Factlet of the Day

With 52% of those polled identifying themselves to be liberal, which way greater than the number of the general public that identifies as being liberals, this only confirms the GOP claim that most if not all of the alarmist science claims or scares are result of politicized "scientists" who are attempting to pursue their own ideological agendas through their work as abetted by their allies in the mainstream media.

Unless their conclusions are backed up with evidence that withstands scrutiny, nothing these "scientists" say about anything should be accepted as fact or truth.

And although most people are now aware that aspirin is recommended to prevent heart attacks, the public is still having trouble with the issue of whether electrons are smaller than atoms.

I'd settle for people knowing where Iran is. Or Iraq. Or Sweden. Or Indonesia. Or any country in Africa.

Probably as an ancilliary part of the Southern strategy, was to pursue evangelicals, at the expense of alienating scientists.

But honestly electrons smaller than atoms. I was an astrophysics major, it is not a meaningful question. Because of quantum mechanics, it totally depends on the frame of reference, and they are both fuzzy objects with no clear boundary. But for particle physics, more massive particles are actually smaller -so even though an atom contains electrons, and other things, you could claim the atom is smaller.

Chicounsel wrote: "Unless their conclusions are backed up with evidence that withstands scrutiny, nothing these 'scientists' say about anything should be accepted as fact or truth."

That's rolling-on-the-floor hilarious, coming from someone who never does anything but post blatant lies on blog comment pages.

How many of your "conclusions" have been peer-reviewed before publication, asshole?

Although, since your "peers" are other weak-minded, mean-spirited, ignorant, maliciously dishonest Ditto-Heads, that wouldn't count for much anyway.

The modern republican party has nothing but contempt for the things which scientists value: evidence, the scientific method, and intellectualism in general.

No, these numbers would not have been the same 30 years ago - or even 10 years ago. The GOP chose to make scientists unwelcome on two fronts - the embrace of religious dogmatism over science (e.g. creationism, hostility to stem-cell research) and the frontal assault on science inconvenient for corporations (e.g. climate change.)

This is not a problem for science; it reflects a deep problem for republicans. But I'm sure that driving scientists out of the tent somehow makes the GOP more pure, or proves that they were right to hate all of those pointy-headed scientists with their "facts" and "evidence".

I wonder how scientists compare if you control for income and education.

Right--I'm curious about scientists with earnings in the bottom quintile of the population, as well as scientists with no more than a high school education.

Scientists in the bottom quintile of income you can find pretty easily.

However, no more than a high school education? That one is tough.

DWN

Most "scientists" polled were probably academics, whose lefty leanings are well documented (they're AAAS members, and I can't tell from the web page if it's a primarily academic group, but I would suspect it is). Find a group of PhD's who've been building things in industry for 10-20 years, and find their leanings. Might be a bit more interesting.

Also, having listened at length to many dedicated Democrats go on and on and on about feng shui, acupuncture, homeopathy, cancer caused by electric fields and cell phones and part-per-billion pesticides, Mother Earth, Gaia, energy fields, auras, herbal medicine, witchcraft, and the innate superiority of Earth Centered Cultures like Native Americans, I would hesitate before being too smug about the scientific ignorance of Republicans. Every inclination has its idiots. Just sayin'.

Oh, and about electrons: if the size of something is measured by the smallest box in which it can be kept in a stable state, than an electron is by definition the same size as a hydrogen atom. Again, just sayin'.

Marc,
I've worked with quite a few PhD scientists in industry, and they were an interesting bunch. They didn't see themselves as engineers, they were scientists. I suppose it's how you define it.

As far as the electron goes, I am actually curious - it's been a while since I studied this. Can you really localize one to several orders of magnitude smaller than an atom? I suppose that reverse beta decay is one way to do it, but that doesn't really fit the definition. What are you thinking of?
My statement about electron size refers to a stable state, btw, so I'm not so sure it's invalid.
Also, you must have an awfully big house....

I haven't had to do math this hard in years, but it looks to me like the top part of the chart has 7% of scientists awol and the bottom part is missing 4%.

Are they hiking the Appalachian Trail?

Trekkers? Wiccans?

Who are these vanishing scientists?

This thread may be almost dead, but I have a few observations to share. The context is that I am a physical scientist, employed all my life at major research universities. I don't pretend that this is anything other than anecdotal information, but I think I know my peers quite well.

First, regardless of political orientation, most scientists I know are quite impressed by major industrial and financial leaders, even if we disagree completely with their political views. That is, the notion of liberal disdain for such people does not describe my personal experience.

Second, we are generally liberal, although the strength of that tendency is stronger among those my age or younger. (I'm 53.) A few years ago most of the people on my corridor checked out the Political Compass website. Scores ranged from roughly (-6,-6) to something approaching (0,0). The American political spectrum is almost entirely in the upper right quadrant. This group was somewhat younger than the average in my department and did not include several colleagues who I'm sure would have scored closer to the American mean.

Third, leftist expressions of pseudoscience are regarded with contempt. The Sokal Hoax was very popular among my professional peers. However, leftist nonsense is regarded as irrelevant because its practitioners were (and are) politically impotent.

Fourth, political conservatives among my peers are deeply embittered by the last few decades of Republican behavior. They take anthropogenic global warming seriously, think that evolution is the only rational explanation for the history of life on Earth, and are not amused by governments that espouse fiscal conservatism in theory, but in practice have been hellbent on bankrupting the US. They have not become liberal so much as they have become disenchanted.

The fact that you can easily find scientists in the bottom quartile by income is telling. I believe conservatives are less inclined to pursue a course of study that is not more lucrative than most scientific fields.

The more business-oriented scientists are probably more Republican. Is this because liberals are less predisposed to value the money to be made, or is it a result of making the money?

I suspect that the college-bound youth who are more likely to choose a career wondering, questioning and experimenting might be more naturally inclined to also be politically liberal, while those more concerned with personal security are more conservative. Is this a nature or nuture?

The fact is that, like so many other groups, scientists have been left behind by the Republican party. When they see their professional and personal values denigrated by the party, they are alienated.

Response to Ethan:
I acknowledge your points, with a significant exception: that the practitioners of pseudo-science are politically impotent. Look up the career of Senator Tom Harkin. With the possibility of government deciding what health care to fund - comparative effectiveness and all that - this becomes a huge issue. How much money do we spend on acupuncture and homeopathy (also known as "prescribing pure water")? You had better believe that it's going to be a lot more disruptive to the budget than a bunch of flatheaded idiots in Kansas pissing on Darwin.

to Paul Camp:
Thank you! I get very frustrated with people who view an electron as the classical ball-type particle that's just hard to pin down. Isn't that way at all. The more I studied quantum physics, the more I came to realize that the macrocosmic concept of "size" doesn't really translate very well to the quantum world. The only real answer to "how big is an electron?" is, "It depends." The best way to compare protons and electrons is mass, which is pretty well defined (Ok, if you ignore general relativity. Sue me.).
The thing that got me about Kevin's declaration is that he's being a bit arrogant about how NOBODY REALLY GETS THIS, when he sorta gets it wrong himself. It's the same danger in a lack of humility that tripped up Robert McNamara, the subject of a previous Kevin Drum post.