I think he was trying to point out that it's a credibility problem. For instance, where science aligns with political belief, it makes it harder for scientists to argue that they're impartial when they generally share the same political beliefs with eachother.
What if it's more an issue of political belief aligning itself against science? We've all seen the numbers on which Americans believe the earth is 5,000 years old, right?
I agree, and furthermore I'd say that if the one preceded the other (i.e. the Republican Party became anti-science first), it's sort of blaming the victim to say scientists should be more balanced. More balanced with what? We'll average 5k and 12 billion and posit that the universe is 6 billion + 2500 years old?
Science is based on facts, not in belief. Proving a scientific theory using a flawed logic to support a political belief would be fatal to the reputation of a scientific. Therefore, scientific credibility has nothing to do with political affiliation, religion beliefs (or lack thereof), colour of skin or any other personal treat. There were brilliant scientists amongst the nazis and amongst the soviet communists, so it has nothing to do with that. Political belief is a very personal choice and everyone has the right to choose, and also everyone has the choice to become a scientist. In my opinion this article is a poor defense of republican party.
"Science is based on facts" is a nonsensical statement. Science is a method by which one tries to establish facts. The problem is that it is a process run by humans which have biases.
Bias can influence many things in science, not least of which is hypothesis selection. Through no fault of their own, scientists who have beliefs may not come up with hypotheses that contradict them, and therefore fail to test them. They will select the better of the two hypotheses they have, but they may miss something. This is a flaw in the scientific process that goes way beyond bias, by the way. It's the part that not anyone can do: that requires creative thinking, and is limited by it.
To emulate Churchill, science is the worst way to discover truth, except for all those other ways that have been tried from time to time.
Science and religion are about what is, while politics is about what ought to happen.
There's no reason why your views about whether Jesus rode a dinosaur or whether global warming will kill us all should be correlated with your views on issues like "Should taxes be lowered?" and "Should the Government subsidize health care?" and "Should [whatever random complicated policy issue you like]?" And yet, they so often are.
In a two-party system, people who don't spend all that much time thinking about politics often seem to wind up buying their political opinions in job lots. Part of this is due to the success which the Democrats have been having with their "If you don't believe that Jesus rode a dinosaur then you need to support all our left-wing economic policies" line, but this is a serious problem both for Republicans and for Science. (And as a Republican scientist, it's a doubly important issue for me.)
This kind of rhetoric disturbs me. The burden doesn't lie with the scientific community, but rather the republican party. Science is not a movement, it's a set of practices that emphasize observation and empirical analysis to interpret the world around us.
Science is there for anybody who wants to open their mind to it to enjoy. I'm sure some republicans have and assuming those numbers are correct, 1 of 3 things happened: 1) they've changed their affiliation over time (becoming either democrat or unaffiliated), 2) they didn't find what they were looking for in science and stopped practicing, 3) they're in the current minority.
Although it is true that the scientific method cannot be thought of as "political" in any sense, I think it's a big mistake to see science as deriving, almost mechanically from observations. It is done by scientists and in all ages scientists are affected by non-scientific aspects of their societies, i.e. traditions, commonly held beliefs, and politics.
Also, not all science is as abstract as, say, mathematics or hunting for dark matter. Some questions, e.g.: should we perform stem cell research on embryos, should we eradicate mosquitoes, should we try to affect human sexual patterns leading to AIDS, etc. are scientific but also contain a large dose of ethics, i.e. they cannot be approached by handling equations alone in an objective matter.
"I think it's a big mistake to see science as deriving, almost mechanically from observations [...] scientists are affected by non-scientific aspects of their societies, i.e. traditions, commonly held beliefs, and politics"
It's neither a mistake nor inaccurate. Once you've observed, measured, calculated and concluded, you can involve all form of non-empirical disciplines you want, after all we are morally and emotionally bound beings. One thing we can't do however is hide from the truth the data has spoken. Those are usually very profound paradigm shifts, a crossroad between being comfortable with what was revealed, or choosing to be more at peace with one's oblivion and folkloric truths.
"Some questions, e.g.: should we perform stem cell research on embryos, should we eradicate mosquitoes, should we try to affect human sexual patterns leading to AIDS, etc. are scientific [...] i.e. they cannot be approached by handling equations alone in an objective matter."
If the approach can't be objective then the question isn't scientific. Granted, those are science related questions and have a dose of moral and ethics involved, but that's not what science is about.
Science isn't there to answer what you should or shouldn't do. It's there to provide you with facts on what would happen if you do it. Change your question should we eradicate mosquitoes into what would happen if we eradicate mosquitoes and we can talk science. Lets take out the tools, dust off old books, go in the nature, observe, measure, extrapolate, calculate and conclude. Then based on those conclusions we'll look at each other and our moral fiber will tell us, nah we should probably let the little scoundrel be.
Some questions, e.g.: should we ... are scientific
No, none of those "should we" questions are scientific. Those are policy questions. Policy is informed by science, but passes through a filter of cultural values as well.
I've said it several times here, but I'll do so again. Just because we can establish a theory as true does not necessarily lead to any particular policy.
Suppose that climate change is not happening, at least to the extent of the sky falling. That does not mean that we do not have an obligation to preserve our environment; that is still determined by our values.
Conversely, even if the climate is changing as significantly as some say, it doesn't necessarily mean that we must change our lifestyle to avoid it. Again, it's a question of values.
Science should not be seen to lead directly to policy.
I would claim that there are two factors that lead to the fact that most scientists are Democrats: the overall lean of universities, and the source of funding.
First, scientists tend to work in academia. It's well documented that universities are strongly slanted to the left. It seems reasonable to expect that when the left-leaning universities are looking to hire, they will tend to (possibly not intentionally) favor others like themselves.
Second, the government is the largest funder of scientific research. However, to the extent that the GOP favors a smaller government (and though they say this, they don't actually do so, but that's a different discussion), this would make one expect that those against such governmental funding would be morally bound to find other means of employment.
asking how the guy who prohibited stem-cell research
This isn't what happened. It's incredibly frustrating to me that people continually read a ban on federal funding to be a ban on research itself. But it does reinforce my point that the governmental force behind science is now perceived as the sole force behind science.
reinforce the idea that Democrats are the party of science and rationality
In the science of economics the opposite is true. For example, Democratic support of minimum wages and other price controls, and especially their opposition to free trade, fly against the wind of economic science.
to the extent that the GOP favors a smaller government (and though they say this, they don't actually do so, but that's a different discussion), this would make one expect that those against such governmental funding would be morally bound to find other means of employment.
I can support this with anecdotal evidence. I have a friend who got his Ph.D. in physics, but decided to work outside of academia. His primary reason for this was that he felt that as a libertarian it would be immoral for him to take government money. He currently works at Intel.
Yeah, but it wasn't too immoral for him to take advantage of government funded university research labs in order to get that Ph.D. in the first place, right? Once he no longer needed the government's money he was free to let his strong moral position take over, but up until that point I am sure the cognitive dissonance was keeping him up at night...
What's with all the vitriol in your two replies? It seems like you're awfully eager to put words into people's mouths, and to stereotype a large portion of the country in a single stroke. There may be parts of your argument that are worth discussing, but you make it difficult to ferret them out from all the anger.
You know nothing of the parent post's friend. How can you make such bald assertions?
Your tone is rather aggressive. Why is that? In fact, it did keep him up at night that his lab was receiving grants from the government. That's why he ultimately made the decision he did.
It's impossible for someone to be completely moral with their money. All of us on H.N. have paid taxes that at some point went to pay for something that we disagree with morally. All of us have purchased a product from a company that has probably done something we find immoral or given money to someone who has. It's not shameful to pay your taxes because you like not being in prison. Self-preservation is not a bad thing. But nor is trying to put your money where your mouth is, either.
Libertarian doesn't automatically mean Republican, though. Again, speaking anecdotally, I know of a fair number of libertarians who switched party affiliations when the Patriot Act was passed, and the Bush Administration started its warrantless wiretapping program (a program that the Obama administration has sadly continued).
Anecdotally it seems that most of the Libertarians who switched their party affiliation to Democrat while Bush was in power switched it back to Republican once Obama came into power and managed to keep up all Bush's objectionable policies while adding a whole bunch of his own.
I am reminded of the old joke about the man who goes to hell and is given a choice of two rooms in which to spend all eternity. In the first, everybody is forced to stand on their head for all eternity, groaning uncomfortably with the strain. In the second, everybody is standing around knee-deep in poop, but they're also drinking coffee, eating biscuits and chatting. After thinking long and hard, he eventually chooses the second room, but the moment after he walks in a voice comes over the intercom "OK, coffee break's over, everybody back on your heads."
I would claim that there are two factors that lead to the fact that most scientists are Democrats: the overall lean of universities, and the source of funding.
And the overwhelming anti-science bias within large segments of the Republican base has nothing to do with it? Yeah, it has just got to be all of those liberal universities and scientists living off the government teat... You can delude yourself all you want, but the fact is that most scientists did not just aimlessly gravitate to the Democratic party; they were chased there by pitchfork-wielding, bible-thumping, Republicans who sought to "refudiate" their work (aided in large parts by conservative think tanks that will tell any lie and spread as much FUD as possible if it helps the short-term objectives of their corporate backers.)
Mostly true, but conservatives hardly have a monopoly on willful ignorance. Ask the stereotypical liberal what he thinks of nuclear power or GMO crops, and you're not likely to get a response based on sound science.
Not to mention anything related to economics, as I mentioned above. All that nonsense about "fair trade", the complaints about Chinese currency (see Chuck Schumer), and on and on, has absolutely no basis in the real science.
Nuclear power and GMO crops have the same issue for liberals like me: when they fail, they fail in catastrophic fashion. We've already had Cherynobol and Monsanto's "Terminator" seeds getting out into the wild. To paraphrase badly, liberals opposed to both are concerned about Black Swan events.
Your assessment of the risk and that of those of us who are a bit more "reactionary" are just different, but it doesn't mean that we willfully misrepresent the science.
Chernobyl is ancient history when it comes to nuclear technology. Pretty much all of the problems with catastrophic failure of nuclear power plants have been solved, yet many on the left still oppose it, almost out of tradition, rather than because of any compelling scientific argument.
There's also a distrust of the companies that would run such operations, seeing as the Republican party is often anti-regulation/oversight. A bad combination when it comes to nuclear power, imho.
There are plenty of power plants presently operating quite safely under the current regulatory scheme. Can you point to any specific concerns you have, or is this just FUD?
...fail in catastrophic fashion...Monsanto's "Terminator" seeds getting out into the wild.
And the catastrophe was what, exactly? It was so minor that I must have missed it.
Incidentally, I don't believe your fear of catastrophic failure is the real motivation. I believe it's a post-hoc rationalization. My reasoning? There has only been one serious nuclear accident ever, and it was caused by deliberate negligence [1]. Various socialist policies, when carried out by people being deliberately negligent or malicious, have failed far more catastrophically than Chernobyl. Yet most liberals don't tend to oppose them.
[1] Go read about it. Seriously, they deliberately operated it way outside of the known to be safe parameters, and turned off all the safety systems (which would, if left active, have shut the reactor down safely). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
>>> Seriously, they deliberately operated it way outside of the known to be safe parameters, and turned off all the safety systems ...
If you think about it, that's pretty scary.
Even if the science behind this is fully understood and the engineers flawlessly put alarms, locks and backups for every possible failure mode, it only takes one idiot manager to overrule them all and have the safety systems turned off.
Makes you wonder about all those other things you are told "cannot possibly go wrong"...
Your position on Nuclear power is completely irrational. One easily prevented, catastrophic failure with relatively minor flow-on effects is not enough to fear nuclear power. Regular power sources drip-feed death and destruction on a regular basis, but because they don't all happen at once, the numbers go unnoticed.
Similarly, anti-GM crops is circular logic. All food products we eat are long-since modified from their original native or wild source.
The struggle within science to find a place for the bible within the geological record has been going on for at least 2 centuries. As such I don't see the problem being resolved anytime soon. Some of the towering giants of science have bent themselves out of shape trying to retro-fit biblical tales into natural history, and that doesn't invalidate their other contributions. What I'm saying here is that holding an irrational position on evolution doesn't necessarily devalue a scientists value, as long as they aren't primarily studying evolutionary-related fields. If the person who comes up with a cure for cancer doesn't believe in evolution, personally it wouldn't worry me one bit.
Of all that, I do think the Republicans have a problem with religious beliefs taking over the party. I don't know of any other major conservative party in the world which puts things like evolution in question the way they do. Although I suspect it's not endemic within the party, the moderates within the party should be doing more to establish a more mainstream view as the primary position.
~Your position on Nuclear power is completely irrational.
Your opening statement is pointlessly inflammatory. He obviously just has a different risk preference than you do. Why be so antagonistic? Personally I'm all for having a Nuclear power plant in my back yard, but I would also respect other's aversion without mockery.
We are a long way from Chernobyl, the state of the art in nuclear power generation is not at all the same.
Pardon the snarkiness a little bit, but your fear nuclear power because of catastrophes like Chernobyl or Three Mile Island is about as rational as my fear of flying because jetliners in the 50s weren't very safe.
True, but on the other hand arguing against nuclear power or GMO crops isn't nearly as crazy as arguing against evolution. One is based on a misconstruing of risks (some of which remain a bit fuzzy anyway) while the other is based on being a complete fricking wacko.
To put it another way, you can easily have two honest and sensible scientists arguing about whether nuclear power is a good idea; you can't have two honest and sensible scientists arguing about evolution.
Agreed. Religion is the differentiator, not political ideology. You can also have rational disagreements about whether global warming is a serious threat.
I completely agree with you about nuclear power. I don't understand why people fail to realize the vast improvements in safety made over the last 20 or 30 years. I won't claim they're 100%, but I would live next to a reactor without any fear.
The GMO crops issue is a little more complicated though. The human body is extraordinarily complex and small changes in our environment and diet can create totally unexpected and undetectable chain reactions with results appearing decades later. I put enough effort into my health and well-being that I try to avoid anything that could negatively affect my body.
GMO crops might be worth the chances in 3rd world countries where starvation is an ever-present reality, but they will not be seen on my plate any time in the near future.
balony. Most scientists do work that's not at all related to what the public knows about and talk about their work in ways that no one else can understand.
Your claim that scientists are being "chased" from the Republican party is ridiculous.
Unless, of course, you have data that shows they are?
This guy free-associated the theory of relativity with "moral relativism" (ideological bingo word!) and apparently concluded that that means relativity is wrong. Article full of cites follows. If it's cited, must be true, right? He also liberally (heh!) re-uses the bogus arguments from below about how relativity research is funded by the government, therefore the researchers must be marxists, therefore they're wrong about relativity.
For further reading, I'd suggest polls on the public's view of creationism, age of the earth, evolution, global warming, etc by political party.
Most scientists do work that's not at all related to what the public knows about and talk about their work in ways that no one else can understand.
Yeah, because no field has jargon and standard methods that require a small amount of prior knowledge to understand... We use a ton of confusing and sometimes overlapping jargon in the computer industry, simplify complex systems using metaphors that are not really correct (e.g. the internet is a series of tubes...), and will often give vague answers to people who are not in the industry. It is not because we have anything to hide, but because we do not have the time or energy to give someone an introductory course on how computers work just to answer a simple question. If you had the time to learn and the necessary educational background you could in fact learn when they are working on and understand what they are saying without too much effort. Most of the public is too busy, too lazy, or too stupid to do this.
As far as scientists being "chased" from the republican party, start with The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney, move on to Unscientific America by the same author, The Great Derangement by Matt Tiabbi, or Idiot America by Charles Pierce. Skim through Merchants of Doubt or Doubt is their Product to see some of the links to various corporate think tanks. The evidence is clear, maybe you should check some of it out.
You have good points. On the other hand, there's a big gap between the folks who shout down Lawrence Summers (who, incidentally, remains a favoured Democratic insider) and the folks who actually deny evolution.
As one of these supposedly-mythical Republican scientists, I do find that the Bobby Jindals and Mike Huckabees of the party are a constant source of embarrassment.
Angry anti-science leftists are indeed a problem, but you don't really see them outside the academic left. The academic left is to the far left of the far left; to put it bluntly, these are the people Noam Chomsky criticizes for being too leftist. Once you get out of academia and don't have to deal with these people anymore, they're a non-issue. Unfortunately, that's not the case for, e.g. creationists.
In order to understand any situation, we should go beyond simplistic stereotypes like "pitchfork-wielding, bible-thumping." This is no different than Fox TV anchors who view liberals as latte-drinking, gun-banning, gay marriage-backing wimps.
Well, I dunno about your analogy; "gun-banning" and "gay-marriage-backing" are pretty accurate descriptions of mainstream "liberal" policies, and "latte-drinking" is pretty much an accurate description of 90% of the population.
I second that as a latte-drinking, gay-marriage-backing, gun-banning liberal. Regarding the gun-banning, I would note that many gun owners overestimate the utility of firearms for protection in exactly the same way many liberals overestimate the risks of a modern nuclear power plant. Perhaps we all have a common interest in encouraging our fellow citizens to rely on enlightened reason rather than blind fear in making public policy, regardless of the question at hand.
I'm reminded of the '08 republican primary debates and "Raise your hand if you believe in evolution". I don't see many scientists happily getting behind a party made up of people who need to be asked that.
>It's well documented that universities are strongly slanted to the left
I think that this just deflects the question. Why is it that universities are left-leaning?
The implication is that knowledge acquisition is co-related with left-leaning politics? I'm not about to go into the implications of such an assertion, lest a political flame-war break out, but I think answering that more general question will explain the more specific case of scientists.
The implication is that knowledge acquisition is co-related with left-leaning politics?
That's a very good question. If you don't mind, I'd like to tweak it a bit first. As a libertarian myself, and from my association with other libertarians, I believe that people of that political bent are also much more likely to pursue a rational truth. So I'd like to re-do the boolean algebra to refer to "non-right-leaning" rather than "left-leaning".
Anyway, the premise is partly flawed. I gave an example of economics, and other examples were cited such as opposition to GM crops, where those on the left are clearly in opposition to the best available scientific understanding.
But by my own observation, it does appear that as a generalization your premise holds strongly for the life sciences, and also holds for hard sciences like physics and chemistry. I think it would be interesting to pursue that.
HOWEVER, I think that while considering it, that we are careful to keep science and policy separated. Even if we are to grant that a certain point of science is correct, it does not necessarily lead to acceptance of a point of policy.
For example, it is well known that at the margin, minimum wage laws increase unemployment amongst the least skilled workers. But it doesn't automatically follow that such a policy should not be followed; perhaps with a proper safety net, those bottom-rung folks can be motivated into improving themselves. Likewise (and even more controversially), even if climate change is as serious as some claim, it does not necessarily follow that all efforts must be pursued: it may be that the cost of fixing it exceeds the cost of the expected damage.
It's just too easy to say "we have this problem, thus we must do something". The values that drive our actions are different from the science that allows us to understand the world.
My father taught free market economics at a small private college. His students would regularly comment to him that they'd never heard that stuff before, that they didn't even know there was a rationale behind free market economics.
Basically, because all the lefties (and I mean the real lefties, not the 51st-percentile leftish types) need to wind up somewhere, and they don't much like working in the private sector where they're expected to aim towards (gasp!) profit. So they wind up in society's other nooks and crannies, with the university system being one of the largest.
If you're smart and left-wing you become a professor. If you're moderately smart and left-wing you become a university librarian. If you're dumb and left-wing you wind up working at the DMV.
Incidentally, while science professors can actually be a reasonably ideologically-diverse bunch, I doubt you'll ever find much diversity among university librarians.
My theory is that universities are compromised of the elite, and I think it's a natural fit for elites to think "hey, I'm pretty smart about my field; I bet there is some other really smart guy about [economics/the environment/healthcare/agriculture/...] and we just put that guy in charge of that he can design a great system for that that we can all live under and it will be just great!"
In the science of economics the opposite is true. For example, Democratic support of minimum wages and other price controls, and especially their opposition to free trade, fly against the wind of economic science.
I don't believe this is true. First, assertions that economics is a science seem...dubious at best.
Secondly, actual economic research suggests that negative effects of the minimum wage in practice are quite small. It is true that people who have no more economic knowledge than that imparted by a first semester intro to economics class do not know that, but that merely underscores the danger of a little bit of knowledge.
Finally, I have seen no evidence in the last decade that Democrats are particularly opposed to free trade deals per se. Can you cite some? I would point out that a great deal of some "free trade" deals actually has little if anything to do with free trade.
negative effects of the minimum wage in practice are quite small
True, but I don't know of any economist that disputes it. Yet when approached from a political angle, minimum wage is sold as an unalloyed good to help the most disadvantaged. The size of the effect might not be the biggest, but the degree to which it is contradicted in political discourse is extreme.
I have seen no evidence in the last decade that Democrats are particularly opposed to free trade deals per se
Well, Clinton was of course no worse than GWB, and possibly much better. But if you step outside the politicians themselves and look at the citizens, well, I hear a lot of chatter about ideas like "fair trade", which is simply stupid.
In the broader field, which classical Keynesianism was thoroughly discredited by the 70s, I have to admit that more recent refinements aren't so easily discarded (although I do disagree with them). Even so, the Democrats have been trying to pretend that these ideas are all there is, spouting multiplier values as if there's any evidence behind them, and not acknowledging any of the market-based arguments (viz Austrians and Chicagoans) that would explain both the crisis itself, as well as the failure of the government policies. Democrats are to the economic crisis as Republicans are to climate change.
For example, Democratic support of minimum wages and other price controls, and especially their opposition to free trade, fly against the wind of economic science.
The problem is that there are plenty of Republicans willing to oppose free trade as well. Lets also not forget that it was Nixon who imposed price controls in the '70s. You'll be hard pressed to find sound economics in either party.
You're failing to differentiate between supporting a policy versus the truth of a scientific argument.
It is pretty much accepted that minimum wage increases unemployment, although the effect may be small as pointed out elsewhere.
But you may also believe that we should offer a well-designed safety net to those who lose their jobs as a result, and that these people can thus improve their skills to benefit themselves in the longer term. Thus, it's perfectly possible to believe scientifically that the effect as bad, yet still support it as a political policy. (note that I do not support it, but I can understand how someone might)
It's been said elsewhere in this thread that even if Obamacare would work, the speaker feels that it's morally wrong to force other people to pay. So again, the scientific results don't necessarily determine the policy.
I think this is largely because of the overwhelming number of fundamentalists in the Republican party. When there are polling figures like 46% of Republicans believe Obama is a Muslim and 67% believe he's a socialist, this picture starts to become clear. If you believe something so strongly that your opinion cannot be changed despite astronomical amounts of evidence to the contrary, then you will not many friends in science.
That is a problem. But it is not a problem for science, it is a problem for the republican party. For the last ten years they have been so aggressively pro stupidity that intelligent people are embarrassed to be affiliated with them, even if their general political beliefs are closer to the republican than to the democrat side.
The Democratic party has exhibited a ``pro-stupidity'' attitude on the same order of magnitude, just in more subtle ways. Instead of damning stem cell research, the Dems champion Keynesian economics, seek to implement entitlement programs, and push protectionism (``buy local'').
(I'm speculating that the opposition are democrats, but in NYC it's a good guess.)
Or, to take a bipartisan example, people of pretty much any party would be opposed to repeating the Tuskegee experiment (or many others). It's not anti-scientific to oppose a particular experiment because you believe conducting it involves immoral acts. You might disagree with the morality involved, but that's not the same thing.
Most opponents of stem cell research are being rational. If you take as an axiom "fertilized eggs are people too", it's not hard to conclude that stem cell experiments are immoral.
In much the same way, given the axiom "blacks are people too", the rational conclusion is that Tuskegee was immoral.
If that is the premise of opponents of stem cell research, they may be drawing rational, moral conclusions from it.
However the premise itself, "stem cells are people" is most certainly definitely drawn from religious faith.
The premise that black people are rather similar to white people, on the other hand, seems to draw on scientific knowledge. Obviously, there's still the step of drawing a rational, moral conclusion from that also.
Scientific statement: "Black people are biologically similar (for some definition of similar) to white people."
Moral statement: "Creatures with X degree of similarity to white people deserve the same rights as white people."
The latter statement is simply unprovable via the scientific method. Forget even about the racism - the statement "you shouldn't rape/torture/murder people" also can't be proved via the scientific method.
Most opponents of stem cell research are being rational. If you take as an axiom "fertilized eggs are people too", it's not hard to conclude that stem cell experiments are immoral.
Fertilized eggs can divide. Is it rational to believe that a person can divide? Is each twin 50% of a person?
We can debate whether Keynesianism is actually stupid elsewhere. Maybe it's the worst possible policy.
But stupid or smart Keynesianism is not certainly "pro-stupidity" economics in the sense that's obvious aiming to be smart. It's endorsed by lots of apparently smart economists, it uses coherent mathematical models etc.
You might argue that the positions of Glen Beck or George Bush would be smarter to adopt than those of Lawrence Summers. Whatever. You could hardly argue that these folks took a "pro-science" approach in defending their positions.
Perhaps we've touched on a fundamental difficulty here: maybe good economic policy isn't rooted in consequence or empirical datum, but instead morality.
For example, the proposition of a single-payer healthcare system essentially reduces to the question, ``should my neighbor be able to walk up to my house and demand a percentage of my income at gunpoint to pay for his healthcare expenses?''
Maybe the adoption of such a policy will deliver positive, scientifically-observable results for society-at-large, but (as far as I'm concerned) such a policy isn't moral in the first place and therefore shouldn't be adopted.
Maybe targeting only scientific validity in politics is a very misleading oversimplification.
Let's not go into healthcare itself. But I think you've touched on another important matter that I tried to introduce elsewhere, but hasn't been caught up yet.
I think that we must be careful to keep science and policy separated. Even if we are to grant that a certain point of science is correct, it does not necessarily lead to acceptance of a point of policy.
For example, it is well known that at the margin, minimum wage laws increase unemployment amongst the least skilled workers. But it doesn't automatically follow that such a policy should not be followed; perhaps with a proper safety net, those bottom-rung folks can be motivated into improving themselves. Likewise (and even more controversially), even if climate change is as serious as some claim, it does not necessarily follow that all efforts must be pursued: it may be that the cost of fixing it exceeds the cost of the expected damage.
It's just too easy to say "we have this problem, thus we must do something". The values that drive our actions are different from the science that allows us to understand the world.
The problem here is that you're arguing as a consequentialist: maybe ``those bottom-rung folks can be motivated into improving themselves'', but that's a big if. I'm not concerned with what may happen if a policy is introduced: I'm concerned with the intrinsic morality of the policy itself; anything beyond that is crystal-gazing.
The only sure consequence of imposing a minimum-wage law is that private businesses are restricted in the wages that they can offer potential employees. Is it moral that the government will arrest me if I hire a 16-year-old to run errands for me at five dollars an hour? I don't think so.
I think you're conceding too much ground. You need only look at Hong Kong vs. mainland China (pre-Deng) to empirically see the difference between massive government spending and laissez faire in sharp relief. Same with North Korea vs South Korea, or East vs West Germany, or pre/post reform India. In other words, you need not invoke morality to demonstrate that a large government sector represses growth.
Considering this discussion has already careered into the realm of hot-button issues ...
... we could add that any vote against foreign aid would require congressmen to watch videos of Africans dying of starvation, any vote for defense spending should require pictures of foreigners dying horribly and any vote again it should require the viewing of a live re-enactment of the burning of Washington, any vote against cell research would require the direct viewing of people suffering from exotic, disgusting diseases, anything offending the catholics should require a harangue describing the multiple tortures involves in Hell and so-forth...
I flagged this topic but, like Dogbert said "I can dish this out all day.."
I've got an example for you: should my neighbor be able to walk up to my house and demand a percentage of my income at gunpoint to pay for his attendance at university?
And even if such a gunpoint demand is allowed, I'm curious what you would say about the morality of an unapalogetic libertarian that attends university with just such a subsidy.
Yes! It's not difficult to meet physicists or engineers with conservative politics. But thoughtful, intelligent conservatism has more or less left the scene, which means thoughtful, intelligent conservatives don't really have much representation. (In other words, American politics is deeply suffering at the loss of William F. Buckley.)
Glenn Reynolds? Admittedly he'd call himself libertarian rather than conservative, but he's pretty much the closest thing to a latter-day WFB.
On the other hand, despite having one of the most widely-read blogs in the world you'll almost never see him on TV. Both the right-wing and the left-wing sides of the media don't like to show conservatives unless they're angry and fire-breathing. And even the most intelligent of the fire-breathing conservatives (say, Krauthammer) always come off as non-thoughtful.
I'll put up Thomas Sowell, Charles Krauthammer, Jonah Goldberg, and George Will up against whoever you want from the Left any day.
Furthermore, I submit that I think the Left often makes the error of mistaking the Right's distaste for having the "intellectual elites" run their lives for a distaste in intelligence informing their lives.
This is a problem, and it really has nothing to do with specific policies or parties.
Any democracy will evolve into a multi-party system. In the U.S. we've basically went with two parties, and it looks like we are stuck with it.
So in a two party system, any group that completely affiliates with one party, either by membership or just tradition, both damages that party and the group itself.
What I love about politics is that it shows humans at their most irrational: from the Nobel Laureate to the rocket scientist, when you get them talking about politics it's the emotional brain first, the logical brain second. People are like this in all areas of reasoning, it's just politics is the easiest to observe. So, for instance, watching somebody bullshit themselves about politics is a pretty good quick and dirty indicator of how they're going to bullshit themselves about whether or not you need a new server rack.
I don't think every issue naturally has two sides to it, but because politics is emotion-based and not reason-based, I don't think it matters. There should be as many scientists roughly in each party. It's a very interesting observation that there are not. I believe journalism is similarly skewed. So when story X comes in over the transom from NGO group advocating some cause, the reporter picks up the phone and consults with several experts. If the odds hold, everybody in that little scenario is a member of the same party, with the same prejudices towards how the story should be told.
Not a good thing.
I imagine -- without looking at any other comments on this thread -- that there will be a lot of "but the scientists are actually scientifically choosing to be Dems, because it's not logical to do otherwise" or perhaps blaming the Rs for being so bad that no decent scientist would support them. This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about (and probably a good reason for the post to be considered of dubious merit for HN) It's a shame, because the larger issue causes all sorts of other problems.
Very well put! What keeps amazing me about US politics is that (as in other places) there is a small number, n, of top issues, e.g. gay marriage, abortion, off-shoring work, gun control. I think n~10. Assuming the simplistic approach that your stance on of these issues are binary valued, there are 2^n ~ 1000 different positions available. Since these are highly correlated, the real value is much lower than this, though. The thing is: we are trying to cram all those different stances into two parties! Your vote is in essence binary valued.
Why should I be shoehorned? I am a gnostic, against excessive off-shoring, pro-choice, against gun banning and so on. It's a curious mix. Yet, I have to choose between two packages.
This leads to a very curious phenomenon: pick any 2 random U.S. Citizens of either party. Take them out for a beer and start talking politics.
If both of them are fairly secure in their beliefs, within a very short amount of time you'll realize that they are very close on maybe 80-85% of all these issues, although they each adopt talking points from their chosen party to describe their differences!
This is a natural consequence of only having two parties to choose from. Extremely fascinating stuff.
I wonder how the parallels hold out in multi-party systems?
EDIT: Wanted to clarify that I agree with you that folks have a huge variety of opinions on all sorts of issues. I just wanted to point out that even then, they are much less attached to the issues themselves as they are to the talking points their party has around those issues
There is a field called political science. There are lots of researchers in that field publishing in journals, attending conferences, writing books, etc. And they've actually come up with some interesting results. In particular: voters do not make voting decisions based primarily on issues. In fact, there's some evidence that the causation often goes the other way.
Any model that starts with the assumption that voters choose candidates based on issue matching starts with fail.
Why should I be shoehorned? I am a gnostic, against excessive off-shoring, pro-choice, against gun banning and so on. It's a curious mix. Yet, I have to choose between two packages.
Because the nature of political parties that can function in any society is heavily dependent on the institutional structure of the government. Again, this is a question that actual political scientists have researched and answered.
I can't find any direct links, but I'd suggest Robin Hanson's blog (overcomingbias.com). His hypothesis is that most political/voting activity is done primarily for the purposes of a sense of identity and signalling. He discusses this in a number of posts.
His basic thesis: I have no incentive to vote "correctly", since the odds of my vote affecting the result are nil. Therefore, it costs me almost nothing to vote D solely to show my friends what a caring intellectual I am, or to feel good about myself. My hypothesis is that this is the main reason scientists vote D (the caring/intellectual image).
One hilarious example of this effect at work can be found at http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pres_Election_04/html/new_... -- the gist of it is that polling indicates that a decent number of Bush voters in 2004 believed that Bush held policy positions that he never held and in fact never claimed to have held. It is not that Bush lied to these voters about his issue preferences: they just liked him for other reasons and ascribed their own issue preferences to him.
John Sides explains a related phenomena here: http://www.themonkeycage.org/2010/08/me_talking_to_politico_... whereby voters don't necessarily know much about most issues and end up adopting issue positions held by parties they trust. See the link towards the end of that piece.
In general, there's been a ton of political science work on how election outcomes are largely determined by non-issue factors, like economic conditions. An electorate that voted based primarily on issues should have stable preferences that don't swing wildly based on the state of the economy.
Why does my ignorance "sadden" you? I would be first to point it out (although I wouldn't say that I'm more ignorant in these matters than the average intellectual) and one does not have to be omniscient either.
You cite some very interesting results. If these are indeed so well known in the political science community, please post links to a few introductory papers.
I'm sorry; I shouldn't have written that. I'm sure you're a very smart person who is probably doing some fascinating work that I would totally dig if I knew about it. It is just that I see a lot of really basic political science ignorance around me, and it grates after a while.
I mean, I'm sure you would never write something like "I think hand-washing causes AIDS!" because even if you didn't understand any biology, you probably get that there's a field called biology and that claims about biology really shouldn't be made unless one has some familiarity with the field and has spent some time studying, etc. It really bothers me that in the US at least, all of the media institutions that cover politics and policy literally act like the field of political science doesn't exist. And so everyone just makes up crap about questions that experts have actually studied empirically. But that's not your fault and I shouldn't have let my frustration with the ignorance of large powerful organizations leak cause me to express displeasure with you. Again, my apologies.
Don't want to beat a dead horse, but you said something that interested me.
I know several Political Science majors.
Do you view Political Science as a hard science, much like physics? Because from what you've said, you seem to feel that certain issues are settled. Or do you view it more like sociology, where there are competing theories and hard science is difficult (if not impossible) to perform?
It sounds like you were saying that it should be treated as a hard science, but that can't be right, can it?
Do you view Political Science as a hard science, much like physics?
Some days, I don't even view physics as a hard science ;-)
More to the point, I think lots of political science involves open questions where people argue and there is no clear obvious answer. But that's the nature of any field: people don't argue over the obvious correct empirical stuff after a while. The issue is that the small fraction of political science that everyone agrees has been empirically settled are completely at odds with how Americans and American media discuss politics.
I'm not saying that everyone should do whatever poli scientists say -- I'm saying that everyone should agree to the poly sci consensus on the few issues that have been well studied for which a huge consensus exists. That change alone would force us to rewrite 95% of political media coverage.
You'll have to forgive me, but I expect you to earn your chops. Coming into a thread and announcing that you're so sorry folks are uninformed isn't a very good way to get started in a discussion.
And over several posts, I've yet to see a single theory expounded and supported, although you've made mention of a prominent book and fallen back on consensus.
I'm not trying to "bust your chops" or trash you or anything. It's just very difficult to have a conversation when there is no point to be argued aside from "people mostly don't understand political science like they should" which could apply to any one of a hundred sciences.
I hope that came out well. I'm really not trying to sound snide. I just have no idea where you are going with this aside from posturing. It's perplexing.
I'm done here. Don't want to waste other folk's time (or mine) Thank you for your time. Look forward to continuing the discussion at a future date. Sounds like you've read and studied quite a bit. Would love to see you show off some of that knowledge. At another time.
It is worth noting that "political science" covers a lot of ground... Much like economics, there are some sub-fields that deal with "small" questions with a great deal of empirical rigor and and other sub-fields that are more theoretical and philosophical. The closer the sub-field is to stats & neuro-physio/psychology the more it resembles other hard sciences. The past decade has seen a lot of interesting work in this area and a lot of it has turned out to be something of a surprise in terms of deflating the "rational actors making reasoned choices" myths that many people subscribe to.
Particularly when you consider that many Republican leaders publicly advocate creationism being taught as science, or that global warming is not happening, both of which are demonstratively and objectively false beliefs. Republican rhetoric over the past 30 years has been increasingly critical of science as a process, essentially arguing for faith and debate as the preferred means of discovering the truth, rather than reason and experimentation.
Yes, politics certainly puts humans at their most irrational indeed! It's quite some gymnastics you're turning here.
Somehow, you've ended up saying that when educated citizens overwhelmingly support one governing philosophy, it's not only somehow bad for the educated citizens, it's also bad for the philosophy! That's a neat trick.
(btw, that philosophy -- american 'liberalism' -- would barely deserve the name in any other 1st world country)
You started off almost saying something, but i'm not sure your thesis holds ('...in a two party system, any group...') Take the converse. I could also say that the group of anti-intellectuals has completely affiliated themselves with the Republican party, damaging themselves and the Republicans. Same thing, right?
Somehow, you've ended up saying that when educated citizens overwhelmingly support one governing philosophy, it's not only somehow bad for the educated citizens, it's also bad for the philosophy! That's a neat trick.
It would be, if I had conflated "philosophy" with "political party"
That doesn't actually change the thrust of the point at all. Go ahead and switch those two words around how you want and tell me how it substantially changes my argument.
You've made educated people supporting something both bad for educated people and bad for the something. Now, you're welcome to start arguing against the educational system they're immersed in (science), and that's certainly a line you can go down, if you want. It's a bit played out and i'd be surprised to hear you rally an enthusiastic offense there, but go right ahead.
Furthermore, your point about groups & party systems is still totally fatuous: you can be in A or in ~A. then, A can be in B or in ~B. You can say "all the A's are in B." or you can say "all the ~A's are in ~B".
Shorter: you can't make the not-too-menacing statement "ohh, all the scientists are democrats! how terrible for the democrats and the scientists!" without making the equally trite "ohh, all the non-scientists are republicans! How terrible for the non-scientists and the republicans!"
I don't think it matters. There should be as many scientists roughly in each party.
But why? I mean, this statement seems like a religious belief. There is no obvious reason to believe it true.
Many interesting properties have a significant partisan valence. For example, authoritarianism correlates strongly with political conservatives in north America [1], so why shouldn't science aptitude as well?
My point was that if you started with no parties at all, then developed parties, that there should be an even split -- if no other factors were involved.
Of course, there are many other factors, and we can endlessly speculate as to what they might be. But for purposes of the relationship between one group and one party, whatever the group or party, my example holds.
Of course, a fine counterargument to that is "but there is nothing like what you describe, so your thought experiment is useless" To that the best I can come up with is to take at look at early American politics, when the parties first developed after the founding of the government. At that time it was a pretty even split (as far as I have been told)
There is a lot of correlative science going on in this area, and I would be very careful not to confuse correlation with causation. I would also be careful (and I know you know this if you know anything about politics) about exactly how such studies are conducted: the questions used, the implied bias, etc.
Somebody who was not careful could take reams of this "science" of correlation and string all sorts of theories about people, such as right-wingers are more happy yet stupider and more authoritarian. Or whatever. I'd be very careful walking down this road, and not simply because of the flaky nature of the science. It's beginning to look like scientists are making an effort to explain why people could be so stupid to be conservatives, and that's not a good place to go. Not because you'd piss off folks, but because there is a great danger of political science itself becoming an echo chamber. Once you box-up any opposition, you can lord over the poor unwashed masses, whether you mean to or not. And that is really bad for both the science itself and the way the science is conducted.
My point was that if you started with no parties at all, then developed parties, that there should be an even split -- if no other factors were involved.
Right, this is a religious belief you have. It is a belief for which you've provided no evidence to support. You're making an assumption here.
To that the best I can come up with is to take at look at early American politics, when the parties first developed after the founding of the government. At that time it was a pretty even split (as far as I have been told)
I really don't see how going back in time helps your argument at all. The nature of political parties and how Americans understand them has changed significantly over time, to say nothing of the demographics of the group we call scientists. Going back in time raises a whole lot more questions than it answers.
To that the best I can come up with is to take at look at early American politics, when the parties first developed after the founding of the government. At that time it was a pretty even split (as far as I have been told)
Absolutely, and stupid people have done precisely that. But I've read Altermeyer's book and there are lots of researchers who are careful. The Wikipedia link I gave above gives a good summary. In brief:
- the issue is not that conservatives are stupid; there's no correlation between authoritarian tendencies and intelligence
- lots of conservatives are not authoritarian at all
- most (almost all) authoritarians who have political preferences are conservative
I don't think we're going to get very far, but I'd simply point out that I made an assertion that began with "if you started with no parties at all" and then provided an example to support my thesis.
I really don't see how going back in time helps your argument at all. The nature of political parties and how Americans understand them has changed significantly over time, to say nothing of the demographics of the group we call scientists. Going back in time raises a whole lot more questions than it answers.
It's interesting you would say that. I find that there are basically two camps of thought when it comes to the soft sciences: those who use the past to try to spot patterns and extrapolate from them, and those who feel that we should rest more on theories than some sort of loose induction around fuzzy concepts.
Both of these schools have their various uses and drawbacks. I'd much rather be less rigorous, more flexible, and longer-term in my analysis, but I can respect an approach that relies more on structure. Just be careful. I'm not going to argue with you about this. Suffice it to say that rules-based extrapolations of the sciences has a mixed heritage at best.
I'm happy that you are so assured of yourself. Unfounded self-doubt is a terrible thing. Carry on.
There should be as many scientists roughly in each party.
Political parties are not static. They move and evolve and change, and grow and shrink and may become tiny and spend years in the political wilderness.
When a party is reduced to a regional rump, and has several litmus test for their tiny, tiny tent. When one of the most important test is are you anti or pro science, you can't seriously expect a lot of scientist to belong to club which is fervently against anyone who dares to believe in evolution.
When you've got a party that's tied to a 6000-year-old earth and early man walking beside dinosaurs, how can anyone with a third grade or higher science education be excited to join?
The overwhelming sentiment among the Right in the United States is a perverse anti-intellectualism. Stupidity and lack of education have been enshrined as the height of authenticity. If you need proof, look at John McCain's running mate.
No one with a scientific mind can feel welcome among people who are tied to policies that consider common sense contraception as somehow morally reprehensible.
I'm no scientist, but do place a premium on inquiry, falsifiability, and rationality in most endeavors. IMO the Republican party is run by people who are openly theocratic, anti-intellectual, and anti-rational. It is no surprise to me that so few scientists are registered as Republican. I see this as a problem for Republicans specifically, and the United States generally. FWIW, last time I affiliated myself with any party was in 2000, when I was a Republican.
Of course it's hard to draw a hard-and-fast line between the two, so let's just consider scientists as people who would say they're a scientist, and engineers people who would say that they're an engineer.
In graduate school, I was once tangentially involved in a group conversation regarding whether or not another grad student was a dick. A few things were mentioned, and then one of my coworkers said, "Yeah, and he's a republican". Everyone nodded, the question having been resolved to their satisfaction. I still remember thinking how ugly that sounded. How out of keeping it was with the spirit of inquiry that should guide science.
This wasn't an isolated incident. I've watched political debates with coworkers where I was shocked at the number of emotional outbursts and lack of charity for the other side. I've had a student complain to me that they couldn't stand an otherwise good biology professor because of their snide political comments about conservatives. Do you think that republican student was more or less likely to go into biology as a result of hearing Bush jokes once a week?
I'm one of the 32% that are independent, and grant that the republican party is part of the problem. Having taught evolution, it's completely bizarre to see republican candidates attempting to weasel around questions about its validity every election cycle. It's equally bizarre to listen to my republican parents' evidence-free opinions on climate change and science funding. But the people here who are trying to pretend that science doesn't occur within a social context and that the republicans are 100% responsible for this problem are just as baffling to me.
An interesting question is whether this has always been so. Anecdotally, scientists like Galton, Fisher, and Pearson were on the right (from today's perspective, the far right) in their work on the nature/nurture question.
What do historical polls look like? The R/D flip around 1965 will complicate tracking polls, but it'd be interesting to see the data if it exists...
As others have pointed out, it's funny how this is a problem for Democrats and/or scientists. Shouldn't _Republicans_ be worried about that? I guess this presupposes that you believe in all that "scientific method" nonsense as opposed to, say, Intelligent Design.
I should also point out that, if anything, an inquisitive, questioning turn of mind would indicate _more_ willingness to explore alternative ideas, not less! The assumption here appears to be just the opposite: scientists are, for whatever reason, categorically unwilling or incapable of considering alternative political ideas. It takes a special kind of chutzpah to suggest that an entire class of people that disagrees with you is guilty of dishonesty or shenanigans.
Bonus hilarity: he won't come right out and say it, but this sure does sound like he's asking for Republican affirmative action in science and universities. lol, as the kids say.
119 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 299 ms ] threadWhat if it's more an issue of political belief aligning itself against science? We've all seen the numbers on which Americans believe the earth is 5,000 years old, right?
Bias can influence many things in science, not least of which is hypothesis selection. Through no fault of their own, scientists who have beliefs may not come up with hypotheses that contradict them, and therefore fail to test them. They will select the better of the two hypotheses they have, but they may miss something. This is a flaw in the scientific process that goes way beyond bias, by the way. It's the part that not anyone can do: that requires creative thinking, and is limited by it.
To emulate Churchill, science is the worst way to discover truth, except for all those other ways that have been tried from time to time.
There's no reason why your views about whether Jesus rode a dinosaur or whether global warming will kill us all should be correlated with your views on issues like "Should taxes be lowered?" and "Should the Government subsidize health care?" and "Should [whatever random complicated policy issue you like]?" And yet, they so often are.
In a two-party system, people who don't spend all that much time thinking about politics often seem to wind up buying their political opinions in job lots. Part of this is due to the success which the Democrats have been having with their "If you don't believe that Jesus rode a dinosaur then you need to support all our left-wing economic policies" line, but this is a serious problem both for Republicans and for Science. (And as a Republican scientist, it's a doubly important issue for me.)
Science is there for anybody who wants to open their mind to it to enjoy. I'm sure some republicans have and assuming those numbers are correct, 1 of 3 things happened: 1) they've changed their affiliation over time (becoming either democrat or unaffiliated), 2) they didn't find what they were looking for in science and stopped practicing, 3) they're in the current minority.
Also, not all science is as abstract as, say, mathematics or hunting for dark matter. Some questions, e.g.: should we perform stem cell research on embryos, should we eradicate mosquitoes, should we try to affect human sexual patterns leading to AIDS, etc. are scientific but also contain a large dose of ethics, i.e. they cannot be approached by handling equations alone in an objective matter.
It's neither a mistake nor inaccurate. Once you've observed, measured, calculated and concluded, you can involve all form of non-empirical disciplines you want, after all we are morally and emotionally bound beings. One thing we can't do however is hide from the truth the data has spoken. Those are usually very profound paradigm shifts, a crossroad between being comfortable with what was revealed, or choosing to be more at peace with one's oblivion and folkloric truths.
"Some questions, e.g.: should we perform stem cell research on embryos, should we eradicate mosquitoes, should we try to affect human sexual patterns leading to AIDS, etc. are scientific [...] i.e. they cannot be approached by handling equations alone in an objective matter."
If the approach can't be objective then the question isn't scientific. Granted, those are science related questions and have a dose of moral and ethics involved, but that's not what science is about.
Science isn't there to answer what you should or shouldn't do. It's there to provide you with facts on what would happen if you do it. Change your question should we eradicate mosquitoes into what would happen if we eradicate mosquitoes and we can talk science. Lets take out the tools, dust off old books, go in the nature, observe, measure, extrapolate, calculate and conclude. Then based on those conclusions we'll look at each other and our moral fiber will tell us, nah we should probably let the little scoundrel be.
No, none of those "should we" questions are scientific. Those are policy questions. Policy is informed by science, but passes through a filter of cultural values as well.
I've said it several times here, but I'll do so again. Just because we can establish a theory as true does not necessarily lead to any particular policy.
Suppose that climate change is not happening, at least to the extent of the sky falling. That does not mean that we do not have an obligation to preserve our environment; that is still determined by our values.
Conversely, even if the climate is changing as significantly as some say, it doesn't necessarily mean that we must change our lifestyle to avoid it. Again, it's a question of values.
Science should not be seen to lead directly to policy.
First, scientists tend to work in academia. It's well documented that universities are strongly slanted to the left. It seems reasonable to expect that when the left-leaning universities are looking to hire, they will tend to (possibly not intentionally) favor others like themselves.
Second, the government is the largest funder of scientific research. However, to the extent that the GOP favors a smaller government (and though they say this, they don't actually do so, but that's a different discussion), this would make one expect that those against such governmental funding would be morally bound to find other means of employment.
asking how the guy who prohibited stem-cell research
This isn't what happened. It's incredibly frustrating to me that people continually read a ban on federal funding to be a ban on research itself. But it does reinforce my point that the governmental force behind science is now perceived as the sole force behind science.
reinforce the idea that Democrats are the party of science and rationality
In the science of economics the opposite is true. For example, Democratic support of minimum wages and other price controls, and especially their opposition to free trade, fly against the wind of economic science.
I can support this with anecdotal evidence. I have a friend who got his Ph.D. in physics, but decided to work outside of academia. His primary reason for this was that he felt that as a libertarian it would be immoral for him to take government money. He currently works at Intel.
You know nothing of the parent post's friend. How can you make such bald assertions?
It's impossible for someone to be completely moral with their money. All of us on H.N. have paid taxes that at some point went to pay for something that we disagree with morally. All of us have purchased a product from a company that has probably done something we find immoral or given money to someone who has. It's not shameful to pay your taxes because you like not being in prison. Self-preservation is not a bad thing. But nor is trying to put your money where your mouth is, either.
I am reminded of the old joke about the man who goes to hell and is given a choice of two rooms in which to spend all eternity. In the first, everybody is forced to stand on their head for all eternity, groaning uncomfortably with the strain. In the second, everybody is standing around knee-deep in poop, but they're also drinking coffee, eating biscuits and chatting. After thinking long and hard, he eventually chooses the second room, but the moment after he walks in a voice comes over the intercom "OK, coffee break's over, everybody back on your heads."
And the overwhelming anti-science bias within large segments of the Republican base has nothing to do with it? Yeah, it has just got to be all of those liberal universities and scientists living off the government teat... You can delude yourself all you want, but the fact is that most scientists did not just aimlessly gravitate to the Democratic party; they were chased there by pitchfork-wielding, bible-thumping, Republicans who sought to "refudiate" their work (aided in large parts by conservative think tanks that will tell any lie and spread as much FUD as possible if it helps the short-term objectives of their corporate backers.)
Your assessment of the risk and that of those of us who are a bit more "reactionary" are just different, but it doesn't mean that we willfully misrepresent the science.
And the catastrophe was what, exactly? It was so minor that I must have missed it.
Incidentally, I don't believe your fear of catastrophic failure is the real motivation. I believe it's a post-hoc rationalization. My reasoning? There has only been one serious nuclear accident ever, and it was caused by deliberate negligence [1]. Various socialist policies, when carried out by people being deliberately negligent or malicious, have failed far more catastrophically than Chernobyl. Yet most liberals don't tend to oppose them.
[1] Go read about it. Seriously, they deliberately operated it way outside of the known to be safe parameters, and turned off all the safety systems (which would, if left active, have shut the reactor down safely). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
If you think about it, that's pretty scary.
Even if the science behind this is fully understood and the engineers flawlessly put alarms, locks and backups for every possible failure mode, it only takes one idiot manager to overrule them all and have the safety systems turned off.
Makes you wonder about all those other things you are told "cannot possibly go wrong"...
Similarly, anti-GM crops is circular logic. All food products we eat are long-since modified from their original native or wild source.
The struggle within science to find a place for the bible within the geological record has been going on for at least 2 centuries. As such I don't see the problem being resolved anytime soon. Some of the towering giants of science have bent themselves out of shape trying to retro-fit biblical tales into natural history, and that doesn't invalidate their other contributions. What I'm saying here is that holding an irrational position on evolution doesn't necessarily devalue a scientists value, as long as they aren't primarily studying evolutionary-related fields. If the person who comes up with a cure for cancer doesn't believe in evolution, personally it wouldn't worry me one bit.
Of all that, I do think the Republicans have a problem with religious beliefs taking over the party. I don't know of any other major conservative party in the world which puts things like evolution in question the way they do. Although I suspect it's not endemic within the party, the moderates within the party should be doing more to establish a more mainstream view as the primary position.
Your opening statement is pointlessly inflammatory. He obviously just has a different risk preference than you do. Why be so antagonistic? Personally I'm all for having a Nuclear power plant in my back yard, but I would also respect other's aversion without mockery.
Pardon the snarkiness a little bit, but your fear nuclear power because of catastrophes like Chernobyl or Three Mile Island is about as rational as my fear of flying because jetliners in the 50s weren't very safe.
To put it another way, you can easily have two honest and sensible scientists arguing about whether nuclear power is a good idea; you can't have two honest and sensible scientists arguing about evolution.
The GMO crops issue is a little more complicated though. The human body is extraordinarily complex and small changes in our environment and diet can create totally unexpected and undetectable chain reactions with results appearing decades later. I put enough effort into my health and well-being that I try to avoid anything that could negatively affect my body.
GMO crops might be worth the chances in 3rd world countries where starvation is an ever-present reality, but they will not be seen on my plate any time in the near future.
Your claim that scientists are being "chased" from the Republican party is ridiculous.
Unless, of course, you have data that shows they are?
http://www.conservapedia.com/Theory_of_relativity
This guy free-associated the theory of relativity with "moral relativism" (ideological bingo word!) and apparently concluded that that means relativity is wrong. Article full of cites follows. If it's cited, must be true, right? He also liberally (heh!) re-uses the bogus arguments from below about how relativity research is funded by the government, therefore the researchers must be marxists, therefore they're wrong about relativity.
For further reading, I'd suggest polls on the public's view of creationism, age of the earth, evolution, global warming, etc by political party.
But the pattern holds - check out the AEI on climate change, or the Texas Board of Education on evolution. These aren't fringe institutions.
Yeah, because no field has jargon and standard methods that require a small amount of prior knowledge to understand... We use a ton of confusing and sometimes overlapping jargon in the computer industry, simplify complex systems using metaphors that are not really correct (e.g. the internet is a series of tubes...), and will often give vague answers to people who are not in the industry. It is not because we have anything to hide, but because we do not have the time or energy to give someone an introductory course on how computers work just to answer a simple question. If you had the time to learn and the necessary educational background you could in fact learn when they are working on and understand what they are saying without too much effort. Most of the public is too busy, too lazy, or too stupid to do this.
As far as scientists being "chased" from the republican party, start with The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney, move on to Unscientific America by the same author, The Great Derangement by Matt Tiabbi, or Idiot America by Charles Pierce. Skim through Merchants of Doubt or Doubt is their Product to see some of the links to various corporate think tanks. The evidence is clear, maybe you should check some of it out.
So how come people who oppose evolutionary/genetic theories on slightly different religious grounds haven't chased scientists away from the Dems?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers#Differences_be...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_D._Watson#Comments
Both parties are quite strongly anti-science when it suits their purposes. Consider this program - any guesses as to the party affiliation of people who oppose this experiment? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/nyregion/09placebo.html?re...
As one of these supposedly-mythical Republican scientists, I do find that the Bobby Jindals and Mike Huckabees of the party are a constant source of embarrassment.
And ever since that moment I cringe every time I hear Mike Huckabee mentioned as a serious candidate.
I think that this just deflects the question. Why is it that universities are left-leaning?
The implication is that knowledge acquisition is co-related with left-leaning politics? I'm not about to go into the implications of such an assertion, lest a political flame-war break out, but I think answering that more general question will explain the more specific case of scientists.
That's a very good question. If you don't mind, I'd like to tweak it a bit first. As a libertarian myself, and from my association with other libertarians, I believe that people of that political bent are also much more likely to pursue a rational truth. So I'd like to re-do the boolean algebra to refer to "non-right-leaning" rather than "left-leaning".
Anyway, the premise is partly flawed. I gave an example of economics, and other examples were cited such as opposition to GM crops, where those on the left are clearly in opposition to the best available scientific understanding.
But by my own observation, it does appear that as a generalization your premise holds strongly for the life sciences, and also holds for hard sciences like physics and chemistry. I think it would be interesting to pursue that.
HOWEVER, I think that while considering it, that we are careful to keep science and policy separated. Even if we are to grant that a certain point of science is correct, it does not necessarily lead to acceptance of a point of policy.
For example, it is well known that at the margin, minimum wage laws increase unemployment amongst the least skilled workers. But it doesn't automatically follow that such a policy should not be followed; perhaps with a proper safety net, those bottom-rung folks can be motivated into improving themselves. Likewise (and even more controversially), even if climate change is as serious as some claim, it does not necessarily follow that all efforts must be pursued: it may be that the cost of fixing it exceeds the cost of the expected damage.
It's just too easy to say "we have this problem, thus we must do something". The values that drive our actions are different from the science that allows us to understand the world.
My father taught free market economics at a small private college. His students would regularly comment to him that they'd never heard that stuff before, that they didn't even know there was a rationale behind free market economics.
If you're smart and left-wing you become a professor. If you're moderately smart and left-wing you become a university librarian. If you're dumb and left-wing you wind up working at the DMV.
Incidentally, while science professors can actually be a reasonably ideologically-diverse bunch, I doubt you'll ever find much diversity among university librarians.
I don't believe this is true. First, assertions that economics is a science seem...dubious at best.
Secondly, actual economic research suggests that negative effects of the minimum wage in practice are quite small. It is true that people who have no more economic knowledge than that imparted by a first semester intro to economics class do not know that, but that merely underscores the danger of a little bit of knowledge.
Finally, I have seen no evidence in the last decade that Democrats are particularly opposed to free trade deals per se. Can you cite some? I would point out that a great deal of some "free trade" deals actually has little if anything to do with free trade.
True, but I don't know of any economist that disputes it. Yet when approached from a political angle, minimum wage is sold as an unalloyed good to help the most disadvantaged. The size of the effect might not be the biggest, but the degree to which it is contradicted in political discourse is extreme.
I have seen no evidence in the last decade that Democrats are particularly opposed to free trade deals per se
Well, Clinton was of course no worse than GWB, and possibly much better. But if you step outside the politicians themselves and look at the citizens, well, I hear a lot of chatter about ideas like "fair trade", which is simply stupid.
In the broader field, which classical Keynesianism was thoroughly discredited by the 70s, I have to admit that more recent refinements aren't so easily discarded (although I do disagree with them). Even so, the Democrats have been trying to pretend that these ideas are all there is, spouting multiplier values as if there's any evidence behind them, and not acknowledging any of the market-based arguments (viz Austrians and Chicagoans) that would explain both the crisis itself, as well as the failure of the government policies. Democrats are to the economic crisis as Republicans are to climate change.
The problem is that there are plenty of Republicans willing to oppose free trade as well. Lets also not forget that it was Nixon who imposed price controls in the '70s. You'll be hard pressed to find sound economics in either party.
It is pretty much accepted that minimum wage increases unemployment, although the effect may be small as pointed out elsewhere.
But you may also believe that we should offer a well-designed safety net to those who lose their jobs as a result, and that these people can thus improve their skills to benefit themselves in the longer term. Thus, it's perfectly possible to believe scientifically that the effect as bad, yet still support it as a political policy. (note that I do not support it, but I can understand how someone might)
It's been said elsewhere in this thread that even if Obamacare would work, the speaker feels that it's morally wrong to force other people to pay. So again, the scientific results don't necessarily determine the policy.
A law saying "hey everyone, keep doing what you are already doing" won't have much effect, positive or negative.
Which is more harmful?
As a scientist, the damning of stem cell research.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/nyregion/09placebo.html?re...
(I'm speculating that the opposition are democrats, but in NYC it's a good guess.)
Or, to take a bipartisan example, people of pretty much any party would be opposed to repeating the Tuskegee experiment (or many others). It's not anti-scientific to oppose a particular experiment because you believe conducting it involves immoral acts. You might disagree with the morality involved, but that's not the same thing.
The question is whether or not one is using rational criteria to determine what's moral.
In much the same way, given the axiom "blacks are people too", the rational conclusion is that Tuskegee was immoral.
However the premise itself, "stem cells are people" is most certainly definitely drawn from religious faith.
The premise that black people are rather similar to white people, on the other hand, seems to draw on scientific knowledge. Obviously, there's still the step of drawing a rational, moral conclusion from that also.
Moral statement: "Creatures with X degree of similarity to white people deserve the same rights as white people."
The latter statement is simply unprovable via the scientific method. Forget even about the racism - the statement "you shouldn't rape/torture/murder people" also can't be proved via the scientific method.
Fertilized eggs can divide. Is it rational to believe that a person can divide? Is each twin 50% of a person?
But stupid or smart Keynesianism is not certainly "pro-stupidity" economics in the sense that's obvious aiming to be smart. It's endorsed by lots of apparently smart economists, it uses coherent mathematical models etc.
You might argue that the positions of Glen Beck or George Bush would be smarter to adopt than those of Lawrence Summers. Whatever. You could hardly argue that these folks took a "pro-science" approach in defending their positions.
For example, the proposition of a single-payer healthcare system essentially reduces to the question, ``should my neighbor be able to walk up to my house and demand a percentage of my income at gunpoint to pay for his healthcare expenses?''
Maybe the adoption of such a policy will deliver positive, scientifically-observable results for society-at-large, but (as far as I'm concerned) such a policy isn't moral in the first place and therefore shouldn't be adopted.
Maybe targeting only scientific validity in politics is a very misleading oversimplification.
I think that we must be careful to keep science and policy separated. Even if we are to grant that a certain point of science is correct, it does not necessarily lead to acceptance of a point of policy.
For example, it is well known that at the margin, minimum wage laws increase unemployment amongst the least skilled workers. But it doesn't automatically follow that such a policy should not be followed; perhaps with a proper safety net, those bottom-rung folks can be motivated into improving themselves. Likewise (and even more controversially), even if climate change is as serious as some claim, it does not necessarily follow that all efforts must be pursued: it may be that the cost of fixing it exceeds the cost of the expected damage.
It's just too easy to say "we have this problem, thus we must do something". The values that drive our actions are different from the science that allows us to understand the world.
The only sure consequence of imposing a minimum-wage law is that private businesses are restricted in the wages that they can offer potential employees. Is it moral that the government will arrest me if I hire a 16-year-old to run errands for me at five dollars an hour? I don't think so.
... we could add that any vote against foreign aid would require congressmen to watch videos of Africans dying of starvation, any vote for defense spending should require pictures of foreigners dying horribly and any vote again it should require the viewing of a live re-enactment of the burning of Washington, any vote against cell research would require the direct viewing of people suffering from exotic, disgusting diseases, anything offending the catholics should require a harangue describing the multiple tortures involves in Hell and so-forth...
I flagged this topic but, like Dogbert said "I can dish this out all day.."
I've got an example for you: should my neighbor be able to walk up to my house and demand a percentage of my income at gunpoint to pay for his attendance at university?
And even if such a gunpoint demand is allowed, I'm curious what you would say about the morality of an unapalogetic libertarian that attends university with just such a subsidy.
On the other hand, despite having one of the most widely-read blogs in the world you'll almost never see him on TV. Both the right-wing and the left-wing sides of the media don't like to show conservatives unless they're angry and fire-breathing. And even the most intelligent of the fire-breathing conservatives (say, Krauthammer) always come off as non-thoughtful.
Please remove you head from the sand.
I'll put up Thomas Sowell, Charles Krauthammer, Jonah Goldberg, and George Will up against whoever you want from the Left any day.
Furthermore, I submit that I think the Left often makes the error of mistaking the Right's distaste for having the "intellectual elites" run their lives for a distaste in intelligence informing their lives.
Any democracy will evolve into a multi-party system. In the U.S. we've basically went with two parties, and it looks like we are stuck with it.
So in a two party system, any group that completely affiliates with one party, either by membership or just tradition, both damages that party and the group itself.
What I love about politics is that it shows humans at their most irrational: from the Nobel Laureate to the rocket scientist, when you get them talking about politics it's the emotional brain first, the logical brain second. People are like this in all areas of reasoning, it's just politics is the easiest to observe. So, for instance, watching somebody bullshit themselves about politics is a pretty good quick and dirty indicator of how they're going to bullshit themselves about whether or not you need a new server rack.
I don't think every issue naturally has two sides to it, but because politics is emotion-based and not reason-based, I don't think it matters. There should be as many scientists roughly in each party. It's a very interesting observation that there are not. I believe journalism is similarly skewed. So when story X comes in over the transom from NGO group advocating some cause, the reporter picks up the phone and consults with several experts. If the odds hold, everybody in that little scenario is a member of the same party, with the same prejudices towards how the story should be told.
Not a good thing.
I imagine -- without looking at any other comments on this thread -- that there will be a lot of "but the scientists are actually scientifically choosing to be Dems, because it's not logical to do otherwise" or perhaps blaming the Rs for being so bad that no decent scientist would support them. This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about (and probably a good reason for the post to be considered of dubious merit for HN) It's a shame, because the larger issue causes all sorts of other problems.
Why should I be shoehorned? I am a gnostic, against excessive off-shoring, pro-choice, against gun banning and so on. It's a curious mix. Yet, I have to choose between two packages.
If both of them are fairly secure in their beliefs, within a very short amount of time you'll realize that they are very close on maybe 80-85% of all these issues, although they each adopt talking points from their chosen party to describe their differences!
This is a natural consequence of only having two parties to choose from. Extremely fascinating stuff.
I wonder how the parallels hold out in multi-party systems?
EDIT: Wanted to clarify that I agree with you that folks have a huge variety of opinions on all sorts of issues. I just wanted to point out that even then, they are much less attached to the issues themselves as they are to the talking points their party has around those issues
It's a strange thing.
There is a field called political science. There are lots of researchers in that field publishing in journals, attending conferences, writing books, etc. And they've actually come up with some interesting results. In particular: voters do not make voting decisions based primarily on issues. In fact, there's some evidence that the causation often goes the other way.
Any model that starts with the assumption that voters choose candidates based on issue matching starts with fail.
Why should I be shoehorned? I am a gnostic, against excessive off-shoring, pro-choice, against gun banning and so on. It's a curious mix. Yet, I have to choose between two packages.
Because the nature of political parties that can function in any society is heavily dependent on the institutional structure of the government. Again, this is a question that actual political scientists have researched and answered.
Interesting, I'd like to read more about this. Can you point me to something (less than book-length) that would tell me more?
(I'm familiar with The Myth of the Rational Voter thing, but it sounds like you're going even a step farther than that)
His basic thesis: I have no incentive to vote "correctly", since the odds of my vote affecting the result are nil. Therefore, it costs me almost nothing to vote D solely to show my friends what a caring intellectual I am, or to feel good about myself. My hypothesis is that this is the main reason scientists vote D (the caring/intellectual image).
John Sides explains a related phenomena here: http://www.themonkeycage.org/2010/08/me_talking_to_politico_... whereby voters don't necessarily know much about most issues and end up adopting issue positions held by parties they trust. See the link towards the end of that piece.
In general, there's been a ton of political science work on how election outcomes are largely determined by non-issue factors, like economic conditions. An electorate that voted based primarily on issues should have stable preferences that don't swing wildly based on the state of the economy.
You cite some very interesting results. If these are indeed so well known in the political science community, please post links to a few introductory papers.
I mean, I'm sure you would never write something like "I think hand-washing causes AIDS!" because even if you didn't understand any biology, you probably get that there's a field called biology and that claims about biology really shouldn't be made unless one has some familiarity with the field and has spent some time studying, etc. It really bothers me that in the US at least, all of the media institutions that cover politics and policy literally act like the field of political science doesn't exist. And so everyone just makes up crap about questions that experts have actually studied empirically. But that's not your fault and I shouldn't have let my frustration with the ignorance of large powerful organizations leak cause me to express displeasure with you. Again, my apologies.
I know several Political Science majors.
Do you view Political Science as a hard science, much like physics? Because from what you've said, you seem to feel that certain issues are settled. Or do you view it more like sociology, where there are competing theories and hard science is difficult (if not impossible) to perform?
It sounds like you were saying that it should be treated as a hard science, but that can't be right, can it?
Some days, I don't even view physics as a hard science ;-)
More to the point, I think lots of political science involves open questions where people argue and there is no clear obvious answer. But that's the nature of any field: people don't argue over the obvious correct empirical stuff after a while. The issue is that the small fraction of political science that everyone agrees has been empirically settled are completely at odds with how Americans and American media discuss politics.
I'm not saying that everyone should do whatever poli scientists say -- I'm saying that everyone should agree to the poly sci consensus on the few issues that have been well studied for which a huge consensus exists. That change alone would force us to rewrite 95% of political media coverage.
Here's one example: http://www.slate.com/id/2256068/
And over several posts, I've yet to see a single theory expounded and supported, although you've made mention of a prominent book and fallen back on consensus.
I'm not trying to "bust your chops" or trash you or anything. It's just very difficult to have a conversation when there is no point to be argued aside from "people mostly don't understand political science like they should" which could apply to any one of a hundred sciences.
I hope that came out well. I'm really not trying to sound snide. I just have no idea where you are going with this aside from posturing. It's perplexing.
I'm done here. Don't want to waste other folk's time (or mine) Thank you for your time. Look forward to continuing the discussion at a future date. Sounds like you've read and studied quite a bit. Would love to see you show off some of that knowledge. At another time.
Somehow, you've ended up saying that when educated citizens overwhelmingly support one governing philosophy, it's not only somehow bad for the educated citizens, it's also bad for the philosophy! That's a neat trick.
(btw, that philosophy -- american 'liberalism' -- would barely deserve the name in any other 1st world country)
You started off almost saying something, but i'm not sure your thesis holds ('...in a two party system, any group...') Take the converse. I could also say that the group of anti-intellectuals has completely affiliated themselves with the Republican party, damaging themselves and the Republicans. Same thing, right?
Anyway, you reminded me of the 'everything that happens is good for John McCain' meme, which might be worth researching. One particularly egregious example is here: http://www.balloon-juice.com/2008/07/29/life-imitates-farce/
cheers, and let's try not to bullshit ourselves.
It would be, if I had conflated "philosophy" with "political party"
But I didn't.
Cheers.
You've made educated people supporting something both bad for educated people and bad for the something. Now, you're welcome to start arguing against the educational system they're immersed in (science), and that's certainly a line you can go down, if you want. It's a bit played out and i'd be surprised to hear you rally an enthusiastic offense there, but go right ahead.
Furthermore, your point about groups & party systems is still totally fatuous: you can be in A or in ~A. then, A can be in B or in ~B. You can say "all the A's are in B." or you can say "all the ~A's are in ~B".
Shorter: you can't make the not-too-menacing statement "ohh, all the scientists are democrats! how terrible for the democrats and the scientists!" without making the equally trite "ohh, all the non-scientists are republicans! How terrible for the non-scientists and the republicans!"
But why? I mean, this statement seems like a religious belief. There is no obvious reason to believe it true.
Many interesting properties have a significant partisan valence. For example, authoritarianism correlates strongly with political conservatives in north America [1], so why shouldn't science aptitude as well?
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_authoritarianism
Of course, there are many other factors, and we can endlessly speculate as to what they might be. But for purposes of the relationship between one group and one party, whatever the group or party, my example holds.
Of course, a fine counterargument to that is "but there is nothing like what you describe, so your thought experiment is useless" To that the best I can come up with is to take at look at early American politics, when the parties first developed after the founding of the government. At that time it was a pretty even split (as far as I have been told)
There is a lot of correlative science going on in this area, and I would be very careful not to confuse correlation with causation. I would also be careful (and I know you know this if you know anything about politics) about exactly how such studies are conducted: the questions used, the implied bias, etc.
Somebody who was not careful could take reams of this "science" of correlation and string all sorts of theories about people, such as right-wingers are more happy yet stupider and more authoritarian. Or whatever. I'd be very careful walking down this road, and not simply because of the flaky nature of the science. It's beginning to look like scientists are making an effort to explain why people could be so stupid to be conservatives, and that's not a good place to go. Not because you'd piss off folks, but because there is a great danger of political science itself becoming an echo chamber. Once you box-up any opposition, you can lord over the poor unwashed masses, whether you mean to or not. And that is really bad for both the science itself and the way the science is conducted.
Right, this is a religious belief you have. It is a belief for which you've provided no evidence to support. You're making an assumption here.
To that the best I can come up with is to take at look at early American politics, when the parties first developed after the founding of the government. At that time it was a pretty even split (as far as I have been told)
I really don't see how going back in time helps your argument at all. The nature of political parties and how Americans understand them has changed significantly over time, to say nothing of the demographics of the group we call scientists. Going back in time raises a whole lot more questions than it answers.
To that the best I can come up with is to take at look at early American politics, when the parties first developed after the founding of the government. At that time it was a pretty even split (as far as I have been told)
Absolutely, and stupid people have done precisely that. But I've read Altermeyer's book and there are lots of researchers who are careful. The Wikipedia link I gave above gives a good summary. In brief:
- the issue is not that conservatives are stupid; there's no correlation between authoritarian tendencies and intelligence
- lots of conservatives are not authoritarian at all
- most (almost all) authoritarians who have political preferences are conservative
I really don't see how going back in time helps your argument at all. The nature of political parties and how Americans understand them has changed significantly over time, to say nothing of the demographics of the group we call scientists. Going back in time raises a whole lot more questions than it answers.
It's interesting you would say that. I find that there are basically two camps of thought when it comes to the soft sciences: those who use the past to try to spot patterns and extrapolate from them, and those who feel that we should rest more on theories than some sort of loose induction around fuzzy concepts.
Both of these schools have their various uses and drawbacks. I'd much rather be less rigorous, more flexible, and longer-term in my analysis, but I can respect an approach that relies more on structure. Just be careful. I'm not going to argue with you about this. Suffice it to say that rules-based extrapolations of the sciences has a mixed heritage at best.
I'm happy that you are so assured of yourself. Unfounded self-doubt is a terrible thing. Carry on.
Political parties are not static. They move and evolve and change, and grow and shrink and may become tiny and spend years in the political wilderness.
When a party is reduced to a regional rump, and has several litmus test for their tiny, tiny tent. When one of the most important test is are you anti or pro science, you can't seriously expect a lot of scientist to belong to club which is fervently against anyone who dares to believe in evolution.
The overwhelming sentiment among the Right in the United States is a perverse anti-intellectualism. Stupidity and lack of education have been enshrined as the height of authenticity. If you need proof, look at John McCain's running mate.
No one with a scientific mind can feel welcome among people who are tied to policies that consider common sense contraception as somehow morally reprehensible.
I fail to see how that is a problem anymore than saying that most people who work on wall street are republicans.
The actual political position is only relevant in context not from an absolute point of view.
Does it also include private sector researchers and engineers?
Of course it's hard to draw a hard-and-fast line between the two, so let's just consider scientists as people who would say they're a scientist, and engineers people who would say that they're an engineer.
This wasn't an isolated incident. I've watched political debates with coworkers where I was shocked at the number of emotional outbursts and lack of charity for the other side. I've had a student complain to me that they couldn't stand an otherwise good biology professor because of their snide political comments about conservatives. Do you think that republican student was more or less likely to go into biology as a result of hearing Bush jokes once a week?
I'm one of the 32% that are independent, and grant that the republican party is part of the problem. Having taught evolution, it's completely bizarre to see republican candidates attempting to weasel around questions about its validity every election cycle. It's equally bizarre to listen to my republican parents' evidence-free opinions on climate change and science funding. But the people here who are trying to pretend that science doesn't occur within a social context and that the republicans are 100% responsible for this problem are just as baffling to me.
What do historical polls look like? The R/D flip around 1965 will complicate tracking polls, but it'd be interesting to see the data if it exists...
I should also point out that, if anything, an inquisitive, questioning turn of mind would indicate _more_ willingness to explore alternative ideas, not less! The assumption here appears to be just the opposite: scientists are, for whatever reason, categorically unwilling or incapable of considering alternative political ideas. It takes a special kind of chutzpah to suggest that an entire class of people that disagrees with you is guilty of dishonesty or shenanigans.
Bonus hilarity: he won't come right out and say it, but this sure does sound like he's asking for Republican affirmative action in science and universities. lol, as the kids say.