[dalke]

Your "many old scientists" parenthetical comment neglects several strong biases. You've likely never heard of most of the old scientists who don't get into politics because you don't know about their work at all. Older people tend to be more interested in politics than younger. It's hard to be trained/have experience in one field and then switch to another, so few young scientists would also be known for their politics. (For example, Margaret Thatcher's research chemistry impact is much less well known than her political impact.)

And yet, Chomsky is one of those few, having become one of the leading opponents to the Vietnam War while in his late 30s - as your link itself implies - and so doesn't fall under the premise of your comment.

[sashahart]

You don't seem to understand what I said.

Dawkins is another example of the old scientist pattern - many successful and famous scientists do the work they're academically known for early, then shift into topics outside of their original area. It's quite natural.

The link was from fans of Chomsky's and simply illustrates that he has shifted his attention away from linguistics for many decades now. This is not uncommon in science and it isn't some kind of slam on Chomsky.

[dalke]

But Chomsky didn't change when he was old. He became well-known for his politics when he was in his 30s. Dawkins was 35 when his "The Selfish Gene" was published, and 45 when "The Blind Watchmaker" was published. Both are involved in areas that interested them when they were under 40 years old.

My point is that neither Chomsky (and now neither Dawkins) fits your description ... unless you say that people 30-40 of age are already old?

My other point is that most successful scientists don't shift into topics drastically outside their interests when they were young. Dirac? No. Erdős? No. Barbara McClintock? No. Von Braun? No. Karl Sharpless? No. Jocelyn Bell Burnell? No. Just take the list of Nobel prize winners for science and see how few of them got into politics later in life, or for that matter moved into topics markedly outside of their original area.

Yes, of course some do. But car dealership owners, and chefs (Samak Sundaravej, PM of Thailand, was a television chef for 7 years), and priests and singers also get into politics. So my last point was that there's nothing of note about a few scientists getting into politics as they get older, because people of all sorts of different fields go into politics as they get older.

Hence, my comment that there are strong biases which affect your parenthetical observation.

[sashahart]

And Dawkins was probably an atheist when he was young too. So what?

I have never made a generalized claim about all scientists so you are beating a straw man. I have mentioned a certain pattern which you will see recurring if you have any significant awareness of the famous scientists in a particular field... that pattern is not "getting into politics" but rather "moving well beyond the scientific area where they made their name"

[dalke]

And I'm saying that that pattern doesn't exist, at least no more for scientists than for any other field. (If you broaden your field to other than politics, then think about all the other people who have switched careers. President Obama was a law professor earlier in life. Sting was a schoolteacher.)

I gave a list of famous scientists who did not move well beyond the scientific area where they made their name. I'll add more: Cyrus Levinthal, Dorothy Hodgkin, Hermann Weyl, Edsger Dijkstra, Maria Mitchell, Abraham Maslow, John Wheeler. The list goes on and on. Again, consult a list of Nobel Prize winners and see how it's no more common for "famous scientists in a particular field" to do what you say they do than for any other profession.

I posit that you have sampling error, in that you've mostly only heard of scientists who are known in their field and are also known for work outside their field.