Pew Research 6% of scientists identify themselves as republican. I doubt a majority of scientists vote republican. And I wonder of those 6%, how many are of this kind of variety: Author who declares "Cain's wife was an ape" files lawsuit against evolution
Amusing - as noted all 2500 respondents work for universities. Maybe they should poll some scientists and engineers who are not university employees.
Your question is a good one. Generally when companies are retrenching during "tough times" government is leveraging up, or certainly should be, to counter this trend. This is the proper role of government, so you can expect that when times are tough you will see additional debt taken on by government . Now for the vice versa. Well, that's where government hasn't been quite so good at managing its affairs. If this present great recession cycle is anything like that of the great depression we can expect at least another three to five years of a comparatively weak U.S. economy. We could have done much better by spending far more on stimulus and investment on the government side, but it is so difficult to get what needs to be done done when you're having to convince a House and Senate controlled by Fried Chicken Franchise owners. What do they know of macro economics? I'll answer my own question: "Virtually nothing!" In fact, the only segment of society that knows even less, en masse, then our legislators, are everyday ET and Wall Street traders. You can see proof of that right here on ET.
There is a clear and inescapable conclusion to be drawn from that poll, viz., education is a threat to the Republican party. This would explain very nicely why they are doing their utmost to do away with it! You don't need to be educated to operate a chain of fried chicken franchises, and you certainly don't need an education to get rich, so why bother?
Engineers are fully in the training camp, and they can believe whatever they like about just about anything and everything and still build a safe bridge. Fully in the education camp would be, for example, historians. And I doubt most historians vote republican. : )
Or they could just poll business owners...... pretty funny, how all the university professors who rely on business owners, and privatesector employees/tax payers in general, all have no respect for the hand that feeds them. The university professors remind me of the gurus on twitter, who claim to be able to teach people how to trade, but just cant seem to do it for themselves. When i was in university one of my accounting professors asked our class to write a report about a company and whether or not we would invest in them, based on their financials, i wrote what i thought to be an A+ report about how i wouldnt invest in the company based on its multiple, and what the sector was doing in general as well as where the current market was. He gave me a 65 and said that i was only supposed to decide whether id invest based on financials, I clearl had a better understanding than him or any of the other students of the market, and i got a bushleague mark. I challenged him and asked him how much he made last year in the market, cause i was already making a six figure living trading, and he told me his money was controlled by the union and the excercise was merely theoretical.
WTF?!? Are you saying Engineering is based on interpretation like history? Engineers are probably just below mathmeticians when it comes to legitimate proof of concept.
May not need to be educated to run a business but you need to be smart, you can get an education without being smart, but you cant run a successfull business without being smart. Give me a man who is smart, or a man who is educated, and ill take the smart guy ten times out of ten, Smart people produce, educated people teach. Educated people only know how to regurgitate theories that are taught to them, smart people create the concepts.