/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.1968014]

Scientists are overwhelmingly liberals. And this simple fact frustrates me pretty fucking badly. Why? Because conservativism is correct (once you exclude the bat-shit insane religious-right). Scientists think they are so fucking smart, that our convictions need to scale with our evidence, that we need to study things before drawing conclusions. When it comes to politics though they throw this core belief right out the window and make do with incredibly flawed thought-experiments and (wrong) intuition.

Scientists never bother to pick up an economics textbook. If they did they would realize they were wrong. They never bother to research history and delve into introductory political science. If they did they would realize they were wrong.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that if you are here you are probably a liberal, a smug one, and I hate you.

http://drudgeretort.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/most-scientists-are-liberal-democrats/

[Anonymous No.1968024]

>>1968014

>>Because conservativism is correct

You believe this because you aren't intelligent enough to understand why it's wrong. Scientists are. Quod erat demonstrandum.

[Anonymous No.1968025]

that's 'cause scientists don't really need to study economics. it is annoying when they feel they can comment on it though when they don't know shit.

[Anonymous No.1968030]

>conservativism is correct (once you exclude the bat-shit insane religious-right)

You mean libertarianism is correct?
imokaywiththis.jpg

[Anonymous No.1968032]

so why are there liberal democratic economists and political scientists?

[Anonymous No.1968034]

>>1968030
>bat-shit insane religious-right
>pic related

[Anonymous No.1968036]

>>1968032
there isn't really a correct view. it depends on social views and morality too. advocates for communal societies are moralfags to the extreme, while selfish saints tend to the right.

[Anonymous No.1968037]

>>1968030
Libertarianism is a centrist position not a conservative one.

[Anonymous No.1968038]

>>1968034
>implying Ron Paul, while a Christian, is bat-shit insane religious

[Anonymous No.1968042]

>>1968037
The guys over on Mises.org sure love old conservatives (first half of the 20th century) for their views on foreign policy and economic policy. Libertarianism isn't a conservative position, but if you remove the bat-shit insane religious parts from conservatism today and go back to early 20th century conservatives you end up pretty close to libertarians.

[Anonymous No.1968049]

>>1968038
He is a 100% dogmatic believer in the invisible hand.

Abolish all regulation and goodness will follow. Yeah right. Did you hear that the financial crisis was caused by too much regulation? Fucking fundamentalists.

[Anonymous No.1968052]

>He takes drudgeretort seriously

[sage No.1968055]

>>1968014
>conservativism is correct

LMAO

[Anonymous No.1968054]

>>1968049
>Did you hear that the financial crisis was caused by too much regulation?
>implying it wasn't
>implying Paul Krugman is right about anything

[Anonymous No.1968059]

>>1968042
Close, but I think there are some significant differences in the way those views are arrived at. Libertarians tend to be skeptical of government even if they advocate one, whereas classical liberals embrace government (they just seek to have it at an "appropriate" size). More importantly libertarians pretty much use a framework of property rights in forming viewpoints, whereas classical liberals do no such thing and instead base their positions on much broader natural rights.

[Anonymous No.1968060]

Scientists like mathematicians and physicists work with numbers. Numbers are predictable. People are not predictable. If you use same thinking patterns as when working with mathematics or physics you end up with unworkable theories and so what - it is not your field of expertise anyway.

Most economists vote Republican though.

[Anonymous No.1968074]

>>1968059
>whereas classical liberals embrace government
Well I don't know about that. If you read, for example, von Mises, who always labeled himself a liberal, he can at times come across as almost an anarchist. He considered government a necessary evil. Ayn Rand, on the other (who despised libertarians) considered government a necessary good. Locke of course pioneered the idea of natural rights, but Mises, as an ethical subjectivist, considered the idea silly. Rand based her entire politics on the rights to life, liberty and property. Rothbard and Hoppe (libertarians), on the other hand, have a much more property rights oriented view, considering even the right to life as a property right -- ownership in your own body.

The terminology can be a bit confusing though... I think it is much more useful to distinguish between minarchists (small government, Rand, Mises, Milton Friedman) and anarchists (no government, Hoppe, David Friedman, Rothbard).

[Anonymous No.1968077]

I think this is mainly because of that some researches are not allowed in a
conservative regime, like stem cells, human cloning, etc.

[Anonymous No.1968083]

Well, we better pick the right ism. Cause we can only pick one, and then we're stuck with that forever.

[Anonymous No.1968103]

>>1968038
He doesn't believe in evolution FFS.

[Anonymous No.1968114]

>>1968014

Your problem stems from the fact that Americans don't know what the fuck "liberal" means. American conservatives and some people on the more extreme end of the American left wing seem to think the word is a synonym for "socialism". I'm just waiting to see how long it will be before someone starts calling Stalin "liberal".

To people who have a brain and who can think beyond the current two-party system, liberalism can be either left wing (a lot of small Western European countries are an example of this) or right wing (like the US 100 years ago).

I'll wager a lot of those scientists are right-wing liberals who support Republican economic policies more than Democrat ones, but think the batshit insane religious right is a deal-breaker.

[Anonymous No.1968115]

>>1968074
even though Rand was a complete hypocrite