A new study by the Pew Research Center finds that the GOP is alienating scientists to a startling degree.

Only six percent of America's scientists identify themselves as Republicans; fifty-five percent call themselves Democrats. By comparison, 23 percent of the overall public considers itself Republican, while 35 percent say they're Democrats.

The ideological discrepancies were similar. Nine percent of scientists said they were "conservative" while 52 percent described themselves as "liberal," and 14 percent "very liberal." The corresponding figures for the general public were 37, 20 and 5 percent.

Among the general public, moderates and independents ranked higher than any party or ideology. But among scientists, there were considerably more Democrats (55%) than independents (32%) and Republicans (6%) put together. There were also more liberals (52%) than moderates (35%) and conservatives (9%) combined.

"These results were not a complete surprise," said Scott Keeter, Director of Survey Research at Pew, in an interview with the Huffington Post. He said they can be mostly attributed to "the difference between Democratic and Republican parties with respect to issues."

The wide ideological and partisan gap among scientists may have been exacerbated by the Bush administration, which often disputed broad scientific consensus on topics such as evolution and climate change.

Keeter acknowledged this factor, but said that "many of these disputes probably predate the Bush administration," noting that scientists have favored liberal views in numerous past studies.

Religion also plays a role. Republicans tend to promote the centrality of religion more often than Democrats, and while 95 percent of the public said they believe in "God" or "a higher power," only 51 percent of scientists claimed either.

"Many Republicans, especially the Evangelical wing of the party, are skeptical of evolution, and have argued for the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in school," said Keeter.

The results could merely be a reflection of how scientists see the world, rather than of partisan loyalties. In a series of questions posed, the study found that the answers of scientists were consistently more in line with liberal viewpoints than those of the general public.

"The Republican Party has a number of leaders within it who have challenged the accuracy of scientific findings on issues such as climate change, evolution and stem cell research," Keeter told the Huffington Post.

"It suggests that scientists who are Republicans might feel some dissonance from the party's position on some things that are important to them. And while there are Republicans in the scientist sample, there are really not that many," he said.

Imagine the work Faux News has to do to find someone to talk about that global warming thing.
The other scientist haven't figured out why the number is so high.

Uh, so what? What percent of the population are Drs? What percent of them believe in global warming? What percent of gays suck. Evidenty the result of that poll would really excite you.

Seems to me that scientists are alienating the Republican party,only 6% are Republican. The scientists need to be more tolerant of differing views.

I am thinking they vote democrat because they are on the government teat.

My official made up statistic is that 95% or those that identify themselves as "scientists" are government employees or douche bags.

The rest identify themselves as chemists, engineers, climatologists, hydrologists, etc.

YUP!! Very few vote outside the trough.


Try teachers.

Excellent observation.

Bullsh*t meter in the red. Many like you and the other posters are in denial . Scientists polled have Phd's.

im more science oriented than most.....but most are on the .gov dole and have been since day one....most the ones i know in the private sector are conservative, public dole are liberal.....where their paycheck comes from weights in heavily....

Bullsh*t again. What you are saying 94% of scientist are government employees?

I kept reading "The Huffington Post" throughout the article. You can be assured of unbiased and no-spin reporting for sure.

nope saying its a poll which is easy to phug with and saying a hell of alot of scientists are funded by .gov directly or indirectly.....just cause the paycheck isnt signed .gov doesnt mean thats not where they get their money

You mean like Profs at State Colleges and Universities?

Administrators in State and Federal Ag, wildlife, water, ecology, and other assorted Departments surely cannot be what you are talking about either...

And getting returns from those folks instead of the private sector "scientists" must be pretty easy to organize...

LHW, I'm saying 97 % of BLACK cokmie dimocraps agree witu you. Are you saying that makes you right?

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_400k_yrs.html

My time in Pasadena with Cal Tech professors and graduate students who had passed their orals. And BTW they were from from all over the globe. There was not one who was right wing or conservative, not one was a government employee. The theory only "government scientist" are center/or left is complete hogwash.

Scientists always have their hands out for MY money to conduct their pet projects. They live and thrive by government grants.

Why wouldn't the welfare-scientist vote democrat?

Tell us about your time sucking liberal cock?

Your BS meter may have been designed by a scientist rather than an engineer and made by a scientist rather than a skilled machinist or technician. For openers, almost all who call themselves "scientists" have to have a Ph.D because it is the union card for that type - self selecting breed. Whom do you know with a B.S. or M.S. that truly labels him/herself a "scientist"? They need that "terminal degree" to get onto the roster of all of the government funded "research" projects" where almost all of them collect their salaries - unless they are on the roster at some university - and many of those are supported by government grants. If they lose their grant funding, they lose their jobs. Have you ever worked at a high level in an industry that depends on scientific effort and outcomes? Almost all of the Ph.D folks in those settings live by a title other than "scientist". P.S. - and don't fool yourself by thinking "hard science" either - folks with Ph.Ds in anthropology, psychology, sociology, geography, political science, etc., etc., etc. often consider, and call, themselves "scientists".

Tell us about how it is now too cold for most of the North American Hemisphere to support growth of the Giant Redwoods as it used to. Tell us how it is now too cold for Greenland to be green or for Great Briton to grow grapes and make wine. Tell us how smart your mother said you are. Tell us how great it is to suck covk and swallow.

OP ... Bullsht

wow liberal college professors and grads, who would have guessed....your digging a hole not proving your point

LHW, tell us how stupid it was for our Christian founders to say we are born with certain inalienable rights which includes such sorry POS's like you and sac and sickermore and nwa? And tell us what internet rights you would have in the commie countries all you pos corcksuckers support.

You should go to bed tonight and thank God i cant get close to you.

I will tell you true, in Korea and Germany I had uncles kill better men than you. Sorry if any of those dead were more than any of your friends.

http://cfif.org/v/index.php/comment...than-democrats-according-to-pew-research

Lhw, its plain to see doubling our national debt in 8 years is good for us isnt it. Having open borders is great, right. The ten most bankrupt cities in the US have been under dimocrap control over 20 years.

You havent the mental capability to even comprehend the importance of these things.

Keep trying to enlighten us.

There you go talking about more sucking dicks again

Why not come out of the closet, and maybe you'll be able to lose some of your anger issues?

That's because most academics hang around college and never leave after that first whiff of Communism.

You send any brainless 18 year old to a college for 4 to 6 years and you will most likely end up with a liberal. Send the same person to work or the military and you get a conservative
Thats why scientists are not republican. Very simple. ED K

Give 'em some big 'ol grant money and the research
will say whatever you want it to say. Typical
liberal democrat faux science. Agenda driven.

No link has got my BS meter up.

http://www.petitionproject.org/

Over 31,000 scientists, with over 9,000 of those with ph.d's, say BS to climate change.

Appears to be dated. Edward Teller, who's name is displayed on the home page, died more than a decade ago.

So its the GOP that is alienating scientists? How about its that science, especially biology (If you can even call it a science---yes, I said that) and atmospheric science are completely politicized and thus driven by a political agenda to which the GOP is quite properly opposed.

That's what is actually happening.

So 6% are dumb enough to be Republicans. Which is surprising that ANY "scientists" are Republicans when the Republican party is generally hostile to science.

But then there are the one's that are smart enough not to be Republicans, 55% are dumb enough to be Democrats; that's a laugh.

I'm not thinking very highly of 61% of the scientists in America.

Apparently only 39% of US scientists are smart enough to see neither party has one shred of a clue.

The Republican Party is not hostile to science. Don't see an anti-science plank anywhere in their platform. What conservatives have tended to do is be skeptical of agenda driven "science" masquerading as empiricism. Libs, on the other hand, are quite content with that kind of shoddy work because it's in the service of their political agenda.

I doubt the validity of that 'poll'. I know a lot of scientists, both in Academia and industry. Many of them are staunch conservatives. Numbers far in excess of 6%.

Republican "science" is 100% agenda driven, give me a break. Also their anti-evolution bent is further proof that Republicans care far more about votes than they do science.

Just watch Republicans in congress question people on the subject of climate change. It's like retards trying to relate to real people (retards being the Republicans).

Not that I favor the Democrats on the issue either.

I see true conservatism as being pretty far removed from the Republican party.

Are you saying that Cal Tech does not receive any government grants for research? I suspect it does.

Goodness gracious, Republicans are not anti-science. Rob has it right. There are sciences where you have empiricism, hypothesis/proof, repeatability. Those are "hard" sciences.
Then there are stacks of soft sciences where causal relationships are not subject to experimental control, like climate change. It's not like we have an effing "control" planet to run a series upon.
And then you have the Pew study -- if these guys are scientists, why in HE!! do they have ANY political affiliation at all...and why, when the cross section of the American public is center-right, academics are a complete, order of many standard deviations, outlier?
Sheesh.

Head in the sand, or just slow learners.

And by the way, very little of science is empirical...kinda shows your lack of the scientific process.

Dumb-ass reply.

How do you see evolution and man-made climate change fitting into "true conservatism"?

BS what a load of crap this study should have been printed on TP..

You can make a poll show any results you want.

I don't. I do see prudent management of lands and resources as true conservatism. I see fiscal responsibility as true conservatism. I see acting cautiously when things are unknown and "better safe than sorry" as a near definition of conservative. I don't see either party embodying those traits.

So, forgie, you think the feds are doing a prudent job of "management" with their "science?"
Never mind the "precautionary principle" you allude to is right out of the conservation biology (itself an overtly political conflation) playbook of doing nothing, especially if doing something would be beneficial to human communities?

Hell, I couldn't have said it better.

Prove it.

Are you kidding? They had might as well be government employees. Goverment funding for Cal Tech - the primary source of their faculty/staff salaries - is MAJOR.

At CalTech - the largest federal agencies contributing to research are NASA, National Science Foundation, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Defense, and Department of Energy.[83] Caltech received $144 million in federal funding for the physical sciences, $40.8 million for the life sciences, $33.5 million for engineering, $14.4 million for environmental sciences, $7.16 million for computer sciences, and $1.97 million for mathematical sciences in 2008.
The Institute was awarded an all-time high funding of $357 million in 2009.[85] Active funding from the National Science Foundation Directorate of Mathematical and Physical Science (MPS) for Caltech stands at $343 million as of 2011, the highest for any educational institution in the nation, and higher than the total funds allocated to any state except California and New York.

BTW, how in hell someone can be a gun lover and not be a conservative Republican is beyond me.

For the OP....

Read this. It supports the PRC findings and explains why. Excellent.

"They had might as well be government employees". Not really. Can you claim you, anyone you know or any one here on this forum gave much thought to how your school was funded and it influenced your political leanings? Let's be realistic. No one at Cal Tech that I knew gave it any thought from the many conversations I had with them. Though there are examples in our history of the right smearing the left . Such as how right leaning Edward Teller threw Robert Oppenheimer under the bus during the cold war. "I have become death, destroyers of worlds" R. Oppenheimer after witnessing the first atomic explosion. Inspired by the Gita. The Gita lead to Oppenheimer teaching himself Sans Script. But that is for another day.

Dude your really starting to ramble on now.Smoke a joint and chill man. ED K

A lot of people seem to think that the words "republican" and "conservative" are synonymous. These days, those two terms seem to be mutually exclusive.

Here's a good critique of Mooney's horse [bleep].

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/the_republica065781.html

Seems like you are babbling I never said that the funding of Cal Tech influenced the politics of those who studied there - I said that they might as well be a government run school because the Feds fund the place with grant money. If you think the "scientists" who work there are not on the government dole, and if you think they would be working "scientists" without that government grant money, you must be using wacky weed. I can't say that being on the government teat is certain to make a person a liberal democrat, but I can agree that much of human nature - even the nature of "scientists" - is that they will give allegiance and favor to the source of their boondoggles. That is the point someone else made earlier - seemed to prompt babble.

Chris Mooney? Should be Moonbat.
Went to work at American Prospect (commie). Correspondent for Mother Jones (real credible there) and works at the Climate Desk, which is a collaboration of
The Atlantic, Center for Investigative Reporting, The Guardian, Grist, The Huffington Post, Mother Jones, Slate, and Wired.
Grist, Huffpo, Mojo and Slate are all vastly to the Left of the mainstream, and Atlantic has really gone to Pravda the last few years.
Funding for Climate Desk comes from Surdna Foundation, the Park Foundation, the Rosenthal Family Foundation, the Fidelity Charitable Trust, the Vanguard Charitable Trust, and Patagonia.

Park is a zillionairess who basically bankrolls the anti frackheads in the Marcellus. Surdna, Andrus family, more commie libtards, Patagonia -- Fidelity and Vanguard have huge operations as a pass through for anonymous giving.
Yeah, Mojo -- I can see you are really objective when it comes to your sources about science.