92 Comments

"Bias" has nothing to do with whether you are liberal or conservative; it has to do with how you assess information that might change your conclusions. Self-identifying as a liberal, or conservative, or any other "-ism," strongly suggests bias,but reaching conclusions which are associated with one or the other does not necessarily.In science, we should judge a position not by whether we agree with it, but by the quality of the process. Reasonable people will reasonably disagree, and can learn from each other. People who reason from conclusions are a waste of time, and certainly not scientists, regardless of degree or job description.

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Just read Don the dummy, shows you everything you need to know.

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I'm a conservative guy who has a degree in Research Biology. A good chunk of what the poster Mike was saying is true. Being seen as conservative in an academic environment is like being a communist during McCarthyism.

Anyone who has been a science major in college knows that the professors actively push liberal agendas. They pressure young 18, 19 year old kids to think the same way they do. It's basic brainwashing 101.

Additionally, once I graduated... research failed to really appeal to me as a career because the pay and grant system seemed to not reflect the effort or effectiveness I put into my work. Instead I went into biological sales. I make 2 to 3 times more than my research peers.

It's funny because the top students in my class work as dentists, doctors, and in sales with me. I don't believe the vast majority of research scientists are not the top students in college. They tend to be the people who don't compete well and that makes jobs where you are compensated for your effort and not your results.

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There's more than one political dimension, and there's more than one kind of science.

Scientists whose living depends on tax-funded grants are indeed selected to favor big government -- both because they want to keep the grant-deciders happy, and because those who feel that tax funding of science is morally wrong will tend not to look for or take those jobs.

Meanwhile, there is a strong correlation between one's view of economics and one's political leanings. Modern economics (the Austrian and Chicago schools) gives a better understanding of how a huge government budget drags down the entire economy than does the discredited Keynesian school, so those who understand the modern kind of econ almost always become conservatives or libertarians.

As a corollary, I suggest that a survey of scientists broad enough to include a lot of scientists who work for private, non-tax-funded organizations will tend to find a more balanced spectrum of political views than one which concentrates on government institutions and the "university-agency complex".

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this result is unsurprising. sadly for most conservatives, reality has a well-known liberal bias. since scientists are, as a group, people who must confront reality it cannot be considered remarkable that they would tend towards views that are generally denoted by the term "liberalism."

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Did scientists start out as liberals and simply apply their bias to their work? Or did the work they do, the exploration of the world as it is, lead them to more liberal definitions of "truth"?

I think it is the latter. As Stephen Colbert says "Facts seem to have a liberal bias"

If you look at almost any scientific issue today, its the conservatives who are mounting challenges to established scientific thought. They are simply sitting back and saying "Nuh Uh" They are looking at the work done and denying rather than doing the work themselves, they are intellectually LAZY as a rule.

Science is far from perfect but I have much more respect for the humility that is built into the scientific method than the arrogance with which most conservatives look at the world. How can any thinking man buy into any of the modern American conservative movements poor excuse for a well reasoned, well thought out platform?

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I miswrote here. It is 98% of scientists who are supposedly "non-conservative." So, supposedly we have 10% of scientists who are either moderate or liberal who somehow do not believe in the theory of evolution. I find this hard to believe, almost as hard to believe that only 2% are conservative, as way more than that whom I know are conservative.

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The public would consider scientists to be less authoritative as a neutral source on policy questions

Well, now, wait a minute. If everyone can accept that a scientist can be religious without compromising his scientific work, why is it untenable to expect that a scientist can be political without compromising his scientific work?

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Dear Wayne:

You are insulting conservatives. And sadly: (1) you don't even realize it, and (2) you have a lot of company among left-leaning academics. Just take a look at your own words. They are strongly reminiscent of those used in the past to justify black slavery, not letting blacks vote, etc. If you appled your words about conservatives to blacks, while simultaneously applying your words about liberals to whites, you would be rightfully called a racist. Right?

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Liberal? As in real liberal? As in the original, laissez-faire liberal?

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Scientists in the academic community trend liberal. I'm not so sure that holds for scientists in industry and government contracting, however. I would also assert that academics account for the bulk of publications, hold the most positions in academic societies, and also are the most vocal in their views. But I suspect that industry scientists account for more patents. Guess why? Because in both cases, that's what their jobs are all about! Anyway, it is also my experience that academics often consider themselves to be above their industry colleagues in status and intelligence, while considering the typically higher-pay that their industry counterparts earn to be unfair. This perception of unfairness reinforces their liberal bias that capitalism itself is unfair. Have you ever heard a professor declare himself or herself to be overpaid? When I left graduate school, I thought I was very smart and that working in industry would be easy, since all the really smart people were in academia! I was dead wrong. I'm not proud of how arrogant I was, but at least I got over it. Unfortunately, it would seem that permanent academics seldom do ever realize that they are not intrinsicially any smarter than their industry counterparts. They like to think of industry scientists, the free market, capitalism, profit, and anything they deem to be other than pure scholarly non-profit academic activities as simply uncivilized and brutish. They think academics (like themselves) should be in charge of the world, and be paid the most too, not those brutish capitalists. And this deeply skews their views of politics.

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Not sure how those 4 sympathies relate to vanity, but if so then color me vain.

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I would have thought the first thing out of most people's keyboards would be criticism of the methodology. You should just ask people how they "identify," you should ask them what their stances on issues are. Identifying as liberal or conservative is highly dependent on context and social standards. It's not very informative to know what labels people use when they think of scientists vs. what labels scientists apply to themselves; they could both be right about their actual views!

Not to mention asking someone to qualify everyone in a profession along a rather sharp dichotomy may not be the best way to get a precise answer.

But never let an absence of an actual dispute get in the way of a good debate...

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Citation needed.

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I don't think we should be reading too much in these polls, at least no just yet, so far we don't know the causes or consequences of scientists' liberalism - a large portion of the result might be explained as just a fad, as the Republican party is not particularly popular at the moment, maybe exacerbated in academia by the perception that the last Republican administration has been anti-intellectual, or at the very least unwilling to fund certain scientific endeavours. But the point is, if it were a fad it would probably be only a temporary result.

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The liberal bent of the scientific establishment isn't a trivial characteristic. It has legitimate implications for their work and the manner in which they interpret results.

Stephen Jay Gould was infamous for doing so, including his disputes with Dawkins and his conspicuously erred Mismeasure of Man.

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