NationStates Jolt Archive

I'm curious about how you perceive that, as a group, scientists tend to lean politically. Does it depend on what branch of science they work in? (Poll coming.)

I'm a math/physics high schoool teacher do I count? Anyway, typical nasty liberal do-gooder.

They probably are mostly centrists, left-liberals and libertarians.

I'm thinking more of academics than scientists in general, but I'd say they're moderately leftist on average.

I suspect that most scientists are actually politically apathetic, though I'm sure it varies by subject.

Judging from books I've read by authors who were scientists, they seemed like liberals.

In my experience, scientists aren't that different from the rest of the world. Some of us are very into politics, some ignore it. Some of us are centrists, some left, some right. Opinions on the role of government in funding and regulating research are different. There are kooks among scientists (luckily, they generally can't get published), there are incredibly intelligent people, and there are people who barely passed through. There are religious scientists, agnostic scientists, and atheist scientists.

It can have to do with the field, but I have seen all of these things among the biological sciences. Level of involvement in politcs and the side chosen can definitely be partially determined by how the current administration treats science in general, or the particular field in which a scientist works.

from what i've seen, left-liberals are more willing to listen to scientists, so i assume the reverse is also true.

I ticked Communist/Anarchist because I am both. I'm also a huge technophile.

Generally 'liberalism' increases with education, so i'd wager they are on the whole more liberal than conservative.

dude communists arent anarchists what the hell

im voting nazi just so my vote cancels out your vote

Generally 'liberalism' increases with education, so i'd wager they are on the whole more liberal than conservative.

especially since conservatism never really got around to liking science as a social enterprise. it generally conflicts with the impulse towards traditional authority, knowledge, and institutions. so i would wager most people who held such beliefs would tend to disproportionately not go into the sciences.

especially since conservatism never really got around to liking science as a social enterprise. it generally conflicts with the impulse towards traditional authority, knowledge, and institutions. so i would wager most people who held such beliefs would tend to disproportionately not go into the sciences.

Apart from Physicists. Those dudes are evil fuckers.























Nah, I'm joking. Only the Physicists I know are evil...and some of the Mathmeticians.

it depends on who they're doing research for $$$

dude communists arent anarchists what the hell

im voting nazi just so my vote cancels out your vote

Try looking up Anarchism on wikipedia mate...

Four words:

Margaret Thatcher, chemistry graduate.



(And ex-industrial research chemist, helped invent soft ice-cream.)

Four words:

Margaret Thatcher, chemistry graduate.

i blame the nefarious merger between chemistry as a science and for-profit corporate research

Everything in the scientific culture tends towards statism and authoritarianism. Scientists *need* the bureaucracy to back them up. The most bureaucratic place in the world is the university.

Worker's movement and other traditional leftism isn't there. Maybe some socialist-- uh, sociology whiners advocating state control for everything, but that's just plain statism, not traditional leftism or communism.