[trb]

What is the article arguing? Is there even an argument made? Why should Americans elect more scientists? Will it lead to a higher quality of living or more wealth or what?

It mentions China as a pro-scientists country, but why? It's riddled with human rights violations, corruption and environmental pollution. While American politicians decry climate change openly, China just seems to ignore it.

Singapore is a city-state with 5mio citizens, and a high cost of living. Finland also has 5mio citizens, is known for its wealth and the president Tarja Halonen has a degree in law - in fact, the other politicians mentioned on Finlands wikipedia page are missing a scientific degree as well.

I'm not buying it. Just staffing your government with scientists seems pretty irrelevant for the success of a nation.

[saulrh]

China is socially repressive and an environmental catastrophe in progress, but it's also one of the fastest-advancing nations in the world. Chinese citizens were starving to death en masse as recently as the 70's. The fact that they've pulled themselves out of that kind of industrial slump is amazing.

Wikipedia says that Singapore is the best trade center in Asia and one of the best in the world. It also has the best credit and the best markets. Socially, it's a bit repressive, but it is apparently doing very well economically.

Of course, without much data the argument is useless. It would be interesting to see a pile of charts comparing scientists and engineers in politics to economic success; with only three or four data points it's a a toss-up.

[smsm42]

One thing to consider here is that it may be fast advancing because it is advancing from such a low positions. With more than a billion people, Chinese economic potential is enormous, far exceeding any other country. The fact that the have almost the same GDP as Japan while having more than 10 times more population and huge natural resources can be explained only by broken political and economic system. It is slowly moving out towards being somewhat less broken, but one would be deeply mistaken taking this as a sign that one should take it as an example to follow in its current state.

[trb]

What I tried to say (and perhaps didn't) was scientists won't necessarily be good for a country, not that they'd be bad.

The german minister of justice, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, did a lot of good for the german internet. Her decisions were very rational and fact-based, yet she holds a law degree.

There just are too many good politicians without science degrees for the sweeping generalisation "scientists are good and lawyers bad".

[ekianjo]

Singapore is also a very wealthy state, and it has nothing to do with the population size and the costs of living there. You are comparing countries on a single factor, the population - how is that variable relevant? Then why don't you compare with Turkmenistan, also 5 million people, no scientists in charge and a ridden with poverty ? How about Sierra Leone, 5 million people. no scientists, ridden with civil war? One can pick up stupid examples everywhere then, if population is indicative of something.

[trb]

Just to clarify: I didn't want to say that Singapore is successful due to its small-ish population size, just that another country is almost as successful _without_ scientists at the top of the government. I chose Finland as an example since its population size is the same, the per-capita income is similiar and it enjoys a low rate-of-crime as well.

Actually, the president of Turkmenistan has a PhD in medical science [1] and the vice-president of Sierra Leone has a bachelors degree of science [2]. So both have more scientists in the top government positions than Finland. The politicians education really doesn't seem to be an important factor for the countrys success.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurbanguly_Berdimuhamedow

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Sam-Sumana

[ekianjo]

Allright, seems like I picked up the wrong examples :) I agree on your last sentence as least, that the educational background of politicians is irrelevant to the success of a nation.

Then again, there are many different ways to define what "success" truly means. It really depends what you consider: wages / welfare / freedom of expression / perceived happiness, etc... It's hard to compare two different countries unless you take a look at a bunch of criteria.

One thing I would add, though: you cannot judge a country's current success by the politicians currently in charge. For all you know, they may not be the ones responsible for the current situation and may just benefit from what was done years ago. Economics trends are very much happening on the long term, you would not see a net difference in a few years of policy (unless something very drastic is done). Europe is, for the most, now suffering from poor decisions made during the 80s and 90s regarding sovereign debt, and only recently the massive problems seem to surface while the policies have been going on for about 30years+.

[olalonde]

> It's riddled with human rights violations, corruption and environmental pollution.

More likely because it's a poor country than because it is pro-scientist.

> While American politicians decry climate change openly, China just seems to ignore it.

They are doing significant efforts in green technology. Furthermore, China isn't all that bad if you look at per capita statistics which is arguably more fair to compare.

[patrickk]

The EU proposed a carbon tax on airlines, which the Chinese disagree with:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/1222/break...

EU leaders will be going to the Chinese in a few weeks, cap in hand, looking for the Chinese to help bolster the European bailout fund (otherwise the euro could well be toast). The Chinese are going to use the carbon tax as negotiating leverage. Ah, politics.

Also I read a very interesting article (in the guardian paper i believe) from an insider at one of the major climate change treaties a few years back. The official story was that the different leaders couldn't come to an agreement and that there would be another summit in a few years. The real story was that the Chinese delegation blocked every proposal, thereby sinking the talks (as any major climate change treaty would require the backing of the major industrial powers).

[xster]

While in the meantime, US cries about China's 'unfair' advantage in developing green technologies and lifts tariffs for imports. Perhaps just another difference between a lawyer driven society and an engineering driven society.

[rndmize]

American politicians decry climate change openly? The way things have been going the last few years, you could have fooled me. Huntsman was notable as the only republican candidate to say he believed in climate change.

I think the idea behind the article is that scientists are generally trained to work with/find factual information and grow their understanding, while engineers are generally going to take scientific knowledge and apply it to solve problems. These are both approaches our country could use more of in government.

[suresk]

While I believe that humans are having a significant, negative effect on the climate, I can see how there might be some doubt and skepticism as to the magnitude of the damage and how much of that is caused by humans. I'm not saying I agree with full-on denial, but there is probably some room for discussion. The problem is that we aren't really having that discussion.

Our more fundamental science problem is that a significant portion of Americans and several of the Republican presidential candidates don't believe in evolution, despite the fact that civilization has benefited from the application of it for centuries.

[darasen]

To be fair you are a bit off. They tend to reject the concept of macro evolution of humans from primates/fish/randomly combining proteins.

[duskwuff]

By way of another example -- Angela Merkel (Chancellor of Germany) has a doctorate in physical chemistry.

[Erunno]

Unfortunately her doctorate hasn't prevented her from making one inane decision after the other during the ongoing financial crisis and even on the field she should be at least somewhat knowledgeable (nuclear power) she didn't really evoke any trust into her decision-making (first extending life span of nuclear reactors despite strong criticism by experts and than retracting this decision only a year later in the wake of Fukushima).

[lispm]

Merkel's decision are not so 'inane'. If you look at the German situation (and that's her main job), it is looking pretty good right now.

She is also not only 'somewhat knowledgeable' about nuclear power, she was the responsible minister for several years.

Extending the life span was a political decision - especially moved ahead by her coalition partner - the FDP. Before Fukushima there was a majority of conservatives and liberals against the nuclear exit. This changed with Fukushima.

Merkel often bases her decisions on what is politically possible in Germany. She believes in a politics of small steps which, where the outcome can be verified and one can adapt then. A very scientific approach.

[Erunno]

"If you look at the German situation (and that's her main job), it is looking pretty good right now."

I am a German and the outside perspective is unfortunately somewhat misrepresenting our situation here. As far as I can tell most foreign news sources tell about our unemployment rate and our GDP growth but both come with strings attached.

First of all our unemployment rate does not reflect the true unemployment in any rate due to changing the definition what constitutes an unemployed person. For instance, jobless people over 58, people being forced to do work-fare, people doing mandated education and a couple of other cases are not counted as unemployed although this people live off social welfare. A rapidly expanding part of the work force is also counted among the working poor, i.e. they don't earn enough and have to be subsided by the state. A lot of once full-time positions are transformed into part-time jobs which makes it increasingly difficult for people to make ends meet and leave them susceptible to poverty when becoming old since our pension scheme is mostly based on your work years and your income.

Most of the (slow) GDP growth is attributed to export while our domestic consumption is either stagnating or declining because Germans had in the last 20 years stagnating or declining real wages. So we have growth but the majority does not profit from it in any way.

"Extending the life span was a political decision"

What else? It was just to show that expertise in the respective field has nothing to do with competent decision making. The problems with nuclear power (extremely dangerous in a densely populated country as Germany, no means to store nuclear waste long-term, extremely expensive, etc.).

[lispm]

There is an international standard definition to count unemployed people.

There is no 'true unemployment'. There are several different definitions. By all definitions the unemployment in Germany is at a very low level compared to recent years.

[mjwalshe]

It's just storing up trouble for the future its putting ones head in the sand to appease a minority party.

[slowpoke]

Which really doesn't show, ever. I think being a scientist (and by contrast, a politician) is a matter of thinking, not of degree or title. The currently top rated comment [1] explains it rather nicely.

[1]: http://hackerne.ws/item?id=3589032