This is a problem, and it really has nothing to do with specific policies or parties.
Any democracy will evolve into a multi-party system. In the U.S. we've basically went with two parties, and it looks like we are stuck with it.
So in a two party system, any group that completely affiliates with one party, either by membership or just tradition, both damages that party and the group itself.
What I love about politics is that it shows humans at their most irrational: from the Nobel Laureate to the rocket scientist, when you get them talking about politics it's the emotional brain first, the logical brain second. People are like this in all areas of reasoning, it's just politics is the easiest to observe. So, for instance, watching somebody bullshit themselves about politics is a pretty good quick and dirty indicator of how they're going to bullshit themselves about whether or not you need a new server rack.
I don't think every issue naturally has two sides to it, but because politics is emotion-based and not reason-based, I don't think it matters. There should be as many scientists roughly in each party. It's a very interesting observation that there are not. I believe journalism is similarly skewed. So when story X comes in over the transom from NGO group advocating some cause, the reporter picks up the phone and consults with several experts. If the odds hold, everybody in that little scenario is a member of the same party, with the same prejudices towards how the story should be told.
Not a good thing.
I imagine -- without looking at any other comments on this thread -- that there will be a lot of "but the scientists are actually scientifically choosing to be Dems, because it's not logical to do otherwise" or perhaps blaming the Rs for being so bad that no decent scientist would support them. This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about (and probably a good reason for the post to be considered of dubious merit for HN) It's a shame, because the larger issue causes all sorts of other problems.
I don't think it matters. There should be as many scientists roughly in each party.
But why? I mean, this statement seems like a religious belief. There is no obvious reason to believe it true.
Many interesting properties have a significant partisan valence. For example, authoritarianism correlates strongly with political conservatives in north America [1], so why shouldn't science aptitude as well?
My point was that if you started with no parties at all, then developed parties, that there should be an even split -- if no other factors were involved.
Of course, there are many other factors, and we can endlessly speculate as to what they might be. But for purposes of the relationship between one group and one party, whatever the group or party, my example holds.
Of course, a fine counterargument to that is "but there is nothing like what you describe, so your thought experiment is useless" To that the best I can come up with is to take at look at early American politics, when the parties first developed after the founding of the government. At that time it was a pretty even split (as far as I have been told)
There is a lot of correlative science going on in this area, and I would be very careful not to confuse correlation with causation. I would also be careful (and I know you know this if you know anything about politics) about exactly how such studies are conducted: the questions used, the implied bias, etc.
Somebody who was not careful could take reams of this "science" of correlation and string all sorts of theories about people, such as right-wingers are more happy yet stupider and more authoritarian. Or whatever. I'd be very careful walking down this road, and not simply because of the flaky nature of the science. It's beginning to look like scientists are making an effort to explain why people could be so stupid to be conservatives, and that's not a good place to go. Not because you'd piss off folks, but because there is a great danger of political science itself becoming an echo chamber. Once you box-up any opposition, you can lord over the poor unwashed masses, whether you mean to or not. And that is really bad for both the science itself and the way the science is conducted.
My point was that if you started with no parties at all, then developed parties, that there should be an even split -- if no other factors were involved.
Right, this is a religious belief you have. It is a belief for which you've provided no evidence to support. You're making an assumption here.
To that the best I can come up with is to take at look at early American politics, when the parties first developed after the founding of the government. At that time it was a pretty even split (as far as I have been told)
I really don't see how going back in time helps your argument at all. The nature of political parties and how Americans understand them has changed significantly over time, to say nothing of the demographics of the group we call scientists. Going back in time raises a whole lot more questions than it answers.
To that the best I can come up with is to take at look at early American politics, when the parties first developed after the founding of the government. At that time it was a pretty even split (as far as I have been told)
Absolutely, and stupid people have done precisely that. But I've read Altermeyer's book and there are lots of researchers who are careful. The Wikipedia link I gave above gives a good summary. In brief:
- the issue is not that conservatives are stupid; there's no correlation between authoritarian tendencies and intelligence
- lots of conservatives are not authoritarian at all
- most (almost all) authoritarians who have political preferences are conservative
I don't think we're going to get very far, but I'd simply point out that I made an assertion that began with "if you started with no parties at all" and then provided an example to support my thesis.
I really don't see how going back in time helps your argument at all. The nature of political parties and how Americans understand them has changed significantly over time, to say nothing of the demographics of the group we call scientists. Going back in time raises a whole lot more questions than it answers.
It's interesting you would say that. I find that there are basically two camps of thought when it comes to the soft sciences: those who use the past to try to spot patterns and extrapolate from them, and those who feel that we should rest more on theories than some sort of loose induction around fuzzy concepts.
Both of these schools have their various uses and drawbacks. I'd much rather be less rigorous, more flexible, and longer-term in my analysis, but I can respect an approach that relies more on structure. Just be careful. I'm not going to argue with you about this. Suffice it to say that rules-based extrapolations of the sciences has a mixed heritage at best.
I'm happy that you are so assured of yourself. Unfounded self-doubt is a terrible thing. Carry on.
Very well put! What keeps amazing me about US politics is that (as in other places) there is a small number, n, of top issues, e.g. gay marriage, abortion, off-shoring work, gun control. I think n~10. Assuming the simplistic approach that your stance on of these issues are binary valued, there are 2^n ~ 1000 different positions available. Since these are highly correlated, the real value is much lower than this, though. The thing is: we are trying to cram all those different stances into two parties! Your vote is in essence binary valued.
Why should I be shoehorned? I am a gnostic, against excessive off-shoring, pro-choice, against gun banning and so on. It's a curious mix. Yet, I have to choose between two packages.
There is a field called political science. There are lots of researchers in that field publishing in journals, attending conferences, writing books, etc. And they've actually come up with some interesting results. In particular: voters do not make voting decisions based primarily on issues. In fact, there's some evidence that the causation often goes the other way.
Any model that starts with the assumption that voters choose candidates based on issue matching starts with fail.
Why should I be shoehorned? I am a gnostic, against excessive off-shoring, pro-choice, against gun banning and so on. It's a curious mix. Yet, I have to choose between two packages.
Because the nature of political parties that can function in any society is heavily dependent on the institutional structure of the government. Again, this is a question that actual political scientists have researched and answered.
I can't find any direct links, but I'd suggest Robin Hanson's blog (overcomingbias.com). His hypothesis is that most political/voting activity is done primarily for the purposes of a sense of identity and signalling. He discusses this in a number of posts.
His basic thesis: I have no incentive to vote "correctly", since the odds of my vote affecting the result are nil. Therefore, it costs me almost nothing to vote D solely to show my friends what a caring intellectual I am, or to feel good about myself. My hypothesis is that this is the main reason scientists vote D (the caring/intellectual image).
One hilarious example of this effect at work can be found at http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pres_Election_04/html/new_... -- the gist of it is that polling indicates that a decent number of Bush voters in 2004 believed that Bush held policy positions that he never held and in fact never claimed to have held. It is not that Bush lied to these voters about his issue preferences: they just liked him for other reasons and ascribed their own issue preferences to him.
John Sides explains a related phenomena here: http://www.themonkeycage.org/2010/08/me_talking_to_politico_... whereby voters don't necessarily know much about most issues and end up adopting issue positions held by parties they trust. See the link towards the end of that piece.
In general, there's been a ton of political science work on how election outcomes are largely determined by non-issue factors, like economic conditions. An electorate that voted based primarily on issues should have stable preferences that don't swing wildly based on the state of the economy.
Why does my ignorance "sadden" you? I would be first to point it out (although I wouldn't say that I'm more ignorant in these matters than the average intellectual) and one does not have to be omniscient either.
You cite some very interesting results. If these are indeed so well known in the political science community, please post links to a few introductory papers.
I'm sorry; I shouldn't have written that. I'm sure you're a very smart person who is probably doing some fascinating work that I would totally dig if I knew about it. It is just that I see a lot of really basic political science ignorance around me, and it grates after a while.
I mean, I'm sure you would never write something like "I think hand-washing causes AIDS!" because even if you didn't understand any biology, you probably get that there's a field called biology and that claims about biology really shouldn't be made unless one has some familiarity with the field and has spent some time studying, etc. It really bothers me that in the US at least, all of the media institutions that cover politics and policy literally act like the field of political science doesn't exist. And so everyone just makes up crap about questions that experts have actually studied empirically. But that's not your fault and I shouldn't have let my frustration with the ignorance of large powerful organizations leak cause me to express displeasure with you. Again, my apologies.
Don't want to beat a dead horse, but you said something that interested me.
I know several Political Science majors.
Do you view Political Science as a hard science, much like physics? Because from what you've said, you seem to feel that certain issues are settled. Or do you view it more like sociology, where there are competing theories and hard science is difficult (if not impossible) to perform?
It sounds like you were saying that it should be treated as a hard science, but that can't be right, can it?
It is worth noting that "political science" covers a lot of ground... Much like economics, there are some sub-fields that deal with "small" questions with a great deal of empirical rigor and and other sub-fields that are more theoretical and philosophical. The closer the sub-field is to stats & neuro-physio/psychology the more it resembles other hard sciences. The past decade has seen a lot of interesting work in this area and a lot of it has turned out to be something of a surprise in terms of deflating the "rational actors making reasoned choices" myths that many people subscribe to.
Do you view Political Science as a hard science, much like physics?
Some days, I don't even view physics as a hard science ;-)
More to the point, I think lots of political science involves open questions where people argue and there is no clear obvious answer. But that's the nature of any field: people don't argue over the obvious correct empirical stuff after a while. The issue is that the small fraction of political science that everyone agrees has been empirically settled are completely at odds with how Americans and American media discuss politics.
I'm not saying that everyone should do whatever poli scientists say -- I'm saying that everyone should agree to the poly sci consensus on the few issues that have been well studied for which a huge consensus exists. That change alone would force us to rewrite 95% of political media coverage.
You'll have to forgive me, but I expect you to earn your chops. Coming into a thread and announcing that you're so sorry folks are uninformed isn't a very good way to get started in a discussion.
And over several posts, I've yet to see a single theory expounded and supported, although you've made mention of a prominent book and fallen back on consensus.
I'm not trying to "bust your chops" or trash you or anything. It's just very difficult to have a conversation when there is no point to be argued aside from "people mostly don't understand political science like they should" which could apply to any one of a hundred sciences.
I hope that came out well. I'm really not trying to sound snide. I just have no idea where you are going with this aside from posturing. It's perplexing.
I'm done here. Don't want to waste other folk's time (or mine) Thank you for your time. Look forward to continuing the discussion at a future date. Sounds like you've read and studied quite a bit. Would love to see you show off some of that knowledge. At another time.
This leads to a very curious phenomenon: pick any 2 random U.S. Citizens of either party. Take them out for a beer and start talking politics.
If both of them are fairly secure in their beliefs, within a very short amount of time you'll realize that they are very close on maybe 80-85% of all these issues, although they each adopt talking points from their chosen party to describe their differences!
This is a natural consequence of only having two parties to choose from. Extremely fascinating stuff.
I wonder how the parallels hold out in multi-party systems?
EDIT: Wanted to clarify that I agree with you that folks have a huge variety of opinions on all sorts of issues. I just wanted to point out that even then, they are much less attached to the issues themselves as they are to the talking points their party has around those issues
Particularly when you consider that many Republican leaders publicly advocate creationism being taught as science, or that global warming is not happening, both of which are demonstratively and objectively false beliefs. Republican rhetoric over the past 30 years has been increasingly critical of science as a process, essentially arguing for faith and debate as the preferred means of discovering the truth, rather than reason and experimentation.
There should be as many scientists roughly in each party.
Political parties are not static. They move and evolve and change, and grow and shrink and may become tiny and spend years in the political wilderness.
When a party is reduced to a regional rump, and has several litmus test for their tiny, tiny tent. When one of the most important test is are you anti or pro science, you can't seriously expect a lot of scientist to belong to club which is fervently against anyone who dares to believe in evolution.
Yes, politics certainly puts humans at their most irrational indeed! It's quite some gymnastics you're turning here.
Somehow, you've ended up saying that when educated citizens overwhelmingly support one governing philosophy, it's not only somehow bad for the educated citizens, it's also bad for the philosophy! That's a neat trick.
(btw, that philosophy -- american 'liberalism' -- would barely deserve the name in any other 1st world country)
You started off almost saying something, but i'm not sure your thesis holds ('...in a two party system, any group...') Take the converse. I could also say that the group of anti-intellectuals has completely affiliated themselves with the Republican party, damaging themselves and the Republicans. Same thing, right?
Somehow, you've ended up saying that when educated citizens overwhelmingly support one governing philosophy, it's not only somehow bad for the educated citizens, it's also bad for the philosophy! That's a neat trick.
It would be, if I had conflated "philosophy" with "political party"
That doesn't actually change the thrust of the point at all. Go ahead and switch those two words around how you want and tell me how it substantially changes my argument.
You've made educated people supporting something both bad for educated people and bad for the something. Now, you're welcome to start arguing against the educational system they're immersed in (science), and that's certainly a line you can go down, if you want. It's a bit played out and i'd be surprised to hear you rally an enthusiastic offense there, but go right ahead.
Furthermore, your point about groups & party systems is still totally fatuous: you can be in A or in ~A. then, A can be in B or in ~B. You can say "all the A's are in B." or you can say "all the ~A's are in ~B".
Shorter: you can't make the not-too-menacing statement "ohh, all the scientists are democrats! how terrible for the democrats and the scientists!" without making the equally trite "ohh, all the non-scientists are republicans! How terrible for the non-scientists and the republicans!"
Any democracy will evolve into a multi-party system. In the U.S. we've basically went with two parties, and it looks like we are stuck with it.
So in a two party system, any group that completely affiliates with one party, either by membership or just tradition, both damages that party and the group itself.
What I love about politics is that it shows humans at their most irrational: from the Nobel Laureate to the rocket scientist, when you get them talking about politics it's the emotional brain first, the logical brain second. People are like this in all areas of reasoning, it's just politics is the easiest to observe. So, for instance, watching somebody bullshit themselves about politics is a pretty good quick and dirty indicator of how they're going to bullshit themselves about whether or not you need a new server rack.
I don't think every issue naturally has two sides to it, but because politics is emotion-based and not reason-based, I don't think it matters. There should be as many scientists roughly in each party. It's a very interesting observation that there are not. I believe journalism is similarly skewed. So when story X comes in over the transom from NGO group advocating some cause, the reporter picks up the phone and consults with several experts. If the odds hold, everybody in that little scenario is a member of the same party, with the same prejudices towards how the story should be told.
Not a good thing.
I imagine -- without looking at any other comments on this thread -- that there will be a lot of "but the scientists are actually scientifically choosing to be Dems, because it's not logical to do otherwise" or perhaps blaming the Rs for being so bad that no decent scientist would support them. This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about (and probably a good reason for the post to be considered of dubious merit for HN) It's a shame, because the larger issue causes all sorts of other problems.