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>It's well documented that universities are strongly slanted to the left I think that this just deflects the question. Why is it that universities are left-lea

by narkee 16y ago

>It's well documented that universities are strongly slanted to the left I think that this just deflects the question. Why is it that universities are left-leaning? The implication is that knowledge acquisition is co-related with left-leaning politics? I'm not about to go into the implications of such an assertion, lest a political flame-war break out, but I think answering that more general question will explain the more specific case of scientists.

CWuestefeld 16y ago
The implication is that knowledge acquisition is co-related with left-leaning politics? That's a very good question. If you don't mind, I'd like to tweak it a bit first. As a libertarian myself, and from my association with other libertarians, I believe that people of that political bent are also much more likely to pursue a rational truth. So I'd like to re-do the boolean algebra to refer to "non-right-leaning" rather than "left-leaning". Anyway, the premise is partly flawed. I gave an example of economics, and other examples were cited such as opposition to GM crops, where those on the left are clearly in opposition to the best available scientific understanding. But by my own observation, it does appear that as a generalization your premise holds strongly for the life sciences, and also holds for hard sciences like physics and chemistry. I think it would be interesting to pursue that. HOWEVER, I think that while considering it, that we are careful to keep science and policy separated. Even if we are to grant that a certain point of science is correct, it does not necessarily lead to acceptance of a point of policy. For example, it is well known that at the margin, minimum wage laws increase unemployment amongst the least skilled workers. But it doesn't automatically follow that such a policy should not be followed; perhaps with a proper safety net, those bottom-rung folks can be motivated into improving themselves. Likewise (and even more controversially), even if climate change is as serious as some claim, it does not necessarily follow that all efforts must be pursued: it may be that the cost of fixing it exceeds the cost of the expected damage. It's just too easy to say "we have this problem, thus we must do something". The values that drive our actions are different from the science that allows us to understand the world.
WalterBright 16y ago
>Why is it that universities are left-leaning? My father taught free market economics at a small private college. His students would regularly comment to him that they'd never heard that stuff before, that they didn't even know there was a rationale behind free market economics.
hugh3 16y ago
Basically, because all the lefties (and I mean the real lefties, not the 51st-percentile leftish types) need to wind up somewhere, and they don't much like working in the private sector where they're expected to aim towards (gasp!) profit. So they wind up in society's other nooks and crannies, with the university system being one of the largest. If you're smart and left-wing you become a professor. If you're moderately smart and left-wing you become a university librarian. If you're dumb and left-wing you wind up working at the DMV. Incidentally, while science professors can actually be a reasonably ideologically-diverse bunch, I doubt you'll ever find much diversity among university librarians.
kazoolist 16y ago
My theory is that universities are compromised of the elite, and I think it's a natural fit for elites to think "hey, I'm pretty smart about my field; I bet there is some other really smart guy about [economics/the environment/healthcare/agriculture/...] and we just put that guy in charge of that he can design a great system for that that we can all live under and it will be just great!"

by narkee 16y ago

CWuestefeld 16y ago

The implication is that knowledge acquisition is co-related with left-leaning politics? That's a very good question. If you don't mind, I'd like to tweak it a bit first. As a libertarian myself, and from my association with other libertarians, I believe that people of that political bent are also much more likely to pursue a rational truth. So I'd like to re-do the boolean algebra to refer to "non-right-leaning" rather than "left-leaning". Anyway, the premise is partly flawed. I gave an example of economics, and other examples were cited such as opposition to GM crops, where those on the left are clearly in opposition to the best available scientific understanding. But by my own observation, it does appear that as a generalization your premise holds strongly for the life sciences, and also holds for hard sciences like physics and chemistry. I think it would be interesting to pursue that. HOWEVER, I think that while considering it, that we are careful to keep science and policy separated. Even if we are to grant that a certain point of science is correct, it does not necessarily lead to acceptance of a point of policy. For example, it is well known that at the margin, minimum wage laws increase unemployment amongst the least skilled workers. But it doesn't automatically follow that such a policy should not be followed; perhaps with a proper safety net, those bottom-rung folks can be motivated into improving themselves. Likewise (and even more controversially), even if climate change is as serious as some claim, it does not necessarily follow that all efforts must be pursued: it may be that the cost of fixing it exceeds the cost of the expected damage. It's just too easy to say "we have this problem, thus we must do something". The values that drive our actions are different from the science that allows us to understand the world.

WalterBright 16y ago

>Why is it that universities are left-leaning? My father taught free market economics at a small private college. His students would regularly comment to him that they'd never heard that stuff before, that they didn't even know there was a rationale behind free market economics.

hugh3 16y ago

Basically, because all the lefties (and I mean the real lefties, not the 51st-percentile leftish types) need to wind up somewhere, and they don't much like working in the private sector where they're expected to aim towards (gasp!) profit. So they wind up in society's other nooks and crannies, with the university system being one of the largest. If you're smart and left-wing you become a professor. If you're moderately smart and left-wing you become a university librarian. If you're dumb and left-wing you wind up working at the DMV. Incidentally, while science professors can actually be a reasonably ideologically-diverse bunch, I doubt you'll ever find much diversity among university librarians.

kazoolist 16y ago

My theory is that universities are compromised of the elite, and I think it's a natural fit for elites to think "hey, I'm pretty smart about my field; I bet there is some other really smart guy about [economics/the environment/healthcare/agriculture/...] and we just put that guy in charge of that he can design a great system for that that we can all live under and it will be just great!"