I’ve always wondered that.
Why Are Scientists Overwhelmingly on The Left?
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Because it's the party wing that understands that for the world and our species to truly flourish sometimes those 'ahead' of the curve need to help the rest for the greater good.
Even if it's not nepotism, even if they really worked smarter for every cent, it still benefits the world and humanity more if they help than if they don't.
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@RationalMadman
Because it's the party wing that understands that for the world and our species to truly flourish
(im assuming your referring to the democratic party)
Both the democratic and republican party are trash ones just a little bit better.
joe biden is trash, obama is OK at most did a lot of good and bad things.
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@Reece101
Scientists have been infected with communism SJW transgenderism ideology.
Irs mainly because of antifer
/sarcasm
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@drlebronski
I said party wing, not party
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@Reece101
Science and equality and reason and human rights all emerged together hand in hand from the Age of Reason. The Right-wing gets its truth from church and country, the Left-wing gets its truth from consistent results. Science and liberalism are on the same search for reasoned truth, while the Right most believes that the essential truth is already achieved.
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@Reece101
Cause that’s where the money is.
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@ILikePie5
Cause that’s where the money is.
Same reason why robbers rob banks.
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@ILikePie5
Cause that’s where the money is.
Exactly, because the left cares about reality, which is what science sets out to understand.
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@Reece101
Reality has a well known liberal bias - Stephen Colbert
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@Reece101
I mean... Have you SEEN the right?
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@Reece101
It is because highly intelligent people are compassionate.
"There's a correlation between high emotional intelligence and high IQ in psychological assessments," Christine Scott-Hudson, licensed psychotherapist and owner of Create Your Life Studio, tells Bustle. "We know that the higher a person scores in traits of empathy, the higher the person will score in traits of effective verbal comprehension."
In other words, empathy, which is part of emotional intelligence, and comprehension, which is part of cognitive intelligence, is directly linked. So if you lead with your heart, Scott-Hudson says, there's a good chance that you also lead with your mind.
Do you think Albert Einstein would have been a Trump voter?
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@FLRW
Do you think Albert Einstein would have been a Trump voter?
Do you think Einstein would have read "The Gulag Archipelago?" if he lived long enough?
So if you lead with your heart, Scott-Hudson says, there's a good chance that you also lead with your mind.
Hogwash. There's ample evidence that fringe radicals on both the left and right are both mostly populated by mouth foaming feel-good people with no critical thought process whatsoever. It's far more accurate to say the smartest people are the most moderate and based people, transcending biological impulses in favor of logic.
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@oromagi
Science and liberalism are on the same search for reasoned truth, while the Right most believes that the essential truth is already achieved.
Both the left and right is pro science. Many on the left deny the scientific basis that a fetus is a human being for instance (not all pro choicers are like this as some see the fetus similar to how many people see homeless people; human but not worthy of government help). At the same time, many on the right deny climate change (some believe in it, but don't want to do anything about it). Many lefties are scared of GMOs and antibody treatments for covid. Many on the right oppose vaccines and evolution.
Both parties listen to their own party rather than the science. The moderates tend to be more pro science than either the typical liberal or the typical conservative.
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@Reece101
It totally depends on the field:
“New data show that, in certain medical fields, large majorities of physicians tend to share the political leanings of their colleagues, and a study suggests ideology could affect some treatment recommendations. In surgery, anesthesiology and urology, for example, around two-thirds of doctors who have registered a political affiliation are Republicans. In infectious disease medicine, psychiatry and pediatrics, more than two-thirds are Democrats”
I know that engineers tend to lean right while academics lean left. Generally I’ve found that rightists are more interested in things, whereas leftists are more interested in ideas. Figuring out why is complicated and would be extremely fascinating if done in good faith, which I don’t think was the point of this thread lol. I wish people would just understand that people have fundamentally different worldviews, and it isn’t because the other side is stupid it’s basically just a personality facet
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@SkepticalOne
@Double_R
Reality has a well known liberal bias - Stephen Colbert
Exactly, because the left cares about reality, which is what science sets out to understand.
In 2019, there were ~27 unarmed black men killed by police. Among people who identified as liberal or very liberal, nearly half of respondents thought that over 1,000 unarmed black people were killed (over 5% thought that 10,000+ were killed) over 80% of conservatives correctly guessed that the number is between 10 and 100.
Liberals and very liberals thought that around 60% of people killed by the police were black, while conservatives thought it was around 40%. In reality, the number is 25%.
Meanwhile the governor of Oregon just implemented an outdoor mask mandate, which is completely unscientific.
Both sides have things they are irrational about, and if you pay attention with an open mind they occur in predictable ways. It’s actually pretty interesting, I’m trying to come up with a theory for what drives political affiliation but I’m kind of stumped at this point.
In 2019, there were ~27 unarmed black men killed by police. Among people who identified as liberal or very liberal, nearly half of respondents thought that over 1,000 unarmed black people were killed (over 5% thought that 10,000+ were killed) over 80% of conservatives correctly guessed that the number is between 10 and 100.
Actually I misread the graph a little. Liberals did significantly better than very liberals, with around 60% getting the correct answer—but still around 40% thought the number was 1000+, and their estimate on % of police deaths who are black was only slightly better than very liberals. The point is that both sides have their fair share of irrational beliefs and behaviors, if you can’t see that after 2020 where everyone went batshit crazy you’re being a hack. The only reason I consider myself on the right is because the stuff I think the left gets wrong is way way more important to me…no idea why that is
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@thett3
The overwhelming majority of climatologists say climate change is human caused and a serious issue.
The overwhelming majority of medical experts in the world say Covid needs to be taken seriously, and that vaccines are safe and effective.
Every elections board, every state certification, and every court challenge have all upheld the results of the 2020 election.
Yet in every one of these cases, if you are running for office on the political right you have to either say the opposite of each of these, or steer far away from talking about these in order to be a viable candidate.
Advertisers have even taken notice. Fox News prime time is famous for its ads praying on the gullibility of its audience and selling miracle cures. The founder of ScotteVest certainly noticed when he called fox viewers gullible idiots, and then there’s the whole Ivermectin fiasco…
There is no equivalent to this on the left. The closest you can find is the issue with policing statistics, but this is no where near the same level of nuttery.
No one is saying the left is perfect or right on everything, we’re saying the two sides are not equal. And they’re not.
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@Double_R
There is no equivalent to this on the left. The closest you can find is the issue with policing statistics, but this is no where near the same level of nuttery.
I mean the entire identity politics narrative that large portions of the left bases their worldview upon is completely wrong. As early as 1994 it was conclusively demonstrated in The Bell Curve that once IQ is controlled for all racial gaps between whites and blacks go away. That’s just one example. I also mentioned the outdoor mask mandate, but another example could be forcing children to wear masks that don’t even work eight hours a day or just COVID security theater in general which is heavily correlated with left leaning politics. Of course as we’ve discussed before the right has it’s own issues on the other end of that spectrum ;)
We can also talk about the increasing authoritarian bent of the modern left wing ideology. Two thirds of Democrats want government censorship, up from 40% three years ago: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/18/more-americans-now-say-government-should-take-steps-to-restrict-false-information-online-than-in-2018/%3famp=1
Or we can talk about how activist DA’s in places like Portland have enabled a crime wave due to their extreme political beliefs: https://mtracey.substack.com/p/media-activists-do-not-care-about For example large parts of California do not enforce laws against shop lifting, public defecation
, etc
I could go on and on. I grant you all of your points about the ideas where a lot of Republicans are wrong. I see no need to defend any of those. I think both sides are about equally wrong, Republican economics are pretty much objectively wrong while the leftist social policies inevitably lead to disaster.
The only one I’ll somewhat defend is the election one, I’ve done enough research to think that voter fraud wasn’t what did it (but mail in voting is a disaster) but the way that the results were reported looked sketchy as hell. 2/3rds of Dems believed that Russia changed the vote count to allow Trump to win in 2016: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/whoever-convinced-most-democrats-that-putin-hacked-the-election-tallies-is-doing-putins-bidding%3f_amp=true
Like I said…both sides have enough irrationality to go around
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@Reece101
Because leftists are overbearing and controlling.
THis is Clown World.
Oooh advocating giving pre pubescent children who are mentally ill hormone blockers and hormones for the opposite sex is another good one I just thought of. Like I said, anyone who thinks their “side” is right about everything is just a hack who is being dishonest even to themselves. The two “sides” are just about the broadest coalitions imaginable, there’s tons of dumb shit that slips in to try and widen the umbrella. It’s just a matter of what you prioritize
I answered the question asked, the rest are busy convincing you of their agenda.
Scientists tend to think in terms of logical tradeoffs and net-stastistical benefit. Both of these thinking patterns favour left-wing approaches to dilemmas.
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@oromagi
The Right-wing gets its truth from church and country, the Left-wing gets its truth from consistent results.
Sorry, but I find that analysis shallow and is, itself, politically biased. Scientific American disagrees,
They find no support for your claim.
I believe your claim is entirely based on media reporting of scientific exercises, preferring to cite scientists aligning with media sensibility; not exactly an unbiased industry, itself, so why wouldn't it appear that science leans left?
Bunk.
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@thett3
I could go on and on. I grant you all of your points about the ideas where a lot of Republicans are wrong. I see no need to defend any of those. I think both sides are about equally wrong
Then you have a serious bias problem.
I gave you three examples where there is no debate within the industry of experts or first hand handlers about the reality of the situation and yet the right wing has just ignored all of that and created their own reality instead. You countered with mask mandates, something the FDA and CDC both disagree with you on as well as the left’s attitude towards policing, an issue that is far more nuanced and based on far more than any statistic could ever reflect. And not for nothing, but much of it is about lived personal experiences you will never know anything about.
These are not remotely the same thing.
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@Double_R
Then you have a serious bias problem.
Hilarious. I'm the one willing to say that there's lot of dumb beliefs held by people on my "side" while you are not willing to make the same admission. But I'm the biased one
I gave you three examples where there is no debate within the industry of experts or first hand handlers about the reality of the situation and yet the right wing has just ignored all of that and created their own reality instead.
2/3rds of Democrats believed that Russia tampered the vote tallies in 2016, something there is no debate on by election experts: experts: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/whoever-convinced-most-democrats-that-putin-hacked-the-election-tallies-is-doing-putins-bidding
2/3rds of Democrats want government censorship, something that the vast majority of legal scholars recognize is a violation of the first amendment: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/18/more-americans-now-say-government-should-take-steps-to-restrict-false-information-online-than-in-2018/%3famp=1
As demonstrated, large percentages of democrats hold blatantly false beliefs on things such as police shootings, or believing that little girls should be given testosterone supplements
The mask stuff is only still an issue because a lot of people are still in panic mode, but I 100% guarantee you that once the dust settles SCIENCE isn't going to look back on many of the restrictions fondly. There is a growing body of evidence that non medical masks are almost entirely useless:
"A quantitative measure of apparent exhalation filtration efficiency is provided based on experimental data assimilation to a simplified model. The results demonstrate that the apparent exhalation filtration efficiency is significantly lower than the ideal filtration efficiency of the mask material. Nevertheless, high-efficiency masks, such as the KN95, still offer substantially higher apparent filtration efficiencies (60% and 46% for R95 and KN95 masks, respectively) than the more commonly used cloth (10%) and surgical masks (12%), and therefore are still the recommended choice in mitigating airborne disease transmission indoors. The results also suggest that, while higher ventilation capacities are required to fully mitigate aerosol build-up, even relatively low air-change rates (2 h−12 h−1) lead to lower aerosol build-up compared to the best performing mask in an unventilated space." https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0057100
The evidence against masking children in schools is robust enough to be conclusive: https://polimath.substack.com/p/the-case-against-masks-in-schools
The evidence against outdoor masks mandates is also robust enough to be conclusive. This is not a debate, this is a scientific reality. "That benchmark “seems to be a huge exaggeration,” as Dr. Muge Cevik, a virologist at the University of St. Andrews, said. In truth, the share of transmission that has occurred outdoors seems to be below 1 percent and may be below 0.1 percent, multiple epidemiologists told me. The rare outdoor transmission that has happened almost all seems to have involved crowded places or close conversation." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/briefing/outdoor-covid-transmission-cdc-number.html
And not for nothing, but much of it is about lived personal experiences you will never know anything about.
I'm curious about your lived experience. Why ARE you so partisan? A lot of your posts remind me of the kind of thing I'll see on the politics subreddit but, to your credit, you will actually engage with people in polite discussion. What do you love about the left so much? Did the democratic party lift your family out of poverty? Were you treated badly by kids coming from Republican families growing up? Were Trump's antics the last straw for you? What is it?
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@thett3
Hilarious. I'm the one willing to say that there's lot of dumb beliefs held by people on my "side" while you are not willing to make the same admission. But I'm the biased one,
Jordan Peterson has some great lectures about right brained people and left brained people.
His thesis backed by science insists how important it is to have both types for society to function. Neither type of person is "right" or "wrong"
over 6 million views on this particular clip.
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@thett3
The evidence against masking children in schools is robust enough to be conclusive: https://polimath.substack.com/p/the-case-against-masks-in-schoolsThe evidence against outdoor masks mandates is also robust enough to be conclusive.
The counter argument will always be that ~300 deaths out of 20 million kids is too much of a risk to allow 20 million kids to run around unmasked.
If 20 million masks can save 10 kids a year, then it's worth it!
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@thett3
I'm the one willing to say that there's lot of dumb beliefs held by people on my "side" while you are not willing to make the same admission.
I have criticized the left many times on this site including in prior conversations with you, and in my last reply to you I clarified that no one is arguing the left is perfect. You are having a whole conversation in your head.
This conversation is about whether both sides are equal. I’m explaining why they are not. Saying one side is worse than the other does not = the other side is perfect.
2/3rds of Democrats believed that Russia tampered the vote tallies in 2016…2/3rds of Democrats want government censorship…As demonstrated, large percentages of democrats hold blatantly false beliefs on things such as police shootings, or believing that little girls should be given testosterone supplements
The only relevant example here is the first because that is an actual matter of fact. Government censorship is a matter of opinion. Whether children should be given testosterone is a matter of opinion. Police statistics are not a matter of opinion but you cannot name one subject where a majority of any political group in America has an accurate grasp on the statistics, especially one as nuanced as police statistics. None of this compares in any way to the examples I gave.
The 2016 example would compare except for one huge problem… not one prominent voice on the left is claiming Russia messed with the vote tallies. This is is nothing more than misunderstandings of ignorant people who don’t follow politics closely and only read headlines. If any prominent Democrat or any prominent mainstream news host made this claim they would be immediately called out by the rest of their colleagues. That’s not remotely the case in the right.
The evidence against masking children in schools is robust enough to be conclusive: https://polimath.substack.com/p/the-case-against-masks-in-schoolsThe evidence against outdoor masks mandates is also robust enough to be conclusive. This is not a debate, this is a scientific reality.
Regarding masking in schools, you need to take your issue up with the CDC and the FDA. Again, this is not a comparable example. Even if they are wrong about this, we’re talking about whether both sides are equal in their disregard for inconvenient realities. You cannot seriously claim someone who is listening to the CDC is on par with someone who gets their vaccine information from Facebook.
As far as the outdoor masking mandate, do you have any current examples of this other than one governor in one state?
I'm curious about your lived experience.
The life experience I was referring to was that of black people who grow up in black neighborhoods. The reason I brought that up was to emphasize that unlike you or I, their positions on these highly charged issues isn’t a product of googling statistics on their phone or computer. Black people don’t put exclamation points on videos of police violence because it suits their political ideology, they do it because it is what they have been telling us is happening in their neighborhoods for decades. That doesn’t mean they are right and everyone else wrong, it’s just a very different thing than claiming the entire scientific industry is in on a hoax because you read it somewhere on Brietbart.
What do you love about the left so much? Did the democratic party lift your family out of poverty? Were you treated badly by kids coming from Republican families growing up? Were Trump's antics the last straw for you? What is it?
Do you have that much trouble understanding the left that you cannot find any other way to explain its prevalence other than through emotional attachment?
My political beliefs aren’t based on gratitude or trauma. I have no emotional vestment in the Democratic Party or the left nor do I regard it at all within my sense of identity. I align more with the left because the left is more aligned with reality. Show me I’m wrong and I will change my position. Is that simple.