For too long, scientists have ducked away from public service, not because their peers have been unwilling to elect them, but because there is a sense among scientifically educated people that politics is something to be avoided -- something that is inherently corrupting about the idea of becoming a politician causes most scientists.  For too long, our long term public welfare has been held hostage by our public representatives who act as primarily as politicians rather than statesmen and stateswomen.  The distinction between the two being that politicians seek only to advance policies which secure their next election, while statesmen and stateswomen seek to secure the next generation.

This, unfortunately, leaves Lawyers and Business people as the primary pool of our politicians, and hurts the society because those equipped with the technical knowledge to advance and progress our society, sit on the sidelines.  By advance and progress our society, I mean formulate and execute politicies which strengthen the economy while also increasing the daily welfare as measured by health, wealth, education and other opportunities -- increases in the general welfare of the population as measured by most economists.

Scientists have had a long tradition of serving as politicians in our democratic society.  In the Early Republic, Benjamin Franklin might be considered a scientist given his discovery of electricity and climate cycles, who served as a legislative representative, as well as a foreign delegate.  

According to one scientist on yahoo answers (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080618120537AA93idE) 

"I'd feel bad for the scientist that got plucked out of his lab to go and serve but the political community is in desparate need of a scientific perspective.

Right now it's just ideology vs ideology, broken promises, pandering, and lies.

The scientific method values evidenced based conclusions and is inherently non-partisan. So people who work in this environment have a much different perspective than those who spend their careers sucking up to those in power and pandering to those of lesser power.

Take a problem such as drug use. Instead of doing research on which strategy will most effectively deter use, they simply make the ideological decision that "drug prohibition = less use" implement that policy and then refuse to fix it because they don't want to admit they were wrong.

Or climate change, this issue has gotten so partisan I can't even tell what's legit information anymore.

So politics is not only hurting politics by ignoring science, but it's hurting science too."

Strong words.  And this is how most scientists would describe the political situation.  Unfortunately, the representatives of the people are far from representative, and science has fallen to the wayside.   People are still fighting ideological battles from 20 years ago.  Fighting over policies which have obviously failed. 

Here is another Response:

Yes, we do. Most scientists, myself included, wouldn't be interested in entering politics, but fortunately there are a few that are. And we need more of them. Our current government seems oblivious to the fact that there actually are facts out there to work with, and you don't get to contradict them by being really, really loud or really 'believing' you're right. Climate change is happening, whether you like it or not.Abstinence doesn't work, no matter how much money you throw at it. Alternative medicine wouldn't be considered alternative if it actually worked. Fortunately, the FDAis starting to catch on to that. But we need more people training in logical and critical thinking in charge, and fewer people who think that some god is telling them what to do.

What policies am I talking about?

Why does god play such a big role in politician's actions?  The sad truth is that churches are one of the few remaining social organizations in most people's lives, and thus, rather than speaking to 1 million people, politicians only have to speak to 10000 religious people, who will religiously go out and preach for the election of a particular individual, to a school board, to a community, to the state assembly. 

Our political system is run by lawyers, used to advocating for whatever position they are commissioned to advocate.  These lawyers go to organized groups, such as churches to garner support.  Unfortunately, lawyers can argue anything to death, regardless of its underlying truth value.  A scientist could also do the same, but have habits which train them to do otherwise.  However, because politicians are beholden to their base, they have to take the arguments of their base, while ignoring empirical evidence which may contradict the ideology of those who support them.  A lawyer or activist elected for advocating a particular cause could not overcome the cognitive dissonance, and the backlash of their base, as they were elected to advance ideology.  However, a scientist would presumably find support among those in the electorate who value empirical and practical politics and policies rather than ideologically motivated politics.  This would result in more nuanced debates where the final positions of our public representatives are not predetermined by political calculations, since the supporters of scientist-legislators would come from those who understand that the truth is difficult to approximate, and that shifting positions is a sign of intelligence rather than weakness.



Many of our biggest problems, the economy, the environment, and security issues are also scientific in nature and cannot be easily  solved by ideological arguments like the kind we've seen for over 20
years.  While we fret about the success of the Chinese Communist Party abroad, we do nothing to address the real technical development of our own economy, instead focusing on narrow political interests of motivated interest groups.  Precisely the type of factionalism which portends the end of a functional political system.

So am I saying scientists are the best politicians?

No, certainly not.  In our system, all groups and interests should be represented in the legislature.  And many good representatives can be drawn from the pool of the current population of political aspirants.  However, only a very narrow group of financial and legal interests are represented, to the detriment of the general public good.  Technically trained people such as scientists, engineers, and economists are relegated to subordinates to lawyers and activists who supposedly know better because they can synthesize information which best represents the interests of the people who elected them.  However, because neither those who elected the current slate of politicians are trained in technical matters, nor are those who have been elected themselves, scientific and empirical policies are relegated to ideological arguments.  Only when science is convenient to furthering a particular ideology do politicians advocate for a science based policy.  Without scientists and other technically trained individuals serving as elected representatives, the critical interests of a modern, technically based society become secondary concerns, to the detriment of the welfare of the nation.