I was asked an interesting question a while ago that deserved thought before responding. Here is the question and response.

It seems that all of our politicians are lawyers. There are a few medical doctors in congresses but why are there no Scientists?

Good question. The answer is, “I have no idea why there are no scientists in Congress.” But given that answer I am happy to speculate. By way of review, I have been educated as a scientist and actively participate in the education system for physicians. So, I feel I see how those intelligent people are trained and educated. I have never been through law school, but my brother went, so I got some ideas from him.

I think that the reason that scientists tend not to be politicians is they are educated and think completely different than politicians and lawyers. Lawyers are trained to work against and adversary. They fight other lawyers and judges and defendants etc in the name of justice for their client. Also, when lawyers are preparing contracts or documents two lawyers battle against each other.

Physicians are often educated in highly competitive and cutthroat systems to get into medical school, or into residency etc. They are taught to make one decision, that their decision is right and defend it. Their adversary is other students in school and lawyers to prevent malpractice law suits.

Scientists are taught to try to see multiple sides of a story, get outside opinions and to work with different disciplines to answer a question. A scientist will encourage others to verify if they are right or wrong and adjust their hypothesis if new information comes in. Openness and collaboration between scientists is encouraged and trained from an early educational stage. Scientists are very effectively trained to work with and as part of a team.

With that brief summary of the education and mind set of those disciplines the odd one out is the scientist. Physicians who need to out-compete classmates for coveted spots in medical school are well suited to elected office because the election is like competing for a spot. Lawyers are used to disparaging comments of adversaries so criticizing the opposing party is a natural thing to do. Scientists however are not trained to work or think in those terms and just do not make it to national offices such as congress. Is that correct? Who knows, it is just my opinion. But nonetheless, it is sad that more scientists (any) are not in congress.

If you want to know how or why scientists would be good to have in congress, watch this space.