Do we need more republican scientists?

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.

Welcome to Broad Impacts!

Broad Impacts is an informal group of graduate students, post-docs, and faculty members at the University of Minnesota who want to explore how science interacts with policy, politics, and society at large. Our goal with this blog is to engage with the world, both in our area and outside our university. We want to share our thoughts and to hear yours.

If you are affiliated with the University of Minnesota, we would welcome you at our discussion groups. Three sessions will be held over the summer (dates will be posted here soon), and will continue in the fall semester.

We look forward to filling this space, and your heads, with ideas about science policy!