'most scientists are politically liberal'

[gh]

I suspect I'll end up having to lock this thread down, but it makes for an interesting read.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/1412 ... l_bias%29/

[jazzcyclist]

I believe J.R.Oppenheimer was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party when Uncle Sam dragged him out of a Berkeley classroom. Can you get any more liberal than that?

[gm]

Inhaling a lot of bad fumes in the lab will do that to your brain.

[kuha]

I believe J.R.Oppenheimer was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party when Uncle Sam dragged him out of a Berkeley classroom. Can you get any more liberal than that?

In the 1930s, many Western intellectuals were Communists or socialist sympathizers. In that era, it was a vaguely defensible (or at least "attractive") position--given the West's ignorance of the real situation in Soviet Russia. The Hitler-Stalin pact in 1941 was a huge wake-up call for many of these folks, and only the most rigid of ideologues (like Sartre for example) maintained those sympathies after the mid-1950s.

There are several good books on this overall subject, including Raymond Aron's "The Opium of the Intellectuals" (1957; reissued 2001).

[Pego]

An excerpt from the article.

"Only 9% of the scientists, meanwhile, consider themselves conservative, while fewer still (6%) identified themselves as Republicans. It's just speculation, but the party's hostility towards the basics of modern biology, global warming, and evidence-based reasoning may have something to do with this."

[lonewolf]

Not as shocking as how many liberals there are on this forum

[jazzcyclist]

Well, conservatives can claim William Shockley as one of their own. It just so happens that when I was in college, my summer employment took me to Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, where I worked in the same room where, according to legend, Shockley and his colleagues invented the transistor.

[bad hammy]

In no time at all you have drawn out some of our most dedicated bleeding-heart liberals and cold-hearted conservatives!

[kuha]

In no time at all you have drawn out some of our most dedicated bleeding-heart liberals and cold-hearted conservatives!

He's got it down to a "science."

:lol:

[SQUACKEE]

Well, conservatives can claim William Shockley as one of their own. It just so happens that when I was in college, my summer employment took me to Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, where I worked in the same room where, according to legend, Shockley and his colleagues invented the transistor.

I'm conservative on some issues but even my tiny little brain knows that Shockley was a racist and many Democrates at the time were as well, correct?
I therefore think its unfair to paint Shockly as a Champion of Conservatives- i could be entirely wrong and talking out of my ass though. ops:

[Marlow]

from the wiki article on Shockley:

Shockley also proposed that individuals with IQs below 100 be paid to undergo voluntary sterilization. He donated sperm to the Repository for Germinal Choice, a sperm bank founded by Robert Klark Graham in hopes of spreading humanity's best genes. The bank, called by the media the "Nobel Prize sperm bank," claimed to have three Nobel Prize-winning donors, though Shockley was the only one to publicly acknowledge his donation to the sperm bank. However, Shockley's views about the genetic superiority of whites over blacks brought the Repository for Germinal Choice notable negative publicity and discouraged other Nobel Prize winners from donating sperm.

The professors at the nation's most elite universities are overwhelmingly 'liberal'. From great minds . . . :twisted:

On the other hand, it's hard to 'trust' intellectuals who often have a rather tenuous grasp of what life is like out in the Real World!

[SQUACKEE]

I think this proves that all smart people are liberal, unfortunatley liberal today will be considered conservative in the future and that means that all the smart people today will eventually be idiots.

[bambam]

During the Duke Lacrosse episode, one the vaunted Duke professors wrote a letter to the local paper, The Herald-Sun, stating (from memory here), "Let's face it. Most conservatives are pretty stupid." He was likely a member of the Gang of 88 that roasted the Duke players in a famous letter, and made some more friends for the Duke faculty.

[Cooter Brown]

During the Duke Lacrosse episode, one the vaunted Duke professors wrote a letter to the local paper, The Herald-Sun, stating (from memory here), "Let's face it. Most conservatives are pretty stupid.".

Was he paraphasing John Stuart Mills?

I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.

[bad hammy]

Was he paraphasing John Stuart Mills?

I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.

Too funny. Mills must have been the Olberman of his day!