On Dec 18, 10:48*pm, Gunner Asch wrote:
On Mon, 19 Dec 2011 00:15:16 +0000 (UTC), "K-Ric"
wrote:

From The St. Petersburg Times, 8/16/09:
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/colu...cle1027502.ece

Why scientists are seldom Republicans

By Robyn E. Blumner, Times Columnist

Have you ever wondered what the world would be like without
scientists?

Ask the Republican Party.

Scientists, engineers, and politics
August 11th, 2010 · 19 Comments · Uncategorized

1. The fundamental difference

There are many differences between scientists and engineers.

The most fundamental difference relates to what science and engineering
are all about. Scientists study the existing universe in order to
discover its underlying principles; engineers exploit these principles
to build useful things. Hence, scientists are concerned with the
natural; engineers with the artificial.

It’s a symbiotic relationship, in that engineers can’t build these
useful things without the findings of scientists, and scientists’
findings would be of mere intellectual interest without engineers to
turn them into practical advancements for humanity.

(Brief aside: Hopefully you will now understand that the term “rocket
scientist” is a misnomer. There are no rockets existing in nature,
waiting for scientists to come decipher their underlying principles.
Rockets are designed and built by engineers, so the correct term should
be “rocket engineer.”)

2. Political differences

There are other differences between scientists and engineers, too.

One of the biggest differences is that, generally speaking, scientists
tend to be liberal/progressive, and engineers tend to be conservative or
libertarian.

That scientists are overwhelmingly liberal is well supported by surveys
(see this post). That engineers are overwhelmingly
conservative/libertarian is widely believed (especially among engineers)
but I can find no studies or surveys that have been done to confirm
this. As a completely unscientific surrogate for a real survey *– i.e..,
as an engineering approximation (I would say “see what I did there?” but
that phrase has been played out by now) — I offer that a Google search
for “engineers are conservative” returns 821 hits, but only 53 hits for
“engineers are liberal.” (Side note: *I also searched for “engineers are
libertarian” and found a source that blames it on too much Robert A.
Heinlein. Guilty as charged.)

3. Why are scientists liberal and engineers conservative?

The following is my own speculation.

Scientists deal with the scientific method and apply it to investigating
how nature works. When a hypothesis fails, it’s still progress: the
scientist successfully proved that something isn’t the correct
explanation. Eventually the underlying principle is discovered,
reinforcing scientists’ faith in intellect and the scientific method. It
doesn’t seem too odd to me, then, that scientists lean towards the
liberal/progressive view that smart people can plan, manage, and fix
things, without incurring dangerous unintended consequences. (Einstein,
for example, was a huge fan of central planning and an apologist for
Stalin.)

Engineers, in contrast, deal with designing and building things that
have practical applications and have to work right, the first time.
When an engineering effort fails, it isn’t progress; there can be
serious consequences. Engineering efforts succeed by the application of
ideas and ingenuity through rigorous, well established engineering
processes. Young engineers who enter the workforce tend to be more idea
oriented than disciplined, so they eschew such processes (as I posted
about here). They also sometimes tend to be rather arrogant of their
abilities and intellect. This usually gets beaten out of them over the
first several years of their career, as they experience embarrassment at
their failures and a growing respect for established wisdom. It’s not
too hard to see, then, why engineers would lean towards a conservative
worldview. If you also add the fact that engineers encounter firsthand
the impact of politics interfering in what should be pure technical
decisions (think NASA having to compromise its plans and spread work out
over multiple congressional districts), and you get an extra dose of
cynicism towards those who think they can arrogantly intercede in things
they don’t understand.

Just as scientists defend science against quackery and take a dim view
towards “pseudoscience” (misguided beliefs and practices disguised as
real science), I think engineers are hostile towards what I’ll call
“pseudoengineering” — intellectually arrogant attempts to plan, manage,
and engineer things (e.g., society) that are divorced from any tried and
true processes and methods.

UPDATE (Aug 31, 2011): *Some empirical evidence to support the notion
that engineers are in general conservative: ”Engineers are measurably
more politically conservative than scientists. A 1972 study[4] showed
professors of engineering describing themselves as “deeply religious”
and “strongly conservative” more than those in any other field. Applying
the same analysis to data gathered in 1984 found 46% of male American
engineers describing themselves as both conservative and religious,
compared with 22% of scientists.” — Rational Wiki

One could not be a successful Leftwinger without realizing that,
in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers
and mothers of Leftwingers, a goodly number of Leftwingers are
not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Gunner Asch

I am a research engineer so I have a foot in both academia and
industry. Engineering research faculty (MIT, Caltec, Stanford et
all) is at least 95% liberal while within my industry there is a
50-50 split.