Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

Ironically, the accompanying istock image in the article above might be partially to blame. At least, an example of the deeper problem.

The iconic stereotype of scientists in western society includes a removed, aloof character that is disconnected from you’re average person. This is encouraged when a general representative of ‘scientist’ portrayed (as above). While there are no doubt many reasons contributing to the absence of scientists in politics, I think the expectation of scientists to be disconnected observers who are out of touch with Joe Average plays a role.

The same reason we never get picked for juries. Those who wish to sway the opinion of representatives do not want their campaign contributions countered by the inconvenience of cold, hard facts.

As Manticore correctly points out, American politicians are not typically scientists, especially at the national level. Check out the percentages in China’s government, for example, and you see the opposite situation.

Or, perhaps because American politicians – again, especially at the national level – must be very wealthy to win a Congressional or Presidential campaign, and since scientists and engineers aren’t a high percentage of the one percent, they are unable to sustain a campaign.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/11/chart-of-the-day-1.htm l

PS: It helps if you have a serious political system that is not bought and sold by corporations.

Americans will only vote for candidates who state they belief in a fantasy man in the sky who determines our fates and controls access to the afterlife. Scientists typically base their beliefs on evidence-based, peer-reviewed science – thus the disconnect.

Neil Tyson Degrasse http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kKuXgzXt5U

A US politician’s job, especially at the national level, is mostly managing staff, some political strategy, and making speeches. All the nuts and bolts work is done by staff. Does manipulating people and public speaking really sound like work for an engineer?

Also, it makes a sort of sense that legislators are largely lawyers. Their core job function is creating laws after all. Doing so well ought to involve a thorough understanding of the legal principles used in their interpretation.

Because Americans stupidly won’t elect an atheist.

Been pondering this for years and believe there is a method. When Government fails to ‘promote the general welfare’ it opens itself up to improved methods. More structured methods exist that can be instituted to force our representatives to actually carry out what voters want; not what representatives want. America is not static, it learns – albeit slowly. Additional depressions will eventually force changes. One method would require voters to declare stances on all issues via an electronic QFD analysis, in order for voters stances to have legitimate voting weights. Voters QFD inputs would highlight tradeoffs for each decision. The complexity of QFD would need to be taught but its excellence for determining which way to head ends up being stunningly straightforward and has a common sense reality to it. QFD would end up documenting every stance, all arguments and tradeoffs, and the mathematics dictate which direction/decisions to make. Until a book is written on how to implement it I would recommend reading the next best book: The Law by Frederic Bastiat, (tiny) from ~1860.