Educated young shun GOP
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An article by Dr. Science posted on Obsidian Wings, puts together some interesting research from the Pew people, commentary from Slate, Salon and the Economist. It’s title: ‘How The Republican Party Broke Up With Science.’ Pew Research found that 23% of the general public identify as Republican, only 6% of scientists do.
Some interesting excerpts:
The first is that scientists are hostile towards Republicans, which scares young Republicans away from careers in science. The second is that Republicans are hostile towards science, and don’t want to go into careers in science. The third is that young people who go into the sciences tend to end up becoming Democrats, due to factors inherent in the practice of science or to peer-group identification with other scientists.
Republicans have gone from having a clear advantage among top students in the decade following the Eisenhower administration, to being competitive under the Nixon and Ford administrations, and from being an energetic minority during Reagan and Bush Sr. to being almost eradicated today.
While students have fled the Republican Party, they do not seem to have moved very far to the left. The Weathermen are long gone. Hippies, utopian Marxists, socialists, anarchists – groups that were prominent in the 1960s and 1970s – are marginal today. Rather, today’s best students identify as slightly to the left of center, policy-wise liberals who massively prefer the Democratic party.
Today’s top students are motivated less by enthusiasm for Democrats and much more by revulsion from Republicans. It’s not the students who have changed so much. It’s the Republicans.
If someone other than Al Gore, had become spokesman for climate change, perhaps the republicans would have been less hostile towards it. Their opposition could be just partisanship in the extreme. But, by denying climate change, an alienation has taken place between young scientists and the republican party. Scientists have a habit of being in touch with reality.
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What a great post. It is sad that the Republicans eschew science but supports the premise that those who vote Republican are less aware than those who do not. Notice I stopped short of saying that those who vote Republican are dumber than rocks.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dave Strickland, Holte Ender. Holte Ender said: RT @madmike1 Educated young shun GOP http://bit.ly/dNmqrG […]
“Today’s top students are motivated less by enthusiasm for Democrats and much more by revulsion from Republicans.” That’s me in a nut shell.
Me too, the alternative is too terrible to think about. We might have to think about it in 2012 owing to the combustible nature of voters.
Love the T-shirt.
Pity about the Republicans. I really fail to understand how a political party can be against science. It’s like being against gravity.
It might pull you down, but you can’t ignore it. It just is.
Science should be the same. Entirely objective observation and systemic theorising.
It’s not gravity, it’s intelligent falling.
“it’s intelligent falling”
or is it intelligence failing?