Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

Holy Crap. This opinion piece almost quoted everything that I've been writing about in this blog! Do I have a twin somewhere that I don't know about? :)

For example, haven't I been saying something like this all along?

Often too interested in politics as entertainment, the media is complicit in keeping such “controversies” running. Doing so isn’t hard since vivid, just-so stories and anecdotes usually trump (or should that be Trump) dry, sometimes counterintuitive facts and statistics.

This is a damn, fine article. The only bad part here is that most of the people that should be reading this, aren't! Are the politicians themselves reading this? Do they even KNOW what it means? Or do they have staffers who read this, and then "translate" it?

Actually, the one point that the writer didn't explore is why scientists, engineers, and mathematicians MAY NOT want to be involved in American politics. One only need to look at the amount of money involved in running for office, the amount of wheeling and dealing involved in getting the party one is affiliated with to back one's candidacy, and of course, the amount of bells and whistles one has to add to one's campaign to attract the public. It is, truly, a process of turning oneself in a pseudo-celebrity and getting enough "fans". This is not something many scientists aspire to, I don't think, nor has the patience for (I certainly don't).

Zz.