In this interesting article published last December in Slate, science policy theorist Daniel Sarewitz claims that there are too few republicans in science. The numbers are damning: only 6% of scientists are republicans, while 55% are democrats, 32% are independent, and the rest don’t know their affiliation. Sarewitz attributes the rampant science denialism in this country to the fact that democrats have claimed science as their cause, leaving republicans without a foot in the scientific door, and therefore free to deny the scientific truth of things like climate change and evolution.
Sarewitz makes some interesting points, and the cited statistics speak for themselves, but the troubling part is when he claims that the lack of republicans scientists is a problem. Saying something is a problem implies that you know how things should be. Sarewitz's solution here seems to be to get more republican scientists. This solution is plagued with its own problems. How many republican scientists do we really need? Should the democrat:republican ratio be 1:1? Should it match that of the general population? Who can possibly choose this value?
Consider the case of women in science. Compared to men, the number of women succeeding in scientific careers has historically been quite low. In this case, the problem is not that the man:woman ratio is unequal. The problem is that there are barriers to scientific success that disproportionally affect women (hidden sexism, family commitments, lack of mentors, etc). Solving these problems will not necessarily make the number of women in science equal to the number of men, because that cannot be the final goal. Solving these problems would make the field more accessible to any individual interested in succeeding in it. What if, without these barriers, there ended up being more female scientists than male scientists. Would that be a problem? Perhaps that’s a topic for another blog post.
When you break down the lack-of-republicans-in-science issue into small elements, it becomes more likely that the low number of republican scientists is a cultural epiphenomenon. A great number of things factor in to this “problem,” including poor science literacy, extreme partisan politics forcing all-or-none political attitudes, inadequate communication of scientific findings to the general public, and lack of funding for science by republican administrations.
What Sarewitz gets right is that scientists should acknowledge this issue, discuss it, and think about the factors at play. Maybe in the end they will end up with great ideas on how to fix some real problems.
The questions of gender and racial demographics in science are interesting and important topics to discuss. It is plausible to argue that some factor of the community itself has limited equal opportunity to scientific careers, but to include political affiliation is unfair. It would be absurd to claim that the scientific community is purposefully inhibiting Republicans from joining the field. Unlike gender and race, political affiliation comes with an ideology. Some ideologies just do not mesh with science. For some reason or another, a majority of Republicans have decided to refute the discoveries and claims of so many scientific experts.
ReplyDeleteThe question shouldn't be "Do we need more Republican scientists?", but rather "What is it about scientific ideology that Republicans refuse to agree with?" It's not that Republicans are being pushed away from science, and thus leading them to refute scientific ideas. On the contrary, they refute scientific ideas, and so they can find no place in the scientific community.
Science has for a long time not been a major platform issue of the Republican party. It's not a coincidence that few Republicans join the scientific pursuit. It's like asking "Do we need more Democrats in the NRA?"
I would agree that the two-party system does not benefit the scientific community. But out of the 32% of scientists who identify as independents, I wager that most voted for President Obama and sway towards liberal motives. Even the 6% that claim to be Republicans are likely there due to financial reasons.
The problem isn't that there are few Republicans in science, but instead that there are few Republicans who care about science. Perhaps this is an issue of education, but I find absolutely no reason to promote the inclusion of more Republicans and conservative thinkers into a progressive field.