Why don't more scientists get involved in politics?

[pscot]

The federal government, both elected and appointed, seems to consist almost entirely of lawyers, economists and businessmen. The only scientists in the Congress are doctors who tend to be cranks, like Coburn and senatorial wannabe Rand Paul, or people like Bill Frist, who was there to look out for the family business.. Carter was an engineer. We should have listened to him. Instead we dumped him for Ronald, DR.Feelgood, Reagan. If you fired a cannon down Pennsylvania Ave. tomorrow morning, you would kill hundreds of ivy league grads for every one from M.I.T or Cal Tech. But the lawyers, economists and MBAs have fucked things up to a fare-thee-well. Maybe it's time we send some people to Washington who have a little firmer grip on reality.

[safeinOhio]

1. Doctors are not scientists

they are technicians, unless doing research.

Unlike most of us, scientist are passionate about their jobs and have a life.

[mike_c]

2. well, speaking as a scientist...

...there are probably lots of reasons, not the least of which is that MANY folks who become scientists are somewhat disdainful of politics and the like. One could make the argument that the best way to solve the problems that make us disdainful of politics is to become involved in politics and change the way the system works, but that just seems like a prescription for a totally unhappy life.

Another thing-- most scientists are comfortable with inconclusive data and ambiguity. Politicians not so much. Politicians, even if only because that's what their constituents demand, deal in certainties more than likelihoods, whereas most science is probabilistic. Politicians want definitive answers. Scientists ask questions that usually generate more questions. Those two trajectories go in different directions.

Finally, most scientists I know are impatient with bullshit, perception as reality, and so on-- the usual stock in trade of politics. Speaking only for myself, I doubt that I'd last one full term in elected office. Scientists are driven problem solvers-- puzzles are what we do best-- but politicians are more concerned with the appearance of problem solving rather than with finding real solutions. For example, I could have EASILY suggested several ways to avert the BP oil spill in the Gulf-- all would have prevented that disaster, but all would have also prevented the drilling in the first place, something that was anathema to politicians. I think politics and science simply have different goals and objectives.

Would I like a political system that's better informed by science? Absolutely. But that will require politicians willing to be honest with their constituents, including honesty about the ambiguity of expectations that characterizes science. One of the first things I tell my students is that they have elected to enter a culture of honesty. That's about as far from the reality of politics as anything I can imagine.

edited to add: Also, I inhaled, and continue to do so daily. In fact, the bong needs loading right now.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. Thank you for that beautiful little mini-essay.

I'm sorry to see how the Devil Weed has done such terrible things to your mind. :evilgrin:

[mike_c]

15. LOL....

Yup. :hi:

[pscot]

9. This country is seething with a general fedupness

with bullshit. People know they're being lied to. They know the game is rigged, and they know who's doing it. Someone offering straight talk and rational solutions to real problems might find themselves leading a parade.

[cambie]

28. Someone offering straight talk

and even stating what the real problems are - will get lynched. That is the last thing that people want to hear.

[LynzM]

31. I disagree, to some extent.

Look at how successful Alan Grayson has been so far, doing just that.

[TheMadMonk]

17. Maaaaateeee. Let me join you in solidarity. nt.

[elfin]

3. Because they deal in facts --

Not convenient or inconvenient facts -- just the facts.

As such, real scientists disdain political discourse. Their work is to present apolitical and non-funded (by any side or industry ) facts to the elected leaders and their agencies that can make reasoned decisions.

When we call for then to do otherwise, it would take them into a very uncomfortable place.

Those who do speak out (ex. Riki Ott) are to be commended and appreciated for their courage. The others work on record via scientific papers and behind the scenes.

USA has an allergy to geeks, until a mainstream outlet makes them "cool."

I have loved Rachel Maddow in her celebration of such geeks and hope it transmits to the general populace.

[Birthmark]

4. Scientists tend to be honest.

Honesty is a positive drawback in American politics. A scientist would be eaten alive by the "professional" politicians.

[havocmom]

5. Well, there is that

:yourock:

[charlie]

6. Can you imagine anything more stultifying

than the gladhanding, boilerplate speechifying, and fund raising that goes with politicking? Especially if you're already employed in something as interesting as the sciences? Lawyers and businessmen are well prepared for the business of advocacy, scientists not so much. They tend to speak frankly, instead of thinking about the "message" they're trying to convey, which can get you into trouble. I can understand why few are interested in political office.

Bill Foster of Illinois is one of the rare physicists in Congress. He's up for his first full term re-election and at the moment the race is a dead heat. I hope he can hang on to his seat.

[MannyGoldstein]

7. Scientists and Engineers Can't Stand Lying

And the American People love to be lied to.

[Kurt Remarque]

10. it's contrary to reason

[Speck Tater]

11. You won't let someone make a life or death medical decision for you without an MD degree

yet we allow uneducated morons make life and death decisions about our country and our planet.

I've long believed that nobody should be elected who doesn't pass some minimum educational standards in a broad range of subjects. That, of course, will never fly because it's "elitism". This attitude virtually guarantees that we shall forever be ruled by the stupidest, greediest, and most power-hungry among us.

The general population will, therefore, always vote against its own survival in favor of their right to make uniformed choices on matters about which they have no understanding. We see it in the morons who "do not believe in" global climate change, or evolution, or peak oil, and imagine they have the right to dictate policy based on their willful and deliberate ignorance.

This is another reason why the human race is doomed to extinction; people fear many of the very things that could insure our survival like education, science, wisdom, compassion.

We need leaders who are smarter than average. But since that's "elitism", we will never get what we need, because even the most liberal of liberals is anti-elitism. In point of fact, elitism is probably our only hope at survival as a species. And that's another reason the species will not survive much longer.

[Recursion]

12. Have you ever been to a conference and heard a scientist give a speech? NT

[caraher]

13. Some are quite good at speaking...

most are not.

There have been physicists in Congress; Rush Holt for the Dems and Vern Ehlers among the Republicans. And Angela Merkel is also a physicist (though I'm sure this is supposed to be about US politics).

[Recursion]

14. Yasser Arafat and Tom Landry were electrical engineers

I mean, ok, Landry's not exactly a politician. I just think that's a neat bit of trivia.

[LiberalEsto]

16. They don't dare

Where do you think the research grants come from?
Big corporations and the feds.

[old mark]

18. Because they would have to hang out with politicians who , in my limited experience with them,

are just as bad in real life as they are on TV....In fact they try to look GOOD for their public appearances, so what you see is their idea of being a good person.

The few politicians I have met were shallow, ego driven spoiled children without exception. They were not concerned about much but their own satisfaction. They make actors look like mature human beings.

They are also mostly clever but not really very smart, with few exceptions.
Rec.
mark

[tiptoe]

19. "The Two Cultures" -- Scientific temperament != Political/Actor/MilitaryLeader

Doctors/Lawyers/Athletes::Science (bounded Method)
== bounded, systematic (knowledge)

Artists/Musicians::Politicians/Actors (unbounded)
== unbounded, non-systemic (imagination)

"Imagination is more important than knowledge"


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

[charlie]

20. There are more lawyers than any other profession in Congress

More than a third of the House and more than half the Senate.

[tiptoe]

21. Party affiliation breakdown? Historical trend??

"Imagination is more important than knowledge" -- Albert Einstein, "scientist" with "artistic" (musical) training

We live in an era of high election fraud:

See: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x515058#HistoricalWPD

2004 - 1988
For ALL states, margin discrepancies > a conservative assumed exit poll MoE of ±3% (i.e., discrepancies ≥ 6%):
66 state elections of 238 show a ≥ 6% vote-margin discrepancy 27.7%
    1 vote-margin discrepancy shifted in favor of the Democrat ( 1.5%) in the votecount 0.4%
   65 vote-margin discrepancies shifted in favor of the Republican (98.5%) in the votecount 27.3%

For ALL states, margin discrepancies > a realistic assumed exit poll MoE of ±2% (i.e., discrepancies ≥ 4%):
109 state elections of 238 show a ≥ 4% vote-margin discrepancy 45.8%
    9 vote-margin discrepancy shifted in favor of the Democrat ( 8.3%) in the votecount 3.8%
  100 vote-margin discrepancies shifted in favor of the Republican (91.7%) in the votecount 42.0%

For 15 Democratic states, discrepancies > a conservative assumed exit poll MoE of ±3% (i.e., discrepancies ≥ 6%):
25 state elections of 68 show a ≥ 6% vote-margin discrepancy 36.8%
    0 vote-margin discrepancy shifted in favor of the Democrat ( 0%) in the votecount 0.0%
   25 vote-margin discrepancies shifted in favor of the Republican (100%) in the votecount 36.8%

2004
For 15 Democratic states, discrepancies > a conservative assumed exit poll MoE of ±3% (i.e., discrepancies ≥ 6%):
11 state elections of 15 show a ≥ 6% discrepancy AVG 10.7% 73.3%
   0 vote-margin discrepancies shifted in favor of the Democrat ( 0%) in the votecount 0.0%
  11 vote-margin discrepancies shifted in favor of the Republican (100%) in the votecount 73.3%

2002 More Trouble for Diebold, This Time in Georgia...

Georgia ran its first all-touch screen election, in November 2002, with software for which no evidence of legal certification had been submitted. Certification documents were still not forthcoming, in fact, as late as March 2003. Because of a meltdown in the schedule for training county election workers, Georgia ended up abdicating control of the election to Diebold technicians, who ran it on the state's behalf � without the voters being told.

NOTE: The 2002 election questioned above, was when Senator, War Hero and 3-time amputee Max Cleland (Democrat-GA) lost his seat in a surpise victory by Republican, Saxby Chambliss (lawyer) who had run advertisements questioning the patriotism of Cleland, and comparing the Vietnam War hero and 3-time amputee to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

June 2010 'Experts' Eye 100% Unverifiable E-Vote System in 'Win' of SC's Mystery U.S. Senate Nominee

Nobody in the South Carolina Democratic Party had ever heard of Alvin Greene, the jobless candidate for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, before he reportedly defeated state legislator Vic Rawl last Tuesday. That, despite the jobless candidate's lack of actual campaigning, campaign website, or even spending any money on a campaign as far as anyone can tell. And there remain questions at this hour, as to where he even came up with the $10,400 filing fee to get on the ballot in the first place. Greene's interview on MSNBC last night is one of the most bizarre ever seen on television (full video posted at end of article).

Unless something changes between now and November, however, Greene's inexplicable victory will pit him against the state's often-controversial, and far-Rightwing Republican incumbent, Sen. Jim DeMint.

But where some have suggested Greene was a "plant" in the race, experts now examining the actual election result data from both SC's unverifiable Election Day touch-screen machines and its electronically counted paper-ballot absentee voting system are noting "curious" and even "staggering" disparities, suggesting what some Election Integrity experts are describing at this hour as "clear signs of ELECTION FRAUD in South Carolina"...

The 'Plant' Theory

SC's Democratic U.S. House Rep. Jim Clyburn has suggested Greene may be a "plant" by the GOP, though Greene has denied that. Clyburn also believes, with some interesting evidence to back it up, that the candidate who ran unsuccessfully him, and even a third candidate on the ballot last Tuesday, might similarly be plants.

But the "plant" theory doesn't explain the extraordinary numbers that Greene reportedly received at the polls on Tuesday, if not in the absentee voting. While it's possible all of this could be an issue of dirty tricks by Republicans who are allowed to vote in SC's open primary, there were, apparently, no known efforts by the GOP to push for Greene votes --- certainly not enough to account for the staggering 59 to 41 victory Greene reportedly sailed to on Tuesday.

'Staggering' E-Vote 'Red Flags'

So, what else, besides or in addition to the "plant" theory, could account for Greene's remarkable "victory"?

South Carolina uses ES&S' 100% unverifiable Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, in this case touch-screen) voting machines at the polling place. The machines, also used in many other states (such as Arkansas, where we recently reported exclusively on the disappearance of thousands of votes on May 18th, which neither state nor local officials are able to explain to this day) are both oft-failed and easily manipulated in such a way that it's almost impossible to detect the systems have been gamed.

As we've written, nearly every time there is an election in South Carolina, whoever the machines end up announcing as the "winner," will likely be the winner, since there is literally no way to guarantee that even a single vote ever cast on such machines was actually recorded as per the voter's intent. It's an insane way to run a democracy, as The BRAD BLOG has spent years, and literally thousands of articles, trying to point out.
...

[charlie]

24. Well, I don't know what party affiliation or election fraud

has to do with "bounded" or "unboundedness", which is what I was responding to, but by far the majority of congressional lawyers are Democrats, FWIW.

[tiptoe]

25. back in the mid '70s an experimental test was conducted by UCLA astronomer George Abell and

stat prof Marvin Zelen (SUNY, IIRC) of findings of a Stat PhD from France and Psych PhD wife who supplied "evidence" of what became known as the "Mars Effect".

The "scientific" claim -- for which the experiment was designed by the academicians to address possible sample and/or design bias -- was that lawyers, doctors and athletes (of "Who's Who" class in their respective professions) shared, in aggregate, a significant tendency to be born with the planet Mars at certain key angles relative to the horizon of their birth.

Likewise, birthcharts of actors, politicians, military leaders showed a statistical tendency for Jupiter to appear at the same angles.

Charts of 'Who's Who' scientists, in aggregate, tended to be find Saturn at the same angles (IIRC).

For artists, musicians (i forget who else), the Moon was "prominent".

The "key angles" would approximately coincide with traditional-astrology 12th, 9th, 6th and 3rd houses. The French statistician distributed his subjects' birth planetary positions, however, amongst 36 sectors.

(If I recall correctly, there was a tendency within the French sample provided for the "planetary characteristics" to be mutually exclusive, while I notice from astrology charts that RFK and Dan Quayle seem both to have Jupiter and Mars (and RFK also Moon) at key angles in their "natal charts" while Einstein seems to have Saturn and Moon. I say "seem" because I don't know if reference frames of what I linked would be sufficiently coincident with the model of the French scientists.)

This was not really "astrology", because such "planetary characterizations" were not part of traditional astrological lore, and the findings were unexpected, based on traditional tenets. But the study had been conducted by a Sorbonne PhD in modern statistics who'd laid out his academic training with the intent to "prove" the astrological tenets he'd learned as a kid. (Instead, he falsified them...and uncovered the unexpected.)

Anyway, as fas as I know, this was the only serious scientific attempt to test the statistical claims that had come out of France (and I can't recall the time-period over which the data of the subjects had been collected).

The groupings of "lawyers, doctors, atheletes" and "Actors,politicians.." etc were not mine, but the "findings" of the French scientists.

The terms "bounded" or "bounded systems" and "unbounded" are my attempts to roughly
differentiate mental applications, just from reflection on behaviors and the nature of what and how the different occupations "practice". I'm sure there are finer occupational temperament differentiations.

I asked about "historical trend" and "party affiliation" because times change, education backgrounds change and election fraud is likely putting so-called "Republicans" in office who might not reflect traditional politician temperaments (if there is such).

Dan Quayle is a lawyer and politician, technically, just as was Bobby Kennedy...but I doubt I'd rely on Quayle for either legal or political work.

Whew.

Oh, btw, the result of the experiment to test the "scientific basis for astrology" by Abell and Zelen came back after an exasperating six month wait: "inconclusive" (due, IIRC, to the two PhDs' failure to compile a sufficient sample size. Ahem, how convenient...for all parties). I believe exchanges between scientists, experimental design and test results were reported in The Humanist and the Journal for Interdisciplinary Cycle Research, 1975-76 (some time around there).

(Yes, I'm aware inferences about individuals shouldn't be drawn from aggregate data.)

(and during that time I learned two PhD statistics students were involved in work on the subject)

(CP Snow's Two Cultures had a 50th anniversary "Update" by Scientific American in September 2009.)

(Is the "Mars Effect" genuine? For background, not necessarily conclusion)

[TZ]

22. Because its not fun dealing with the willfully ignorant

As most politicians are. See Creationsits, Global Warming Deniers, New Age anti-Western Med wooism, disease research comes last in the budget and first on the list to be cut, environment isn't important etc. Scientists like to pass on their knowledge but when you have cranks that aren't going to pay attention to you no matter what the actual scientific fact is, its completely aggravating.
I have a friend who is a patent lawyer..she had a hard time getting a job cause she was a PhD in molecular biology. They didn't want anyone with too much scientific background because that would just "bore" people.

[n2doc]

23. Well, for one many places won't let you keep your job and run

So, unlike joe blow the bug sprayer, if I choose to run for public office I have to give up my professorship. And it won't be waiting for me when I get back, either. Especially in the South.

[Codeine]

26. Look how DU treats science-based content.

Then compound that by the way the Right treats science.

There's your answer.

[bananas]

27. Democratic Congressman Rush Holt is a nuclear physicist

He says, "I don’t want to see us get deeper into a dependency on nuclear power until we demonstrate to each other that we can solve the problem of nuclear proliferation. Because if we don’t, that could be our greatest undoing."

From a NY Time interview: "Rush Holt on Energy Policy, Barack Obama and John Holdren"
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/rush-holt-on-energy-policy-barack-obama-and-john-holdren/

Article discussed at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x182843

[saras]

29. Training and inclination

Lawyers and economists are trained to do the things that government does and understand their conceptual systems. Successful businesspeople pick up these same skills, whether they are taught are not. They are radically different than the skill set of scientists, as is the mental universes inhabited by them. In general, the things scientists deal with don't change quality or quantity based on the opinion and organization of pressure groups. No constants, no math, no invariants.

How do you, as a scientist, feel about not only adopting but publicly advocating for a policy you believe is conceptually wrong as well as based on false premises, simply because it is a practical move in a relatively desirable direction given the circumstances and alternatives? If this sound like a pleasant, rewarding challenge, then by all means go into politics and help represent science there.

That is to say, I think it would be a good idea, but would require the remaking of much of our political system, including the entire lobbying apparatus. Technocracy seems like a failed attempt at something like this.

[Taitertots]

30. They wouldn't know what to do most of the time

Who honestly thinks people with skills totally unrelated to government should be in charge?


I'd rather just have benevolent lawyers, economists, and business people.