Scientists leave GOP due to attitudes toward science, say Utah educators

[n2doc]

By Judy Fahys | The Salt Lake Tribune


Scientists used to be well represented among the nearly half of Americans who voted Republican. But that’s changed over the years, and one poll found that just 6 percent of scientists call themselves part of the GOP now.

What happened? There might not be textbook answers, but there are theories.

Barry Bickmore, a professor of geology at Brigham Young University and onetime Republican caucus delegate in crimson-red Utah County in the nation’s reddest state, has pondered the issue at length. He contends his party is increasingly ruled by zealots and a demand for "ideological purity" that turns off scientists.

He says most examples are in the environmental sciences. And he points to the time in 2009 when majority-party Republicans in the Utah Capitol put climate-science doubters on a pedestal — while rejecting the mainstream scientist view about the danger global warming poses and even taking a beef about a Utah State University physicist to the university president.

"Scientists just don’t get those people," he says of Republicans who adhere to party orthodoxy about scientific questions on climate change, evolution and other hot-button issues. "They [in the GOP] are driving us away, people like me."

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http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/56795477-90/science-scientists-gop-http.html.csp?page=1

[denverbill]

1. Can't say this surprises me at all.

I don't think their rejection of evolution probably does much to encourage scientists to vote Republican either.

[n2doc]

2. Scientists can put up with ignorance and apathy

and do all the time. It is the willful stupidity that is too much for us to take.

[TxDemChem]

6. I agree completely.

Just this week, my lab manager again made comments about climate change. She likes to joke that since it gets cold in winter and hot in summer, that PROVES climate change doesn't exist, all while she also complains about drought-induced water restrictions in our area. I'm not sure what goes on in her head, but she has also said that we shouldn't sell our products to middle eastern countries because no one cares if women and children die from mosquito-borne illnesses. Just, wow.

[n2doc]

7. I think I would find another lab manager

Anyone that deluded can'y be trusted. And there are good people in TX, I had a tech there who was the best I have employed.

[TxDemChem]

8. I'm looking. I was hoping she'd retire soon, but

She really can't afford to. Her husband has been sick and hasn't worked in a long time. Oh, which reminds me of her coming to work telling me all about death panels. She's mostly staying for the benefits, I think, because no company would insure her husband. She complains about the ACA, but it would help someone like her husband when she does retire, which may be sooner rather than later. Our company got a new CEO a couple of years ago and to avoid layoffs, he offered up retirement packages for many people 65 and older. He's no longer CEO, but I think the new guy may do the same thing.

She really epitomizes the idea of people voting against their best interests.

[MannyGoldstein]

3. I'm sure that's a big hit to the party

The number of Republicans must have dropped by by (6.02e-23)%

[TxDemChem]

12. Love your mole reference

[Jackpine Radical]

4. They've all been bought off

by Al Gore.

[madrchsod]

5. just read about a cancer research project funds being cut

the researchers were to the point of pleading to the representative not to cut their funding. the cuts would set back research months if not years and yes the representative is a republican.

[TxDemChem]

9. I saw that article

That was just sad.

[libodem]

10. I wondered how they balanced

All that cognitive dissonance? I'm glad to hear this. I'm glad to see gay folks run away from religion, too.

Religion needs to keep up. I swear when history looks back on this period, it will be considered a modern dark age. Mainly because of Bushitler II. Even Obama hasn't seem to raise the waters that will lift all boats.

BTW, I scored 100% the other day on the Christian Science Monitor 50 question science quiz. Many educated guesses. I thought I'd miss about 5. Surprised myself. All kinds of questions from the periodic table to the moons around other planets. Go try it.

[ck4829]

11. Scientist voting GOP? Not voting against your interests, more like voting against your existence

[Chemisse]

13. Bush thumbed his nose at science repeatedly and shockingly

I can't imagine any scientist who could continue to support the GOP after 8 years of that creepy, create-your-own-reality regime.

[sakabatou]

14. I wonder why they didn't leave earlier.