Scientists, Republicans and Conservatives
by Mike Kimel
Scientists, Republicans and Conservatives
Cross posted at the Presimetrics blog.
According to a Pew poll, only 6% of scientists self-identify as Republicans, and only 9% as conservative.
Figure 1
Birds of a feather and all of that.
I meant to post on this a while back – I’m about a year and a half late. I don’t remember where I first saw the link to it – sorry about that.
Stands to reason. Increases in education generally correlate to more liberal attitudes.
Scientists generally have advanced degrees requiring many years of education.
Strange that this Pew poll has just recently been referred to on Slate and a magazine called The Week, which I had coincidentely picked up this morning while waiting in a medical office. Strange that all at the same time several references to a poll that was first published 18 months ago.
More interesting would be to do a correlation study of intelligence and strength of political ideology of members of the Congress. Have you listened to some of the Republican leadership over the past two years. The low level of intellectual capacity is palpable, even through the TV screen. Certainly there must be some pretty low hanging fruit in the Democratic caucus, but I’d like to see an IQ requirement for elected office.
Think about what’s her name O’Donald from Delaware. And Ms Bachman…….
The following may have been evident in Gallileo’s time. Or in buying the F-35 in the pentagon today.
“Actually, over time the number of errors in specific scientific studies go up as new material and efforts from the original study are used…..”
The scientific method requires unbiased thinking and careful data collection.
Not the biased thinking and skewed data to ‘buy in’ to conservative thinking.
A scientific person loses Beck and Limbaugh on the first fallacious premise from which the rest of the argument is based.
ILSM said: “The scientific method requires unbiased thinking and careful data collection.
Not the biased thinking and skewed data to ‘buy in’ to conservative thinking. “
I answer, if it were only true! I listed just a very few examples of political thinking trumping science in the same person(s). Science is NOT consensus.
A very few examples is all you have.
Do not indict even a very small group of scientists.
CoRev,
Of course, science is not consensus!
Neither are the ideas of the Tea partier lemmings,who were lied to by phoney deficit hawks, based on reason or fact.
Think about what’s her name O’Donald from Delaware. And Ms Bachman…….
If I were Boehner I would weep, too.
HUH!!!???!! Where’d that come from?
I don’t think most people understand scientists. I will admit that I sometimes see scientists that won’t move on long after their early work that brought them status has been grabbed by the community and has evolved. But, to say that early investigation and the state-of-the art knowledge and measurements were errors is just plain dumb. As opposed to think tank junk and media malfunctions, most respected science is peer reviewed by panels of competitive colleagues. That is a step up from most of the so-called “information” out there. Even economists should know this from their steadily evolving field where, IMO, there is more resistance to that moving-on in view of new data.
Good scientists never claim to have the last definitive answer, just the last best measurement or model.
This scientist is liberal because I collect and interpret the available data. I think that I have seen less suppression of the “pursuit of ideas” (libertarian liberalism) from liberals. Also, conservative (conserving) flies in the face of the moving-on part.
Other scientists might express different reasons. I cannot speak for a community.
Examples: In my lifetime I see environmental research as producing better and better measurement techniques; I see that we once tried to set up an energy policy that might have us less dependent on war with oil nations today; I see religions trying to dictate what science is allowed; I see attempts to suppress publications by the government because of ideology or campaign contributors; I see a country that is unable to set a direction in science and move-on while the rest of the world, give more “freedom” to their scientists than the land of the free.
Most of all, many of those “errors” are the most valuable contributions because the most important ones spur pursuit of the data and innovation. If an “error” is truly in error, it is either ignored or, if important, is quickly disproved.
Global warming is simply a compilation of the available data, combined with chemistry and physics, to produce a best estimate based on models. Scientists know this but cannot do more than try to arrive at consensus on a best estimate based on current knowledge. It then becomes the job of governments and others to perform a risk analysis and determine the cost benefit of a policy in view of the risk. The risk of not addressing global warming when we can set policies and develop technologies is deemed greater than the cost of taking action to scientific experts, apparently.
That said, I must add something that has always worried me. Governments and industries fun research. Those two entities set priorities, establish policies and provide funds. In the US when everything is either/or and those that make decisions cannot make decisions on behalf of the nation and world but rather make ideological decisions, science advances much slower simply because it takes money to do science in most cases. I don’t particularly like the incentive this gives for a powerful scientist to influence decisions in a way to advantage their bottomline. I don’t think many scientists do this but I sometimes wonder.
Also, I would like to see this same type thing done with engineers. I don’t know the result but I suspect it might be more evenly divided or even right leaning.
From another source (again I forget where) but economists are mostly Democrats too. But it’s strange that economists tend to, on matters economic, propose non-Democratic policies. You know, like free trade, abolishing excessive unionism, (and it’s counterpart, monopoly companies), tax incidence, …..one could go on….
Tim W,
There is a difference between the opinions of most people in a profession and the opinions of those whose opinion seems to matter to the folks in charge.
And when we get to the bottom line of liberalism and the environment, we have the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). This quote explains much: “What are these “concerned scientists” so concerned about? According to their mission statement: “UCS seeks a great change in humanity’s stewardship of the earth.” http://www.ucsusa.org/about/
The UCS was started in 1969 as an anti-nuclear weapon organization, but switched its focus to global warming when the Soviet Union collapsed and it became clear that large amounts of funds were available from the left-wing foundations (Pew Trusts, Joyce Foundation, MacArthur Foundation…). Original article is from here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/06/union-of-concerned-scientists-unwarranted-concern-about-the-northeast-us/#more-30657 Lotsa nice graphs!
As always its still important to follow the money as Anna Lee points out re: funding of science.
So let me summarize: When it comes to science-based government policy it’s more about the ideology than the science because the two can not be separated due to funding. When it comes to government agencies, (EPA, Dept of Energy, NOAA, and parts of DOI, Ag, etc.) where they are captured/staffed by these liberal concerned scientists, we must be concerned that politics/ideology is trumping the science.
Mother Gaia rules!?!
Well with politicians, you can never be sure whether they’re an idiot, or just play one on TV. Even though most are rich, they all try portray themselves as middle class. It’s kind of like the question here a while ago: “Do you want your politicians to be like you, or better than you.” Arguably for many in the electorate, it is more important for their politicians to be like them and to have similar interests and inclinations than to be more competent, if that means that the politicians are pursuing an agenda that is at odds with the electorates wishes.
Let me clarify, slightly, how that liberal bias and funding impacts science research. This example is from the AGW community, but is especially true in the medical research area(s).
Dr. Roy Spencer, a noted climatologist, made this statement: ” Twice I have testified in congress that unbiased funding on the subject of the causes of warming would be much closer to a reality if 50% of that money was devoted to finding natural reasons for climate change. Currently, that kind of research is almost non-existent. ” (My emphais)
The statement is from this strangely appropriate article:
Why Most Published Research Findings are False
link here: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/01/why-most-published-research-findings-are-false/
If you’re not feeling a little uneasy about the conomic impacts of thse scientific rulings from our Govt Agencies, then you are not thinking, or even more likely, biased toward their findings.
Mother Gaia rules!?!
You need to get out more.
Liberal bias so global warming is some liberal theory.
The whole world should then look like the LA basin!
I am feeling a bit uneasy about the US taxpayer spending $800B a year for a war machine to secure the Saudi royals’ oil empire.
CoRev – Gently, I think there’s a flaw in your reasoning. We simply CANNOT use an argument that half of all scientific papers are incorrect as a means for evaluating truth. Consider: For the sake of the argument, 80% of papers by climatologists dealing with AGW support the notion that the earth is warming, and 20% do not. You’d argue that half those pro-AGW papers are erroneous — which half we can’t say a priori, but half. So only 40% of the climatologists’s papers find valid reasons for accepting AGW, and by the weight of numbers we can reject the idea.
OTOH, half of those original anti-AGW papers must be flawed as well. Clearly, with better data or better interpretation of data, 10% of those cilmatological studies should have shown evidence of AGW, even though their authors thought otherwise. So fully 50% of the climate studies — if properly performed — should ALWAYS support AGW, and the other 50% should ALWAYS refute the notion.
The argument doesn’t change if my original 80% guesstimate is replaced by 70%, 60%, or even zero. The argument doesn’t change if we deal with some issue other than climate — whether mercury in vaccines for childhood diseases causes autism, for example, or whether the speed of light is a constant. Once we assume [a] “half of all scientific studies are mistaken” [b] in a situation where only True/False conclusions can be accepted, and [c] we have no valid means of discriminating between correct and incorrect studies, we’re inevitably put in a position of inescapable ignorance.
Is this where we should be, or imagine ourselves to be, when discussing public policy?
“Assuming that some portion of the moderates are closer to liberal than centrists” would, presumably, also mean “assuming some portion of the moderates are closer to conservative than centrist”, in which case CoRev’s implicit math si pretty weak. Either moderates are moderates, just like they say they are, or we are allowing CoRev to make assumptions advantageous to his own argument.
“Furthermore, it also explains the constant claims that conservativeas are against science. That’s obviously not true,…”
Again, we have CoRev making claims that he can’t support. “Against”? Well, tobacco firms paid for a PR effort to cast doubt on the impact of smoking on health, and to provide camoflage so that it wasn’t too obvious that the “junk science” movement was simply a Big Tobacco trick, they also paid for an effort to cast doubt on climate science. Tobacco firms don’t represent all conservatives, and “against” is a rather broad term to be of much use in careful thought, but conservative politicians and the groops that back them are far more closely associated with bought-and-paid-for anti-science efforts.
While we’re at it, it is also notable that CoRev has employed here the very sort of arguments that the professional anti-science types use. He singles out models to give the impression that “science” isn’t real world, that it isn’t based on data. Science isn’t just modeling, any more than it is just data collection and analysis. Looking at modeling in isolation in an effort to denigrate it is a common anti-science trick.
Actually Tim, you just need a little trip back in the history of thought to understand both issues.
Modern Science is a product of the Enlightenment, as is the closely related concept of big-P Progress. The near immediate response of the State and Church Establishment (not particularly differentiated to start with in Europe at the time) was to launch the Counter-Reformation and a century or two later the official political movement known as Reaction. Reaction being by name and design a conscious push back on that second product of the Enlightenment which of course was Revolution.
Those Moral Philosophers who latter came to be distinguished into categories of Scientist and Engineer were to a man devoted to the whole concept of Progress, particularly Scientific Progress, but also embracing the idea that this Progress could transform humanity and human living standards. During this period, basically the mid to late eigteenth and early nineteenth Engineers and Scientists were largely either actively involved in starting the new Industries (steam, rail, etc) on their own or working for the new Industrialists and Manufacturers. By an odd quirk this era was also marked, at least in Britain, by a political system that simply froze out the major areas of industrialization and so the Manufacturers in the interests of major landholders and the Court and so arose modern Liberalism, marked by a devotion to the idea of capital P Progress of all types, and Reform of the political system.
Classical Liberal Economics was like Science and Engineering just another offshoot of what had been called Moral Philosophy and so tended to line up with their fellows behind Liberalism, particularly in the form of Free Trade for manufactured goods as opposed to the Corn Laws that were openly designed to protect major land-owners from overseas imports.
But a funny thing happened to Industrial Liberalism over the 19th century in Britain. First the Industrialists were able to secure political rights starting with big change of the Great Reform Act of 1832 even as that deal managed to cut the working class (previously somewhat of an ally) out of the deal and soon enough reacted to what Marx himself called “the Sprectre of Communism” by moving to the Right and at least cooperating with the Landowners and the Reactionaries who were determined to go no farther than what they had conceded in 1832.
Which left Liberal Economists with a choice, move left and join the forces that were bubbling up in the form of Revolution and Socialism, particularly on the continent, or move right with their patrons the industrialists and mount a full defense of Capitalism against Socialism, which by the late 19th century left the latter fully on the Right side of what was recognized as an open Right-Left divide.
And Engineers and Physical Scientists by and large made many of the same, the workshops and labs they needed to keep their work advancing were increasingly capital intensive. (It is noteable that significant exceptions are among mathematicians and physicists who before WWI mostly need pencil, paper and blackboards to do their work and often ended significantly to the Left).
By the 1890s or so the die was set with capital/property ownership on one side of the divide and workers/utilitarianism on the other. And with most non-Marxist economists firmly on the property side of the divide. The subsequent theoretical and practical hostility to continuing labor progress in Britain and the Progressive/Populist movement in the U.S. that led to Trade Busting, Income Tax and the New Deal is perfectly understandable in light of that 150 years of political and economic history.
It may well be that many economists still cling to older style ideals about […]
Sheesh, KH. Is that all you got? Tobacco firms were in self defense mode? And: “ …Big Tobacco trick, they also paid for an effort to cast doubt on climate science.” Big Tobacco?
You can’t even get the librul story line straight. It’s “Big Oil” that supposedly funded studies that were skeptical of climate science. That’s worth another sheesh!
Good of you to do this “gently”, but you have identified CoRev’s long suit in argumentation. Insist on allowing only evidence favorable to the CoRev view, treat assumption as fact, jigger anything that can be jiggered to make the argument go the way CoRev wants.
CoRev has sprinkled his comments here with argument by assetion. Because there are non-conservative-leaning groups engaged in funding research, CoRev comes up with”that liberal bias and funding impacts science research.” There is no proof of a liberal bias. Only that science is mostly done by non-conservatives. CoRev simply carries on with an implicit assertion of liberal bias.
There is that other possibility, the one that CoRev demands we ignore. Conservativism, as newly defined in US political culture, is not compatible with scientific endeavor. Conservatives self-select away from science, because the demands of science for objectivity, for devotion to fact, intellectual honesty and discipline, are anathem to the authority-following tendency of modern US conservatism.
CoRev all of that would be a lot more convincing if we were not fully aware on the direct and indirect contributions from right leaning foundations and industry itself. Particularly the energy extraction sector.
It is as if you were totally unfamiliar with say the history of tobacco ‘science’.
The Koch Brothers and Mobile-BP are fully involved on the other side of this debate. Your claim that the money flow and subsequent bias only goes one way is laughable in light of post war history of industry funding ‘science’ that remarkeably ends up with finds that advance their interests.
You don’t think medical research is tainted by money from Big Pharma? Are you daft?
Roy Spencer may be ‘noted’ but all his statement boils down to is: “If you were devoting more spending to people who share my personal beliefs then we would be closer to reality”. That you cite the guys own blog as support is almost over the top. I mean Igor Velikovsky was ‘noted’, indeed world famous, and widely published, and no doubt was convinced that if everyone just started working on lines he was promotion that we would have a much better understanding of many, many aspects of history, geological change, and the evolution of the solar system. Why should I give Spencer any more credence than anyone (except maybe a lingering crank here and there) give Velikovsky?
I know you will never see this but your whole argument from beginning has a lot in common with the methods of the Young Earth Creationists, including that Congressman that insists that global warming HAS to be wrong because after all God promised Noah ‘No more floods’ (which might surprise some people in Queensland Oz today).
And while I haven’t read that article its title alone is suspect on several levels. First under some of the major theoretical models underlying pure science research today all research findings should be falsifiable, or else they would not be scientific. And until somebody publishes the Great Theory of Everything and has it stand up to scruitiny it is a truism that every piece of science is probably flawed (where probably should be taken as probablistically). But ‘flawed’ does not equate to ‘false’ unless you are a faith based absolutist.
Mike Schupp brought up the most recent scientific travesty/fraud with his: “ The argument doesn’t change if we deal with some issue other than climate — whether mercury in vaccines for childhood diseases causes autism, for example, or whether the speed of light is a constant.”
When just yesterday from here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/05/AR2011010506947.html
we find this: “Doctor faked data linking autism to vaccines, British Medical Journal says”
Mike I do disagree with you black and white characterization: “[b] in a situation where only True/False conclusions can be accepted,”. If I left the impression that scientific studies were 100% incorrectr when one area was falsified and or refined. No, that’s what science is about, BUT, the very Big issue is whether science is independent from political ideology, and the evidence proves otherwise. Nearly as important is the impact of ideology on the availability of funding sources and their preferred research targets. This may be especially true for AGW.
So with that analysis, how much credence do we want to put into public policy decisions based upon this scope limiting research?
your last paragraph says it all.
ILSM, I’m trying to understand the relevancy of your comment, and the latest certainly did not help.
Bruce3m you ken my point! You said: “First under some of the major theoretical models underlying pure science research today all research findings should be falsifiable, or else they would not be scientific.” In AGW, the ACO2 theory (reponsible for ?all? recent warming) is not falsifiable! Indeed, recent history shows us that it explains every extreme weather event.
Furthemore, saying this: “But ‘flawed’ does not equate to ‘false’ unless you are a faith based absolutist.” is the case for the pro-CAGW/AGW crowd. (BTW, C=catastrophic.)
Bruce you ken my point! You said: “First under some of the major theoretical models underlying pure science research today all research findings should be falsifiable, or else they would not be scientific.” In AGW, the ACO2 theory (reponsible for ?all? recent warming) is not falsifiable! Indeed, recent history shows us that it explains every extreme weather event. Not!
Furthemore, saying this: “But ‘flawed’ does not equate to ‘false’ unless you are a faith based absolutist.” is the case for the pro-CAGW/AGW crowd. (BTW, C=catastrophic.)
KH, other than you normal BS in the first paragraphs, your last is important in regard to the “self select” issue. My own thoughts are that conservatives more often self select to business, and as Anna suggests may self select to engineering. Conservatives are more reality-based versus theoretical? Dunno, just asking.
Your comment re: the current political environment may add some proof to the reality-based theory, as the librul theoretical-based politics. Example: How’s that stimulus working for un/employment?
CoRev the burden of the falsification falls mostly on the critic and has to go beyond simple faults. I remember when climate deniars were pulling single points out of ten year series ‘to prove’ that the series didn’t show warming. Until on a running ten year basis a few years latter that same evidence should have been for them ‘proof’ that they were wrong to rely on that to begin with. But like almost all conspiracists they just move on.
The question would be what YOU would accept as falsification for YOUR theory. And like Young Earthers it seems that nothing would cross that threshold. While your side has spent the last couple years mostly focused on one word ‘trick’ deployed by some arrogant scientist. As if that is new.
Let me return to my example of Velikovsky. Carl Sagan made some of his early reputation by showing definitively the Velikovsky had to be wrong because by his theory Venus had to be scorching hot and dry, whereas all serious astronomers agreed it was more like just hot also cloudy and wet. Well sixty years later the scientific consensus is that taken as a whole Velikovsky’s theories are still nutty and equally that taken as a whole Sagan was a very good scientist. But in point of fact Sagan on the narrow point of Venus’s atmosphere was wrong and Igor was right. Which climate deniers today in similar circumstances would be crowing about as sweet vindication. “Look Carl was wrong! and that guy in East Anglia wrote TRICK!” Yeah and Dan Burton proved Clinton was a murderor by executing a pumpkin in his back yard. Somehow you suspect the conclusion kind of preceded the supposed test.
CoRev if there was any consensus outside both halves of Jenny McCarthey’s brain that mercury cause autism you would have a point, maybe. But there was nothing even remotely approaching the degree of agreement among climate scientists.
You know it was only a few years back that you were using photos of ice coverage in the arctc to ‘prove’ that the whole melting ice caps thing was wrong, just anecdotal misuse of data. Well funny these days corporations are spending multi-billions betting that they will be able to drill and transit those waters and all the Arctic countries are debating new issues about freedom of the sea over areas that were not really considered sea to begin with.
I don’t why I am arguing, you were just about the entire reason Dan instituted Open Threads and then Non G-W Open Threads to begin with. Clearly I wasn’t going to convince you within the confines of a Social Security discussion.
Bruce, what was the point of your comment? Got a little convoluted. If you’re going to discuss climatology then at least stay on subject. Analogous materials, no matter how eloquently stated, do not add much to the discussion.
Bruce, I do not know what Dan was thinking in his creation of open threads. I remember they were quite active until it became obvious whoe had access to the most material, not unlike the SS threads.
Which brings me to what’s this supposed to mean? “Clearly I wasn’t going to convince you within the confines of a Social Security discussion.” I don’t joust with you on those threads as few try me on GW.
Bruce, I do not know what Dan was thinking in his creation of open threads. I remember the Open threads were quite active in GW discussions until it became obvious who had access to the most material, not unlike the SS threads. Oh, and until Climategate became well published.
Which brings me to what’s this supposed to mean? “Clearly I wasn’t going to convince you within the confines of a Social Security discussion.” I don’t joust with you on those threads as few try me on GW.
Bruce made this fundamentally flawed statement: “CoRev the burden of the falsification falls mostly on the critic and has to go beyond simple faults.” Fundamentally flawed because it is a preliminary test for proof of a theory. No theory is supposed to be absolutely true for every instance. By defintion you have yourself cited the “the Great Theory of Everything.” Regretably, that is the problem with the AGW theory. It is not falsifiable. Therefore, it is not science but ideology. Fanatical belief in that theory then moves it into the religion category.
Ergo, Mother Gaia rules!?!
I am not sure this post is supposed to mean other than scientists are prone to groupthink. It’s scary that there is such uniformity of thought in the sciences. Who knew that scientisits were such sheeple? Of course the vast majority of those polled were in “academia” so there ya go. Of course this poll was taken well before the mid-term elections when the Obama regime had high approval ratings. Did you know that most neurologists are Republicans? Did you care?
Or maybe this gives us some insight into the person who posted such stuff. No matter what you think of Bill Buckley he did have a pretty good line that he would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston phone book that the 2,000 faculty members of Harvard.
Ah, CoRev. The master of the dripping sarcasm. Wait! Master of character assassination! No, wait! Attribution of the other guys emotional state, that’s it. Dude, you have so many slimy tricks, you are a constant source of amusement and surprise. Oh, almost forgot. CoRev has also tried to get other commenters banned for disagreeing with CoRev. By his own admission.
Feel free to repeat the verions of things you just made up so that you can claim others are in error. See, CoRev, while you are selling a particular set of views approved by your masters, I am actually not in the business of selling either the liberal line or the librul line (for those of you who would rather sneer than spell). If the what you claim to be the “librul line” is wrong, that’s not really my problem. Tobacco paid for studies which would cast doubt on the dangers of tobacco and cast doubt on the dangers of carbon emission, the latter as a cover for the former. That’s what happened, regardless of whatever blather you care to write.
As the Great God Ronny would say, “There you go again.” You make constant use of argument by assertion and denigration. Some straight out, some tossed in in the form of “you (sic) normal BS”. Then you want to claim that the other side is engaged in non-falsifible arguments. Non-falsifiability and the crap you engage in are all of a type. They allow no room for the other view. You lie routinely, apparently on the assumption that lies of a particular type are unlikely to be uncovered. This business of non-falsifiability, for instance. I understand that’s part of the propaganda from your side of the argument, but where’s the demonstration?
And when confronted with the notion that the critic has a burden of proof, your answer comes pretty close to just saying “does not!”. You seem never to think you have a burden of proof. All you ever do is demand proof from the other side, and then say nonsensical things about it when its presented.
Take for instance the mindless repetition of “how’s that stimulus working?” (You really want to engage in what you mean to pass as reasoned debate by invoking saint Palin?) The stimulus undoubtedly save jobs. Simple as that. I’m interested that you prefaced what on the surface you cast as a question about economics by mentioning politics twice. Political theory doesn’t have one, single contribution to make to the logic of fiscal stimulus. I realize that every statement you make is really just an expression of a political agenda, but the rest of us have more honest inclinations.
KH, go to Ya, Huh?
Jack, the message is in the number of papers that are wrong (his words not mine.)
“Jack, the message is in the number of papers that are wrong (his words not mine.)” CoRev
It isn’t the number of studies that may be wrong that is significant. What is important is that studies instigate further investigation of the phenomenon in question and that some trend in the findings of those additional studies begins to shed some light on that phenomenon. And whose words they are is even less important unless those words are supported by carefully done research that is described well enough so that others can attempt to replicate the findings. That is, assuming that the phenomenon ibeing studied is of general interest to enough other researchers. But that is the nature of science. It sounds like Ioannidis has reinvented the wheel and both Kleiner and Spencer have jumped on the band wagon. Do they really think that they’ve uncovered a big secret?
That’s because this entire discussion isn’t worth the band width it is taking up. Each and all research reports stand on their own ability to be replicated. Any attempt to replicate research is dependent upon the interest generated by the research topic and the apparent significance of the findings that are reported. No blanket statement about the quality of research in general has any significant meaning. Flaws in a reseach design, a lack of reliability in the data collected, any specific criticism that can be directed at any individual project is just that, individual and exposiing little about the fields of science in general.