose to live, not more monopolies.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#152

Post by joejohnson »

patio11 wrote: post #43

Who 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…

Did you read the whole article? The definition used included engineers and doctors.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#153

Post by grecy »

Duff wrote: post #136

Americans don't elect scientists for a simple reason: scientists by their nature lack the skills necessary to succeed as a popular politician. Singapore isn't a democracy in the same sense as the US or Britain. China is a not a democracy at all. So comparing the education levels of elected officials isn't really an apples-to-apples comparison. In the US, a person's charisma, ability to relate to and attract the atten…

>In the US, a person's charisma, ability to relate to and attract the attention of voters, ability to build a political organization .... define your success as a politician.

Exactly. In the US, being a successful Politician is a popularity game, much like Hollywood. Unfortunately, it has little to do with intelligence or if that person will actually do anything good for anyone.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#154

Post by barrkel »

super_mario wrote: post #133
barrkel wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The procedure you described just there is susceptible to confirmation bias. You need to take that into account, as well as the power of your tests as Bayesian evidence updates. There are a lot of doctors that order tests even though their evidential value is not high. For example, consider a test with a 1% false positive rate, for a disease with a 0.1% incidence rate for a particular set of symptoms. If you come thro…

Most doctors won't bother with ordering tests for disease with 0.1% incidence rate (or much higher) until more common and probable causes are excluded. And even then, they would most likely defer you to someone who specializes in the very narrow field who could potentially make correct diagnosis with the existing data. Double blind trials are for clinical studies. You don't do double blind trials on single patient :D…

One anecdote was related on Econ Talk, Russ Roberts and Arnold Kling: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/11/arnold_kling_on.htm... - from the summary, you can listen to the podcast for more:

"Bayes Theorem, 40 year old man with microscopic blood in urine, incidence of serious illness for that symptom at that age in a non-smoker is low, so more sensible to not have the extra test. Doctor didn't understand Bayes Theorem, was deeply offended and yelled at Arnold's wife"

I chose my example to explain Bayes and the base rate fallacy nice and clearly. An example chosen on didactic grounds is easy to attack on realism grounds. But it really does happen. Honest!

My point is, if you're not accounting for bias - an easy mistake to make - you are not doing science. And thus, a doctor's diagnosis is frequently not like science, because it doesn't have good quality objective procedures to exclude it.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#155

Post by blario »

patio11 wrote: post #43

Who 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…

I think this is close, but the real reason to me is the barrier to entry raised by the current state of campaign finance.

Elections are bought today. No caps on spending. No limits on individual contributors. In addition, not just billionaires electing politicians, corporations get to throw in their millions now too. It's worse today than it's ever been before.

Gingrich has largely been financed by one guy the past month or so. Romney out spent Gingrich in Florida at least 5 to 1. Current governor of Florida bought his seat.

To win today, rich entities have to want you in power. The understanding is that they pay for your allegiance. To get this sponsorship, and NOT be a crook, takes a special person; a true politicker capable of raising the money, keeping them happy enough to sponsor you again the next round, but still work for the citizens of the country as much as possible; rare and difficult.

A scientist is not a politicker. Scientists like facts, scientific laws; concrete and measurable realities. Not deception and corruption (manchurian candidates instead of democratic republic). If a scientist was not completely disgusted by the political arena, they would not get far without pretending or actually being bought by some rich entity.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#156

Post by mjwalshe »

lispm wrote: post #93
Erunno wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately her doctorate hasn't prevented her from making one inane decision after the other during the ongoing financial crisis and even on the field she should be at least somewhat knowledgeable (nuclear power) she didn't really evoke any trust into her decision-making (first extending life span of nuclear reactors despite strong criticism by experts and than retracting this decision only a year later in the wak…

Merkel's decision are not so 'inane'. If you look at the German situation (and that's her main job), it is looking pretty good right now. She is also not only 'somewhat knowledgeable' about nuclear power, she was the responsible minister for several years. Extending the life span was a political decision - especially moved ahead by her coalition partner - the FDP. Before Fukushima there was a majority of conservative…

It's just storing up trouble for the future its putting ones head in the sand to appease a minority party.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#157

Post by yock »

It isn't that Americans don't elect a particular type of person, it's that Americans do elect a particular type of person. Americans by and large voluntarily limit themselves to candidates showcased by the two prominent marketing wings of American politics. This minimizes the amount of effort required to make a decision, the hallmark of not just the American masses, but humanity in general.

From there, you need only look at the type of person those two marketing organizations are likely to champion. I'll refrain from stating what I think they are but they decidedly are NOT celebrated academians.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#158

Post by ehsanu1 »

mynameishere wrote: post #143
ashconnor wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Based on Wikipedia's definition of this fallacy, I don't think your examples fit. From Wikipedia:

No true Scotsman is an informal logical fallacy, an ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion.[1] When faced with a counterexample to a universal claim, rather than denying the counterexample or rejecting the original universal claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric, without reference to any specific objective rule.

The key part is "without reference to any specific objective rule", which I don't think you're taking into account.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#159

Post by Florin_Andrei »

rdouble wrote: post #134
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…

American culture has always had an anti-intellectual component. The country was initially settled by merchants and religious fanatics, two groups not exactly known for intellectual curiosity. What's more interesting is how successful intellectuals have been in this country, considering half the population has generally held them in contempt. This book is a bit dated but is a pretty good history of American anti-intel…

> What's more interesting is how successful intellectuals have been in this country

They've been successful at delivering concrete, immediate results. Fundamental science at the highest levels is usually done elsewhere.

Re: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

#160

Post by smsm42 »

gcp wrote: post #91
smsm42 wrote: post #45

If 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…

If 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. False dichotomy. Of course, the government would always have a lot of purely technical questions where scientific training would allow one to decide them efficiently - but t…

How do you think science is made? Guesswork, trial and error are inherent instruments of the science - it's called "hypothesis" and "experiment". Only in the case of politics and economics an experiment may cost lives and wrong hypothesis may lead to millions losing their livelihoods and their very lives. I'd rather prefer them doing it with the lab mice than myself.

And the dichotomy is very real - governmental redistribution and social engineering is very different thing from defending people's rights. You can claim the government could do both - though practice suggests it is often contradictory as redistribution and social engineering involves coercion - but it is still very different things and very different approaches. If one subscribes to the "rights" approach, than asking to elect more scientists is the same as asking to elect more plumbers - one would recognize plumbers are extremely helpful in their area of expertise, but what it has to do with the elections?

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