Republicans And Scientists Are Incompatible

Recently author and progressive blogger Amanda Marcotte wrote an excellent article for The American prospect, in which she takes Daniel Sarewitz of Arizona State to task for saying that scientists should support the Republican Party more (so they won't cut funding for scientific endeavors). Marcotte rightly points out that who the scientists support politically wouldn't make any difference, since the Republican Party is not anti-science because scientists are Democrats. They are anti-science because that's what appeals to the fundamentalist base voters of their party. It's an excellent article, and I recommend you read it.

But one thing I found very interesting is just how much scientists have turned their backs on the Republican Party. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, since the Republicans (in their effort to appeal to fundamentalist luddites) have attacked the validity of nearly every branch of science -- from evolution (biology, anthropology) to the planetary age (geology, archeology) to the enviornment (chemistry, environmental scientists) to global warming (climatology) to the big bang (physicists, astronomy) to medical and sexual issues (public health researchers) just to mention a few. Since the Republicans have no respect for nearly any branch of science, it just makes sense that scientists wouldn't want to be in that party.

The latest figures on scientists and their political views comes from a three year old Pew Research Poll, but I doubt that much has changed. If anything, the Republican Party has become even more virulently anti-science in the last three years. It turns out that scientists are significantly more Democratic and more liberal than the general public. Here are some numbers to ponder:

Party Preference of Scientists
Democrats...............55%
Republicans...............6%
Independents...............32%

That's pretty heavily weighted toward Democrats, but when you consider how the Independents lean it becomes even more lop-sided. And this is spread across all of the sciences, with the most Republican-friendly science being chemistry (at 9%).

Democrats/Dem. leaners...............81%
Republicans/Rep. leaners...............12%

The same lop-sided numbers show up when political ideology is considered.

Liberal...............52%
Moderate...............35%
Conservative...............9%

The Republicans should learn from this. You simply can't declare war on a group of people and then expect to get their support. And scientists aren't the only group the Republicans seem to go out of their way to alienate. They have also followed policies that discriminate against women, minorities, immigrants, and college students -- and then acted like they were surprised when these groups voted against them in large numbers in the last election. Scientists are just one group among many that have been affected by the divisive politics of the Republican Party, and like those other groups, they have reacted negatively to those policies.