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I saw a Pew survey today, comparing the views of scientists to the general public on a number of issues, including public policies, the role of government, current issues such as global warming and stem cell research and science funding.

A summary of the findings can be found here, and the full report can be downloaded (in PDF format) here. Many of the findings were expected:

• that scientists in general are more concerned about problems such as global warming and stem cell research;
• that scientists are more concerned than the general public about issues such as misinformation spread by activists against the use of vaccines, or the challenges to the teaching of evolution in classrooms by ideologically motivated agendas like creationism or intelligent design.

On the matter of politics, it didn’t surprise me that more scientists identify themselves as Democrats rather than Republicans, and that they do this in proportions more favorable to the Democrats than the general public. But the extent of this difference was a bit of a surprise, though it was borne out by more direct questions on the poll related to political ideology.

This interests me because I am a scientist, and I have somewhat libertarian beliefs. I am liberal on social issues, and more conservative on economic ones. Anecdotally, I know a fair number of other scientists who are also libertarian, though I know even more who are liberal. I just hadn’t realized how large this difference was until I saw this poll, and now I am trying to interpret the data to make some sense of the reasons.

First, here’s the self-reported party identification for scientists and the public at large, as well as their self-reported ideological identification. Note that in all graphs, scientists are represented by the red bars and the general public by blue bars. The y-axis is always the percentage.

As we can see, being a Republican isn’t popular these days, for both scientists and the general public alike. Being Republican is even more unpopular among scientists. Since the percentage of Independents is about the same for both scientists and non-scientists, it seems that the Democrat vs. Republican categories parasitize on each other. The same seems to be true for ideological identification – if we assume that the “moderates” are largely the people who identify as “Independent” politically, their proportions remain roughly the same for scientists and general public alike, while liberals are inversely proportional to conservatives.

So it’s in the “extreme” or partisan portion that the differences lie – more people who identify with a political party identify themselves with the Democratic party in general, and among those, scientists do so with even greater frequency.

My natural conclusion was to assume that this difference is most likely due to the social agenda – conservatives often make issues over things such as abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, etc. Scientists, in general, are much more likely to not see these things as absolute wrongs. Since strong views on abortion and gay marriage are often linked to religion, this would imply that fewer scientists have deeply fundamentalist beliefs. This has been shown by many previous polls, and in fact is also seen in this poll:

Over 50% of the US public self-identifies as “Protestant”, but only 20% of scientists do. Among the Protestants, about 19% of the US public identifies as “White Evangelical Protestant”, but only 3% of scientists do. Since these are the people most likely to have fundamentalist religious beliefs, weeding them out from the ranks of scientists naturally makes the scientist group less fundamentalist, and therefore more inclined to be liberal on social issues, if other factors are the same. The same is true for Catholics (who are also opposed to abortion) – 24% of the general public is Catholic, but only 10% of scientists are.

As expected, atheists and agnostics are well represented among scientists. The greatest difference between the public and the scientists appears to be in the “atheist” group, where only 2% of the public self-identifies as atheists, while 17% (more than 8 times as many) scientists do.

Some of the other groups are more confusing. The “not affiliated” group presumably consists of people who identify themselves as religious, but are not affiliated with any religious group. In terms of numbers, this is actually the largest single group of atheists. It is difficult to say what their beliefs are, and they probably vary considerably within the group. However, it seems fair to say that they are probably more laid back on religious issues, and more comfortable with their own concept of God rather than some doctrinal view emanating from an organized religious group.

The last group “no particular beliefs” is also hard to categorize. Since “no particular beliefs” in the context of the survey question means “no particular religious belief”, I tend to think of them as broadly fitting one of two categories:

• People with a new-age type religion, such as Wicca or mother nature or something similar, so they may believe in some “higher power”, which might be even be reconciled with some Eastern religions, such as Buddhism or some forms of Hinduism, but not with the Abrahamic concept of God.
• People who really don’t think about religion, it is meaningless to them. I would classify such people as atheists or agnostics, but not everyone is comfortable with self-identifying as such, and calling yourself an “atheist” or “agnostic” requires that you should have given this subject some thought. These people might not have.

At any rate, there is a clear difference between scientists and the general public in the frequency of religious beliefs, and it seems clear that scientists are under-represented among the most fundamentalist religious groups, and over-represented among atheists and agnostics. So there is some reason to believe that differences in party affiliation may be representative of religious differences, at least in part.

However, it is not clear that this is solely a religious issue.  Some of the questions on the poll were more specific, referring directly to the role of government in public policy. These are not just social issues, but also economic ones. For example, consider these questions:

The first question “are programs run by the government inefficient and wasteful” shows opposing opinions for the public and the scientists. The general public is more likely to say yes, while the scientists are more likely to say no. Conversely, more of the general public is likely to assume that business “strikes a fair balance between profits and public interests” than the scientists, though both groups have fewer people who believe that.

This approaches the heart of the matter that interests me from a libertarian perspective – do scientists honestly trust the government more than business, what exactly is it that they trust, what are their reasons?

Before I proceed, let me mention a few other questions in the poll that I think directly relate to this. It’s a known fact that government is by far the largest source of funding for science research in this country, and nearly all scientists in academia are well used to receiving money from the NIH, NSF, DoE, NASA, NOAA, etc. Obviously, a situation exists where a lot of science is done simply because the government pays for it. One may ask what would happen if government didn’t pay for it – would research simply decrease, would private industry pick up the slack, is private funding held back simply because everyone knows the government is going to fund it anyway, would certain types of research (such as basic research) suffer disproportionately, etc.

These are all valid questions, and since my purpose right now isn’t to defend my libertarian ideology, but rather to understand why scientists believe what they do, I will acknowledge that these are serious concerns, and will matter most to people whose career and livelihood depend upon government funding. Furthermore, one can point to the results of the research – the technologies invented, the lives saved, the knowledge expanded, and call these things good. And when you do, there is some acknowledgment in the back of your mind that government made this possible, therefore government isn’t bad, government spending isn’t bad, government can produce worthwhile results.

This question was asked repeatedly in the poll in great detail – the source of the funding, how much was government related, the breakdown by different government agencies, etc. There was little doubt that it’s a tremendous amount of funding, and that most people agree that it does good. Scientists more so than the general public, but even the general public overwhelmingly approves of it (except conservative Republicans, who are evenly split on the issue).

My question remains though: is government more inefficient and wasteful of resources than private industry? I can think of several reasons why it isn’t:

• The politicization of goals: pressure to do what is popular rather than what is right and efficient. This can cause distractions, spending time and money on achieving a consensus rather than in effecting the goal.
• Bureaucrats justifying their salaries, creating inefficiencies to give themselves more control over the process.
• Politically motivated appointments of officials, supervisors and workers, who may not be the most qualified and hard working.
• A focus on justifying that the money was properly spent, that the rules were followed, the paperwork was well-maintained, rather than on getting the job done.
• A more inflated chain of command with many more middle-level managers.
• An aversion to taking risks, since it is less clear that the reward will be proportional to the risk. Business is more focused on the bottom line, and rewards achievements more readily.

Note that I am not saying that all these problems are part of all government projects, nor am I saying that private business is immune to them. But I think anyone who has worked with government and with private business would not consider it controversial to say that these problems appear more in government than in business, because government is by nature more political, and its taxation powers give it more immunity from the consequences of its actions, such as bankruptcy.

Scientists are not dumb, and I am sure most of them do recognize these problems. This was sort of touched upon in the poll, with a question on the politicization of science. The question was asked if people were aware how the government scientists were not allowed to report claims that conflicted with ideological positions of the politicians in charge:

The public seems largely unaware of these issues, but scientists most certainly were not. A large majority of scientists acknowledged that they had heard these claims, and an overwhelming majority said that the claims were true. Since the majority of scientists polled were not government employees, this understanding does not necessarily come from having one’s own research trashed by government, but rather through the personal experience of “how the system works”. We all know, as scientists, that politicians often set the agenda for “what’s hot” and what’s not, and when they do, certain programs get funded and we all scramble for our share of the cash. Conversely, some programs don’t get funded, and if we are wise and don’t have tenure, we adjust our research interests accordingly.

Some administrations are worse than others, as the follow-up to this question showed:

“Did these shenanigans happen more often during the Bush administration?” – to which the answer from scientists was a resounding “yes”. This may be one reason why in the current political climate, there are so few Republican scientists.

However, getting back to the question – scientists are certainly aware on some general level of the inefficiencies of government, and on a more particular level of the gross politicization of research which happens so easily since the government holds the purse strings. Why then, do they more consistently insist that government is not more wasteful and inefficient than business?

I can’t answer this, since my information only extends to this poll, plus what I have gathered through observation and anecdotally through my own career as a scientist. But I offer a couple of theories:

The question “does business strike a fair balance between profits and public interest” is very relevant to this. Most scientists said no. That opens up several new questions. “Fair” is in itself a very subjective word to most people, and what might be fair to a scientist with little vested interest in the profits of a certain business might be very unfair to the businessman, whose livelihood depends upon it. In general though, most of us would admit that the prime purpose of business is to generate a profit for the owners, not to “serve the public interest”. Can the public interest be served as a side effect of ethically pursuing profits is another question, which again becomes difficult due to the fuzziness of the meaning of “ethical”.  Many people have strong beliefs about what “fair” or “ethical” ought to mean, but it’s important to realize that their views are not universal, and others might completely disagree.

So it seems to me that the belief here is that a profit motive in today’s world sometimes works against the public interest, and often times there is no cash reward in the pursuing the public interest anyway. Therefore, the government needs to get involved and do the things that private business can’t, or won’t. I will leave aside the question of whether this viewpoint is right or wrong, other than to say that I definitely disagree with it.

My second theory is that scientists, more than the general public, see things in terms of “ought” rather than “is”. Just because something is a certain way doesn’t mean it has to be so. Just because the government implemented some plan badly doesn’t mean it has to do so again. And again. And again.

Scientists are used to thinking in terms of a right way and a wrong way to do things. They are used to reducing large amounts of data into a few coherent themes, picking ideas that “best” suit the data, picking methodologies that best suit the goal of the task. We do this all the time. It is not hard to project from this: when government is given a task, there must be some rigorous approach to determining the “best” way to achieve an end, it may not be my place to say what that is, but someone must have the expertise. If only the government could find it and implement it, it doesn’t have to be inefficient.

The problem is that in many cases, there is no best way. The system is inherently chaotic, and the outcome cannot be predicted. The market is one such example. People try to make limited predictions from fundamentals. Government does the same,  operating on broad principles, such as “lowering interest rates will increase borrowing and generate more economic activity”. But these are very short range things, and no one can predict the long term consequences. This is no longer science, or at least, it is not science that anyone has a grasp of at this time. In such cases, many people oppose the idea of government (or any agency) trying to influence the market, because no agency has the power to direct it, no agency can even know what the full consequences of its actions will be.

Finally, there is a moral argument that they make. Even if government is inefficient, even if it can’t foresee the consequences of its actions, it ought still to do certain things because it is morally wrong not to do so. This sort of defense is often brought out when supporting things like universal health care, the eradication of poverty, etc. – things that scientists favor more than the general public does, according to the poll. This may have to do with the higher proportion of atheists and agnostics among the audience, many of whom are secular humanists in their philosophy. Secular humanism has replaced the idea of God with broader concepts like “the well being of society”, which mesh well with such agendas. These are agendas that are concerned with effects rather than causes. The effects they desire are things like “health care for all” or “food for everyone”, and they tend to take the most direct path to them, which is usually taxation followed by handouts. There is less focus on whether all paths are equally effective, whether some are even effective at all, whether they are moral. It is the end that justifies the means to them.

Terry Eagleton wrote an opinion piece for the Guardian in which he took to task Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens for their sometimes harsh criticism of Islam. His complaint, apparently, is that in doing so, Dawkins and Hitchens are setting their own opinions above those of others, and that this is not a very “liberal” thing to do. He believes that liberals are defined by a tolerance towards all ideas, and therefore when Dawkins or Hitchens criticize Islam, they are guilty of being intolerant, un-liberal, and supremacist.

I wrote the following response:

Mr. Eagleton seems not to understand people like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens. He tries to fit them into his notions of “liberalism” or “tolerance”, and criticizes them when the labels don’t fit very well. But these are Mr. Eagleton’s labels, not theirs. Dawkins or Hitchens are primarily rationalists, not liberals. To whatever degree their ideas fit in with a “liberal” or “tolerant” agenda is incidental, not the focus of their beliefs.

Most people do not understand or even care about a historical or ideological account of liberalism. When someone identifies himself as a liberal, the chances are that he means he agrees with specific ideas that are promoted by whatever group the media calls “liberal”. The idea that abortion should be legal. Or that a person’s sexual inclinations, whether towards the same or opposite sex, are not the business of his neighbors or government. The separation of Church and State. Or that it is unfair and inhumane that some people in a society should be fabulously rich, while others starve. Or even the milder version, that capitalism in the west is not an honest system that rewards people consistently for their ability, but is often instead a corrupt symbiosis between the very wealthy and their paid-for politicians.

In our times, these are hot button issues that receive wide coverage in the media. Hence people align themselves with others who vote the same way on such issues. This is usually the full extent of their “liberality”. In reality, such people are widely diverse if you consider the full context of their philosophy – from religious to atheist, from welfare-statists to libertarians. Not everyone who identifies with the “liberal” perspective on some issues agrees with everything else that is presented as “liberal”.

In short, “liberal” is a very wide and inclusive label that sweeps significant differences under the rug. It is still useful as a statistical aggregate – it does in fact describe real differences between how people stand on certain key issues. But it is completely inadequate when describing a particular individual. Castigating Dawkins for being “liberal” on one thing but not another is silly. Dawkins is not a liberal, he merely agrees with some liberal ideas.

Dawkins and Hitchens have made no secret of the fact that they consider religion irrational and dangerous. It’s no wonder that they consider the more extreme forms of Islam to be irrational and dangerous as well. That is consistency. But Mr. Eagleton sees a conflict because such an opinion about Islam isn’t tolerant enough to suit his view of how liberals ought to be. He thinks that their criticisms are not “nuanced” enough, because they do not mitigate their criticism of Islam’s barbarous cruelty sufficiently, in light of the historical context of “national injury” and humiliation of various Islamic people. But Dawkins and Hitchens don’t see tolerance as a primary virtue; they see reason as primary. To them, tolerance is a virtue only so far as it serves a reasonable purpose – to allow people full freedom of expression up to the point that they don’t interfere with other people’s freedom of expression. When it crosses that line, as in the case of fatwas and death penalties for apostasy or blasphemy, it is no longer a virtue.

This is perhaps the key difference between Mr. Eagleton and Mr. Dawkins. Mr. Eagleton says “For the liberal state to accommodate a diversity of beliefs while having few positive convictions is one of the more admirable achievements of civilization.” Mr. Dawkins would never characterize his convictions as “few”. They might seem “few” in number, if you prefer to go by a list of “the ten commandments” or “the eight-fold path to self-realization” or “the fifty cardinal principles for right living”. But in scope, the devotion to reason encompasses a far wider and more complete philosophy than any such laundry list of rights and wrongs.

In underestimating how widely and thoroughly Dawkins or Hitchens apply reason to moral choices, Mr. Eagleton ends up with conflicts, as when Dawkins apparently supports items 4, 5 and 6 on the list, but not so much items 2 and 3. This is inconsistency only if you believe that such laundry lists are real, that people ought to be categorizable by how faithfully they cleave to the ten tenets of liberalism. The simpler answer, of course, is that Dawkins would judge liberalism by how reasonable it seemed to him. He wouldn’t judge reason by how liberal it appeared.