Posted on 12/10/2010 4:05:59 PM PST by neverdem
It is no secret that the ranks of scientists and engineers in the United States include dismal numbers of Hispanics and African-Americans, but few have remarked about another significantly underrepresented group: Republicans.
No, this is not the punch line of a joke. A Pew Research Center Poll from July 2009 showed that only around 6 percent of U.S. scientists are Republicans; 55 percent are Democrats, 32 percent are independent, and the rest "don't know" their affiliation.
This immense imbalance has political consequences. When President Obama appears Wednesday on Discovery Channel's Mythbusters (9 p.m. ET), he will be there not just to encourage youngsters to do their science homework but also to reinforce the idea that Democrats are the party of science and rationality. And why not? Most scientists are already on his side. Imagine if George W. Bush had tried such a stunt—every major newspaper in the country would have run an op-ed piece by some Nobel Prize winner asking how the guy who prohibited stem-cell research and denied climate change could have the gall to appear on a program that extols the power of scientific thinking.
Yet, partisan politics aside, why should it matter that there are so few Republican scientists? After all, it's the scientific facts that matter, and facts aren't blue or red.
Well, that's not quite right. Consider the case of climate change, of which beliefs are astonishingly polarized according to party affiliation and ideology. A March 2010 Gallup poll showed that 66 percent of Democrats (and 74 percent of liberals) say the effects of global warming are already occurring, as opposed to 31 percent of Republicans. Does that mean that Democrats are more than twice as likely to accept and understand the scientific truth of the matter? And that Republicans...
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
The article lost any credibility it had when it used climate change as an example of factual science.
The fruits of affirmative action.
ALL pseudo scientists are Democrats.
Most scientists in this country are Democrats employed by Republicans.
They're going to open Al Capone's vault, with Geraldo, and look for his Birth Certificate?
The Democrat scientists are looking for federal grants first and foremost. Their success in landing grants is considered the chief determinant of their success level. Many are also areligious.
The article then says that nearly a third of Republicans are as dumb as snail darters.
"Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."
Looks like Ike was right.
That chart says %63 are employed in the ‘Academic’ sector. No real world feedback. Only the flushing circle of echo chamber waste. No offense meant to any teachers, but it is what it is.
The majority of scientists consider "Science" their religion and nature its "God."
That would tend to make them Democrats.
Why the barf alert?
I think the article made a good point, even about “climate science.” It seems pretty clear many conservatives are (quite rationally) suspicious when liberal Democrat politicians fund “studies” by liberal Democrat scientists which are then touted by liberal Democrat journalists, and which (surprise!) prescribe liberal Democrat policy wishlists as the only hope for survival.
What’s wrong with the sample? Do you have reason to believe the employment sectors in the sample differ from those of the actual population of scientists?
I know I would be a lot more comfortable with the results of this science if there weren’t such egregious levels of ideological conformity.
Scientists, regardless their subject, like to play god who knows everything—including what’s best for ‘ordinary people’. Many of their grants come from SNF, NASA, or other government institutions. Is it any wonder that they prefer to be Democrats?
Yup.
Scientists/”scientists” have been heavily targeted for pimping by the left. It’s the creep factor of the autistoid. Watch the stupid show Big Bang theory and figure how the left is trying to sustain that model of cool feminine scientists going along with perv homosexuals always in their orbit.
agreed.
All the scientists I hung out with were conservatives, hard core.
/johnny
exactly!
According to your table, 80% are employed by academia, government or non-profits, possibly an explanation for their political leanings.
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