Science: Why so few Republicans?

“Where are the lab-coat conservatives?” asked Andrew Sullivan in TheAtlantic.com. A recent survey by the Pew organization found that among all U.S. scientists, only 6 percent identify themselves as Republicans, while fully 55 percent are self-declared Democrats and 32 percent are independents. The political imbalance is striking, said Chris Mooney in DiscoverMagazine.com, but it’s not exactly shocking. Mindless hostility to science, after all, is something of a badge of honor in the modern Republican Party, which now requires adherents to don “ideological blinders,” denounce climate change as a hoax, and even question evolution. To be a scientist, you are required to base your conclusions about the world on evidence. That pretty much rules out Republicans right there.

Let’s be scientific about this, said Matt Steinglass in Economist.com. There are three possible hypotheses for the partisan imbalance. It might be that Republicans are hostile to science, but it also might be that “scientists are hostile toward Republicans, which scares young Republicans away from careers in science.” Finally, it’s possible that the culture of the scientific community—rather like that of the military—influences young scientists to adopt the political beliefs of their peers. There’s an issue with the data here as well, said Alana Goodman in CommentaryMagazine.com. Far from surveying all U.S. scientists, this Pew study chose its sample entirely from the rolls of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which, despite its bland name, is really an “advocacy group” that lobbies for stem-cell research, green-energy projects, and other causes “intrinsically tied to partisan policy positions.”

Whatever the reason for the disparity, said Daniel Sarewitz in Slate.com, we need to fix it. The paucity of politically conservative scientists only justifies the widespread belief among Republicans that science “is corrupted by ideology and amounts to no more than politics by another name.” It’s no accident, for example, that belief in man-made climate change is often tied to advocacy for policy responses that “Democrats love and Republicans hate”—such as binding international treaties, redistribution of wealth, and taxes and penalties on businesses. A “politically diverse scientific community” would ensure that ideological groupthink didn’t set in. Such diversity would also make it far more likely that Republican voters, and future Republican administrations, would respect and heed advice and warnings from scientists. It may come as news to liberals, but the reality is that “a democratic society needs Republican scientists.”

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