Upstream | February 15, 2012 | 72 comments

Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

source: http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/why-dont-americans-elect-scientists/

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pjacobs51
I’ve visited Singapore a few times in recent years and been impressed with its wealth and modernity. I was also quite aware of its world-leading programs in mathematics education and naturally noted that one of the candidates for president was Tony Tan, who has a Ph.D. in applied mathematics. Tan won the very close election and joined the government of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who also has a degree in mathematics.

China has even more scientists in key positions in the government. President Hu Jintao was trained as a hydraulic engineer and Premier Wen Jiabao as a geomechanical engineer. In fact, eight out of the nine top government officials in China have scientific backgrounds. There is a scattering of scientist-politicians in high government positions in other countries as well. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has a doctorate in physical chemistry, and, going back a bit, Margaret Thatcher earned a degree in chemistry.

One needn’t endorse the politics of these people or countries to feel that given the complexities of an ever more technologically sophisticated world, the United States could benefit from the participation and example of more scientists in government. This is obviously no panacea — Herbert Hoover was an engineer, after all — but more people with scientific backgrounds would be a welcome counterweight to the vast majority of legislators and other officials in this country who are lawyers.

Among the 435 members of the House, for example, there are one physicist, one chemist, one microbiologist, six engineers and nearly two dozen representatives with medical training. The case of doctors and the body politic is telling. Everyone knows roughly what doctors do, and so those with medical backgrounds escape the anti-intellectual charge of irrelevance often thrown at those in the hard sciences. Witness Senator Bill Frist, Gov. Howard Dean and even Ron Paul.

This showing is sparse even with the inclusion of the doctors, but it shouldn’t be too surprising. For complex historical reasons, Americans have long privately dismissed scientists and mathematicians as impractical and elitist, even while publicly paying lip service to them.

One reason is that an abstract, scientific approach to problems and issues often leads to conclusions that are at odds with religious and cultural beliefs and scientists are sometimes tone-deaf to the social environment in which they state their conclusions. A more politically sensitive approach to problems and issues, on the other hand, often leads to positions that simply don’t jibe with the facts, no matter how delicately phrased. Examples as diverse as stem cell research and the economic stimulus abound.

Politicians, whose job is in many ways more difficult than that of scientists, naturally try to sway their disparate constituencies, but the prevailing celebrity-infatuated, money-driven culture and their personal ambitions often lead them to employ rhetorical tricks rather than logical arguments. Both Republicans and Democrats massage statistics, use numbers to provide decoration rather than information, dismiss, or at least distort, the opinions of experts, torture the law of the excluded middle (i.e., flip-flop), equivocate, derogate and obfuscate.

Dinosaurs cavorting with humans, climate scientists cooking up the global warming “hoax,” the health establishment using vaccines to bring about socialism – it’s hard to imagine mainstream leaders in other advanced economies not laughing at such claims.


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72 comments // Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?

  • pjacobs51
    • +1
      pjacobs51  

    • “In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”

      ~ Carl Sagan

    • 1 year ago
  • EmperorThan
    • +2
      EmperorThan  

    • We have an age requirement for Presidents. WHY DON'T WE HAVE AN IQ TEST?!?!?!

      This idea of 'anyone can become President in this country' is DANGEROUS and has gotten us into a lot of trouble and wars. We need extremely bright individuals only to be allowed to run this country, CONGRESS TOO!.

    • 1 year ago
  • Dagum
    • +2
      Dagum  

    • I don't think there is an active scheme of discrimination against scientists, I just think the majority of Americans put little to no thought in who they vote for. They don't read platforms or policies published by the candidates. Come voting day, they pull the lever based primarily on superficial and emotional factors such as how a candidate looks and how they feel after the candidate speaks, or worse, tribalism. Tribal loyalty to the "R" or "D" no matter what these symbols purport to stand for this election cycle.

      As far as more scientists being elected to public office, I'd argue strongly against it. It's a colossal waste of talent. We need scientists to contribute to humanity by making new discoveries and inventing new technologies, not engaging in the frivolities and narcissism that is politics.

    • 1 year ago
  • remanns
  • jubal
    • +1
      jubal  

    • I agree with the conclusions of this article, but one thing it didn't address is the huge number of fairytale believing fundamentalist minded or pandering fools who got to where they are through extortion, lies and even eliminating inconvenient obstacles (redrum). That is probably the most dangerous aspect of our government today. Reason has been supplanted by fervor.

    • 1 year ago
  • remanns
  • remanns
  • jubal
  • remanns
  • pjacobs51
  • The_Wanderer_Kansas
  • remanns
    • +1
      remanns  

    • . . . .those lab coats are just soooooooooo "yesterday's science" .
      ( its "presentation, presentation, presentation" silly ! )

    • 1 year ago
  • fiberbundle
    • +1
      fiberbundle  

    • "One reason is that an abstract, scientific approach to problems and issues often leads to conclusions that are at odds with religious and cultural beliefs and scientists are sometimes tone-deaf to the social environment in which they state their conclusions. A more politically sensitive approach to problems and issues, on the other hand, often leads to positions that simply don’t jibe with the facts, no matter how delicately phrased. Examples as diverse as stem cell research and the economic stimulus abound."

      That's the reason. Politicians have to be able to use the myths skillfully to inspire, motivate and coordinate the society. Scientists challenge mythologies. Example "American exceptionalism" what would a scientist make of that?

    • 1 year ago
  • maasanova
    • +2
      maasanova  

    • Good post, with a lot to think about.

      Another world leader that this author conveniently left off his list of elected representatives who have also studied science is Iranian president Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

      America elects celebrities, but It is my guess that scientists can be bought off just as easily as anyone else.

      And it is also my guess that if global warming was not a hoax, then universities would waste time and resources going around firing and trying to silence scientists who disagreed with the premise of anthropogenic global warming.

    • 1 year ago
  • tverdell
    • +1
      tverdell  
    • maasanova:

      You really think 99% of climatologists are part of a grand conspiracy. And that a handful of scientists, not even climatologists, that are connected with the recently exposed Heartland Institute are the true scholars?

      I don't think you are being sincere.

    • 1 year ago
  • maasanova
    • 0
      maasanova  
    • tverdell:

      Part of a "grand conspiracy" is a rather cheesy way to phrase it, but yeah, I do believe there are scientists who are unprinicipled enough to keep their heads down and go along with the herd to keep their jobs. Yes I firmly believe this.

      Firing and/or attempting to silence a scientist because they disagree with the alleged 99% of the global warming scientific consensus seems to me to be the very antithesis of what science is all about.

    • 1 year ago
  • ampersand
    • +2
      ampersand  
    • maasanova:

      Researchers who fake data, misrepresent results, or are incompetent, ARE fired, and rightly so.
      You can usually find one or two mediocre slubs from some cow college in the mid-west that will take payment and an ego boosting title from a right-wing foundation to protect or advance a corporate agenda.
      Remember long ago when cigarette smoking was promoted as "good for your health" (see Ronnie Reagan's ads promoting Chesterfield) and then later, when obviously not so from mounds of independent data defended as "not a factor in lung disease" by "scientists" on a corporate payroll that knew better?

      The climate change deniers scam works better in the US than anywhere else because a large percentage of the population is less educated and essentially ignorant of how the scientific method works or how to analyze the string of logical fallacies in the propaganda stream they are awash in on a daily basis.
      If my only source of information was American TV I'd swear that Chevron Oil was an ecological non-profit creating bowers of flowers and park lands.

    • 1 year ago
  • maasanova
    • 0
      maasanova  
    • ampersand:

      The science of global warming is mostly based on the idea of scientific consensus, which is a nonsense in itself.

      It only takes one scientist from "some cow college in the mid-west" to prove the consensus to be bunk by applying a scientific method.

      When your science is not sound and your facts are fudged like how we found that global warming scientists and promoters admitted to have been doing back in 2009 (not fired by the way they were exonerated), then it makes sense for the consensus to fire and/or attempt to silence the dissent.

    • 1 year ago
  • 11dim
  • ampersand
    • 0
      ampersand  
    • maasanova:

      The scientific basis for global climate change is based on data. Massive amounts of data in fact, collected by thousands of scientists on the planet and even from space by NASA.
      When you get your talking points from Fox News (and the thoroughly debunked fake scandals they've tried to promote from time to time) it's no wonder you don't understand the magnitude of the data assembled or how the overwhelming scientific consensus has developed.

    • 1 year ago
  • The_Wanderer_Kansas
  • ampersand
  • danitassin
    • +1
      danitassin  

    • Well most scientists see the flaws in politics and don't want to have anything to do with it. The ones that are apart of it are paid to, so no we shouldn't elect scientists. We have a hard enough time electing a president.

    • 1 year ago
  • wally60
    • +2
      wally60  

    • americans elect scientists wow what a thought.our election process is so controlled it would never happen.we are sheep being led to hell by greedy
      power hungry lieing people and the sad part most people dont giv a dam!

    • 1 year ago
  • nardo1224
  • warman1138
    • +4
      warman1138  

    • Why don't we elect scientists? Because they have an aversion ( due to their intellect ) to having money pounded up their asses by wealthy lying special interests.

    • 1 year ago
  • Itsbatman_Durr
  • corndog67
    • +3
      corndog67  

    • No, they don't elect especially bright people because 83% of this country considers themselves, religious. And most particularly bright people aren't. Even the big O, although he is a supposed democrat, says he goes to church. I believe he is pandering to the religious among us.

    • 1 year ago
  • Joeydee44
    • +5
      Joeydee44  

    • Why don't Americans elect scientists? Just watch one episode of The Big Bang Theory and you will never ask that question again.

    • 1 year ago
  • Incredulous
  • coolplanet
  • ZiggyStrange
  • remanns
  • remanns
  • Incredulous
  • COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM
    • +2
      COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM  
    • Incredulous:

      That's most likely true. The Bush team hired a French social psychologist to research the meaning and significance of the President to the average American. Tragically, the archetype we purportedly most associate with the President is :-, :-, (drumroll), COWBOY! Keep your holster open, be quick on the trigger and don't think too long or too much. Just get it done. And this, I dare say, is why the corporate right has been able to so effectively exploit our silly, short sighted and pathetic asses.

    • 1 year ago
  • ZiggyStrange
    • +1
      ZiggyStrange  
    • Incredulous:

      Most scientists are too smart to lead may fit better.

      A scientist can give you a perfectly and logically worked out solution to any social issue in short order.

      He can tell you how to do it, and everything you need to do it with.
      If you can pull it off, it will work. It's been done in the US at the state level before in a microcosm,

      The problem is that in a macrocosm, it takes a lot longer than the people are willing to accept, may be unconstitutional, or require amendments, and it's most likely too complicated for the average Joe to swallow, while they are being assaulted 24/7 by propaganda that is much easier and comforting to believe.

      Scientists are too self absorbed to be a President, too analytical, and empirical. You'd get a guy you'd hate. I know, I'm one of them.

      I tell people all the time that the way to get where we want to go is a long road ahead and we have to always think in terms of steady progress. We have to get big money out of politics, but it takes big money to do that, and a long time to implement it. I have written lengthy rants about doing this and never posted them because I know they would not be read let alone supported.

      I believe the kind of thing I would do is being done right now. I believe there is long term social engineering being practiced by Barack Obama. Scientists are good in the background providing workable solutions and complicated power plays to thwart the same efforts on the right, which have a head start on the left.

      The people want results now, and sway like a flag in the wind according to whatever red meat is being thrown at them. Is this that different than Cesar giving out loaves of bread and throwing coins at the crowd before the gladiators come out?

      We need to come together and stop the bickering, choose our goal and stick to it end of story. We failed ourselves when we gave the congress to the Tea Party because we were not happy with how fast Obama kept his campaign promises.

      This is really what happened. We have paid through the nose for doing that ever since as we will until we throw out all the garbage legislators on both sides.

      Yes Obama is a politician and he's going to piss off half of us all the time, but more importantly what he's doing is really freaking out the right. I believe he will win in 2012.

      I'll know for sure if there is a long term agenda being put in place by who is in the 2016 ticket for the Democrats. If they are the type of people that I have decided would be the next logical step, I'll be comfortable that things are progressing on schedule.
      The only ones that can derail it is us.

      I also believe that government has to actually get bigger before it can get smaller.
      I believe there should be a 4th branch. The Oversight Board made up of civilians, almost like jury duty to keep the other 3 in check, I believe in going to draconian levels to ensure the most transparent, and corruption proof government.

      I believe politicians and any person empowered to have authority should be held to a stricter and harsh special set of laws. Never ever put ex military in the police. The military are trained to defend or take ground and kill the enemy, Police are there to protect and serve, the two are anathema.

      In the end, I believe that we have to be one earth one people one government, or we will perish,

      I fully understand that most people here disagree with me. I'm not saying this to start an argument, I'm just showing you the short version of the scientific solution I would propose and a majority of the people would vote it down because it only addresses the current problems as variables instead of issues. It's clinical, precise, and it works.

      But that is not what is doable right now. People need to see unemployment to continue to go down and it may. But we could have a problem in the summer. Economists know that, scientists know that but do people want to hear it?
      I don't think so.

      I support Obama because I think he is the most intelligent president we have had in a long time, he has ice for blood and is not afraid of anything. Clinton may have a higher IQ but his agenda was more of a Clinton variant on reality. I believe Obama knows he is a domino that starts the sequence and does not expect to be vindicated while he is in office. I believe history will make Obama bigger every year after his administration.

      See what I mean:-} I think I know the answer to most things and I demand that people prove me wrong. Not good presidential material,.

      Best

      Ziggy

    • 1 year ago
  • ecoalex
    • +4
      ecoalex  

    • Amurika loves stupid.bush was given a free ride as NASCAR reined.Amurika loves stupid,it's religious leaders love stupid,hate science.Until Amurika ends it's shitty shows like Jersey Shore glorifying stupid,we're screwed. Got to stop buying the shit rhetoric of the free traders,trickle down liars,and Evangelicals,who abhor science,truth.

      America needs to change to smart not stupid unkay?

    • 1 year ago
  • thedirtman
  • ThirdSection
    • +5
      ThirdSection  
    • Image

    • Neil deGrasse Tyson is a scientist who enjoys more than little renown in his field and he carries himself well in front of a camera, and I would most likely vote for him since I pretty much agree with his views which he has made public.

      The only problem would be convincing him to run for office...

    • 1 year ago
  • COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM
    • +3
      COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM  
    • ThirdSection:

      Anyone who wants to be President is either an egomaniac, or a despot intent on exploiting the nation and his Presidency. Otherwise, a wise man would shoulder it like doing a tour of duty in wartime, reluctantly, but embracing it if no one else seemed better qualified and willing.

    • 1 year ago
  • ThirdSection
  • remanns
  • Anonmaly
    • -4
      Anonmaly  

    • LMAO... Which scientists.... The ones that want teach evolution as the "gospel"...

      That one with the "Gaea" earth theory; "the earth is an organism"....

      Which one?

      At the moment I'd be happy with a good doctor, really isn't that far off from a scientist...

    • 1 year ago
  • Incredulous
  • remanns
  • CreditFigaro
  • ThirdSection
  • remanns
  • Swisher
  • GENERALNATTY
    • +1
      GENERALNATTY  

    • Where are all the scientists running for office anyway? The last person that fit into this category that ran for office that im immediately aware of is herman cain and we all know how that worked out lol.

    • 1 year ago
  • ZiggyStrange
    • +8
      ZiggyStrange  

    • For the record. Jimmy Carter is a scientist.

      Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.), thirty-ninth president of the United States, was born October 1, 1924, in the small farming town of Plains, Georgia, and grew up in the nearby community of Archery. His father, James Earl Carter, Sr., was a farmer and businessman; his mother, Lillian Gordy Carter, a registered nurse.

      He was educated in the public school of Plains, attended Georgia Southwestern College and the Georgia Institute of Technology, and received a B.S. degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1946. In the Navy he became a submariner, serving in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets and rising to the rank of lieutenant. Chosen by Admiral Hyman Rickover for the nuclear submarine program, he was assigned to Schenectady, New York, where he took graduate work at Union College in reactor technology and nuclear physics, and served as senior officer of the pre-commissioning crew of the Seawolf, the second nuclear submarine.

      http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/documents/jec/jecbio.phtml

    • 1 year ago
  • Incredulous
  • coolplanet
  • ZiggyStrange
  • DEM46
  • DEM46
  • DEM46
  • Incredulous
  • DEM46
  • wolfess
  • omnipotentpoobah
  • warman1138
  • OlBlue
  • ThatCrazyLibertarian
  • remanns
  • Incredulous
  • Truthitswhatsfordinner
  • remanns
  • kennymotown
  • pjacobs51
  • kennymotown
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