It's not wholly unbelievable. There are plenty of people who are fiscally conservative but socially liberal, and it wouldn't be at odds with a natural-scientific vocation to hold conservative views regarding government and taxation. Not that I agree with them, but someone can still be a conservative while at least having an ounce of common sense when it comes to natural history and the like.

There are also a few extreme social conservatives who effectively label themselves as natural scientists although their credentials don't really match up to the field they allegedly study in. They call themselves scientists in a bid to make their pointless twaddle sound somehow credible.

While I can't speak for religious scientists as a whole, I do know a couple of devout Christians who just happen to be biochemists, and they're actually quite realistic and humble people.

And the South is full of morons. What's your point?

Yes, a model with government and business can also fail, though less so because the government is more of a reasonable agent that has a more flexible and more global mandate than the businesses who are for the most part "dumber" agents in the model with a one-track goal (profits). Yes, they can be incredibly creative in the accomplishment of that goal, but their goal is still incredibly narrow, making them dumb in the grand scheme of things, much like a software program that plays chess incredibly well, but doesn't see the world beyond the chessboard it plays.

However, the government is essentially a proxy to the voting population and like all proxies, it can have an agenda of it's own which may diverge significantly from the agenda of those it represents if not properly monitored. It is still a necessary component in addition to businesses who won't even pretend to be proxies to the general populaces and rather will be fully constrained by our economic model (as opposed to think outside of it) and will float and sink with that model.

To an extent, the current failings of your government is that it tied itself too closely to to your economical and political models and have been unable to think outside of it. It could be a much more reasonable actor if it tied itself to the more philosophical goal of serving the populace well (which it still does to an extent, it is not as tied to the political model as business, especially larger ones, are to the economical one).

Ultimately, you need to involve an unbiased (or at last, biased in a desirable manner) rational actor more directly in the process: the voters.

Yeah, I'm going on a limb hear and guess that most people (at least the majority in democratic countries) vote on what they feel is right, the ideologies the parties may represent, what their parents voted or their friends vote on. I wouldn't call that rational. You might have meant the voting system itself but that is only a model, theory or an ideological approach which makes it less complicated than reality.

The voters are not perfectly rational, but they much more flexible than businesses and somewhat more flexible than governments as their interests are not as tied in existing models as those 2 entities are though voters can still be indoctrinated into thinking that current models are an end rather than means to an end (as shown by the resurgence of the idea that a free market model will solve everything by itself and will be a stable long term solution).

The reality is still that the voter's interests isn't intrinsically tied to the voting model the way businesses are for the economical one and the government in power is to the political one. Rather, the voting model is simply an orderly (and it's current state, lousy) vehicle for voters to exert their power and voters do think outside of it all the time. Most voters in Canada would like it changed, but the current power structure gives that authority to the government who interests is more firmly entrenched in the existing political (and by extension, voting) model.

I never said that you're an anti-vaccer, I said that you're as bad as the anti-vaccer, and this post really confirms it.

I'm not going to bother responding to you any more, as you're either a troll or incurably dumb.

So let's go with the percentages given. What's the point? If they aren't scientists then they're doing something else productive. Shall we lambaste the Democrat / lib / progressive for being less represented in those other areas? And which scientists? Computer scientists? What relevance would that have when the article is speaking mainly of climate matters?

For what it's worth, I find in my work that most business owners I deal with lean conservative / libertarian and not libo-progressive. Yet their businesses are also embracing 'green' in various ways, and often at great effort and expense.

Since the linked article focuses on climate change and green initiatives, I find it to be a narrow view of the matter that looks not-quite exclusively at the scientific community and very little on the overall picture. Looked at another way: liberal scientists might be the ones coming up with the data, but (in my industry, at least) conservative business owners are the ones doing something about it. Yay - they're working together.



Anyway, +1 for fun with generic labels, categorization, and stereotype.

useless topic
not so smart scientists

In the US, conservatives hold to a set of views that are wholly incompatible with science. It's not just one or two areas, their entire party platform involves finding the most anti-intellectual, anti-government, anti-science positions they can find and see if they can read their own party platform with a straight face.

What's more, the fiscal conservatives are constantly trying to cut various scientific funding, and as a result, even the scientists with fiscal conservative views would be making a mistake to join a party that regularly attacks their source of income.
It's not really a stereotype, it's regularly written into the party platform.

Right, because the the $700,000 the US spent on a study that involved putting shrimp on treadmills was worth every penny........Like most things, science and research are better off without the government, and its bureaucracy and waste, not to mention the corrupt and incompetent people running it., both conservative and "liberal" progressive alike.

Don't even try, bro. Liberal economy doesn't work much on GOG forums. I lost hope like 2 years ago.

At least you seem to believe what you post. In his case, he's just a forum troll.

As for the shrimp on treadmills experiment, I didn't read the experiment proposal, but it's pretty clear that they were studying the shrimp's mobility for possible future use in robotics. Considering that 2, 4 and 6 legs are the most likely number of legs for animals to have, it would be negligent to not study them.

Computer scientists are scientists only on the loosest sense of the term.

If you're a Phd in Computer Sciences doing research, yeah, you're a scientist.

If you're a bachelor/master in computer science writing software, you're really more of a software developer.

And it warms my heart to know that they are doing it. Without bashing all businesses though, most aren't doing more than the required minimum and the bigger the business is, the less likely they are to do it (unless it can be translated in future commercial success somehow, maybe with good PR, but then I guarantee you that they will do the strict minimum just to get the PR or to get the non-profit environmental groups off their backs).

We're not doing enough and also, without some sort of regulation enforcing ecofriendliness (or at least manipulating the variables for it to be the profitable alternative), the main players in the industry won't do a thing.

Bruce Schneier said it best in the context of security when he said something along the line of: "Sometimes, some security measures might make the most sense for everyone, but it might not be the most cost efficient thing for a company making the decision. If a CEO wanted to slash 25% of profits to significantly improve national security and I was on the board of directors, I would fire him".

Oh, are you one of these guys that calls anyone who disagrees with you a "troll" or some such thing? Right, that follows, seeing as you also the type to throw around cheap ad hominems, and actually support the idea of spending hundreds of thousands of US dollars, to put crustaceans on exercise equipment.

Do you even realize that that experiment was a)Cheap as hell and b)Actually really important? Analizing how shrimp moves has actual uses and calling it "useless" or wasteful only shows poor understanding. Research is not only done for primarily and immediate practical reasons. The shrimp study was about HOW it behaves and reacts due to changes on the water quality, and that IS extremely important since shrimp is a goddamn staple food.

He is not calling you a troll for disagreements, he is calling you a troll because your post seem to indicate a willful ignorance, or just not engaging with the arguments presented.

Nnnnnnope. State intervention IS the motor of goddamn science. Why? Because "free" enterprise will fund only what leads to immediate application, patent the shit out of everything and limit access. Public funding leads to more research, infrastructure construction, development, and dissemination (in the best of cases, in practical terms, even those are extremely limited and have hurdles to the access, as seen with Aaron Swartz's exploits and suicide). So yeah.
No. You are just plain wrong in that aspect.