Science
Related: About this forumScientists leave GOP due to attitudes toward science, say Utah educators
By Judy Fahys | The Salt Lake Tribune
Scientists used to be well represented among the nearly half of Americans who voted Republican. But thats 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 nations 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 dont 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
(11,489 posts)I don't think their rejection of evolution probably does much to encourage scientists to vote Republican either.
n2doc
(47,953 posts)and do all the time. It is the willful stupidity that is too much for us to take.
TxDemChem
(1,918 posts)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
(47,953 posts)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
(1,918 posts)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
(34,589 posts)The number of Republicans must have dropped by by (6.02e-23)%
TxDemChem
(1,918 posts)Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)by Al Gore.
madrchsod
(58,162 posts)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
(1,918 posts)That was just sad.
libodem
(19,288 posts)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
(35,037 posts)Chemisse
(30,802 posts)I can't imagine any scientist who could continue to support the GOP after 8 years of that creepy, create-your-own-reality regime.