80% of College Professors are Democratic

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by fdiron
College professors are the people who couldn't make it in their respected fields.

Idiots are people who make sweeping generalizations based on an ignorant or incomplete understanding of how things actually work.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[Sixpence]

Well, I was brought up as a democrat. I was told by my mother that democrats help people by supporting better working conditions, health benefits, education, and support the blue collar worker. I was told that republicans cater to big business at the expense of the worker. Now I can tell you I don't agree with everything the democrats lobby for, and I disagree more with what the republicans lobby for. But both sides lobby for things that I stand for.The problem is there is no middle ground. Until there is a strong third party(that won't happen as long as the Dems and Repubs can help it), no middle ground can really be found. I disagree with the Dems as far as guns, disarm common people and let all the criminals have them? I disagree with the repubs, the pell grant for education is a great thing. We give immigrants cash and credit and other services, but we can't give a poor american a free community college education? I agree with the repubs on defense spending, I agree with the Dems on education spending. But in some states you are actually required to register as Dem or Repub, and have to vote along party lines. I believe the supreme court has an odd number of justices so there can be no tie and a decision can be made. It's time for third party to be truly recognized. The 80% dem professor thing, I have no idea. But to say it's a bunch of liberals colaborating,well, you sound like a paranoid anarchist.

[NUKE]

College professors, representing the most highly educated Americans, ...

A professor is someone who is not employable in the normal work force, where  skills are actually put to the test. If they where so skilled or smart, they would not be teaching, they would be producing.

Professors are failed at their own profession, LOL!

[Kieran]

I think I'll side with DMF on this one.

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by NUKE
A professor is someone who is not employable in the normal work force, where  skills are actually put to the test. If they where so skilled or smart, they would not be teaching, they would be producing.

[/B]

It's astounding how many in this thread show their ignorance of what exactly it is that professors do.  While teaching is an important part of being a professor, just about every professor I know considers him or herself to be a researcher first and a teacher second.

Professors produce research that advances our understanding of the world.  

Professors are failed at their own profession, LOL!

Yet another remarkably ignorant statement.  Einstein was a professor.  Would you consider him a failure?  So is John Nash.  Most of the medical research in this country is done by professors of medicine who willingly give up the possibility of millions of dollars per year in the private sector in order to pursue a research agenda.  Many of the Supreme Court justices at some point served as law professors at prestigious universities.  Condoleza Rice?  Professor.  

Failures indeed.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[NUKE]

Yet another remarkably ignorant statement. Einstein was a professor. Would you consider him a failure? So is John Nash. Most of the medical research in this country is done by professors of medicine who willingly give up the possibility of millions of dollars per year in the private sector in order to pursue a research agenda. Many of the Supreme Court justices at some point served as law professors at prestigious universities. Condoleza Rice? Professor.

Einstein was one of the most brilliant minds of the past few hundred years, but not because he was a professor.

John Nash produced his "Nash Equilibrium" when he was 21 years old........ I believe before he was a professor.


I'm pretty sure most of mankind's great achievments have come from the minds non-professors.

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by NUKE
Einstein was one of the most brilliant minds of the past few hundred years, but not because he was a professor.

[/B]

You have your cause and effect screwed up.  Einstein was a brilliant mind, and because of that he chose to become a professor.  Why?  Because this was the perfect avenue for researching the sorts of things at which he excelled and enjoyed.  And as a result the world benefitted from his willingness to publish research and encourage radical rethinking of mathematics and physics.

John Nash produced his "Nash Equilibrium" when he was 21 years old........ I believe before he was a professor.

[/B]

He produced this while earning his PhD with the intention of becoming a professor and professional researcher.  He's also provided many, many more innovations beyond the Nash Equilibrium.  Graduate school is an apprenticeship toward professorship; what do you think Nash was doing producing the paper that introduced the Nash Equilibrium?  He was practicing the things that professors do -- namely researching and publishing papers with the intention of advancing our knowledge.

I'm pretty sure most of mankind's great achievments have come from the minds non-professors.

As very few people are, in fact, professors, you're probably right.  But this does not validate your point.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[Dinger]

those that can do,
those that can't teach.

First, that's a truism.
Second, well it is partly true for professors.  Good professors are researchers.  Lousy ones fall back on their teaching.
Now, as far as teaching goes, yeah, there are good teachers and bad teachers in US universities; just as there are good officers and bad officers in the US military.  But good or bad, one group overwhelming votes democrat, and the other republican. I don't see any calls that we promote more democrats through the ranks, or that they're being discriminated acgainst.
And I dunno.  From my experience teaching in a large state university, if someone's actually capable of formulating an argument and giving a damn about the material they're supposed to be studying, neither I nor my colleagues give a damn what their political affiliation is.  But it is true that the folks with prior military service do show up differently on our course enrollment sheets -- for Uncle Sam wants regular progress reports on them.  And, yeah, I can confirm that we left-wing commie-lovin' university types have a general stereotype of those people: we want more of them in our classes.  For some reason those guys know why the hell they're at a university, and aren't afraid to think for themselves.

[StSanta]

Dudes, I hate to come down hard on ya, but this time i gotta.

I am a bit weary of the black and white world that prevails on this message board. It's basically WWI. Both sides are entrenched, sitting in their positions taking pot shots at the enemy, or attempting to storm 'um, knowing it is futile.

You'll have side A make a claim, side B rush to deny it. Side A's claim is nothing but pure speculation, and side B's answer is a rethoric full of innuendos, half truths and assertions presented like facts.

Being a skeptic (religously, politically, you name it), I need more than this.

First, present the facts, or something as near as facts as you can get. Example: if you drop a stone from a building on earth under normal circumstances, it drops to the ground.

Then, present your hypothesis. "The stone drops because of gravity. Gravity can be observed through . This is far better than "your side says that's it's a giant Martian that pushes it down, which is ridiculous, since we know it's a guy from Jupiter.

Then accept the weaknesses in your case. Here, any weakness is considered a defeat. Arguments have weaknesses; they do not destroy the argument unless it is a weak one.

Applying all this to the current discussion:

1) The 80% number. Present it as a fact only if you can support it.
2) Explanations to this number. Come up with a feasible hypothesis, or present it as a possible answer. Give supporting evidence
3) Conclude based on the additional facts/theories and numbers.

I do not believe the majority of Americans see it all from a black/white entrenched position. You guys are better and smarter than this, so go on, impress us semi-lurkers .

[fdiron]

Yet another remarkably ignorant statement. Einstein was a professor. Would you consider him a failure? So is John Nash. Most of the medical research in this country is done by professors of medicine who willingly give up the possibility of millions of dollars per year in the private sector in order to pursue a research agenda. Many of the Supreme Court justices at some point served as law professors at prestigious universities. Condoleza Rice? Professor.

Ok, so a hand full of professors were able to do something worth mentioning.  Maybe in your magical fantasy land of a mind professors give up million dollar careers to share their knowledge with students, but thats not how it usually works.  Every once in a while a University is able to snag somebody at the top of his field by funding his research (possibly in return for a teaching position).  

Obviously since Einstein and Nash were accredited professors then everyone who teaches is brilliant.  Something one of MY professors told me was to watch out for people who try to erroneously skew data in their favor.

[LoneStarBuckeye]

Based on my experience in graduate school, I've got to agree with DMF.  When our department was reviewing candidates, the most important things were the applicant's publications  (and potential for future publications and obtaining research funding) and the impression that he or she made during the talk at which he or she presented his or her body of research to the department.  Also, more than half of the students and faculty in my department were to the right of center on the political spectrum.  That may have something to do with the fact that I was studying electrical engineering.

I suspect that if you survey the student body and faculty in a typical Philosophy, Political Science, or English department, you may find a quite different average political leaning.  Also, in less objective fields of study (sorry for that sweeping generalization), one's political sway is more likely to manifest itself in one's writing and research.  Thus, I believe that in those sorts of fields, it is more likely that candidates may be "filtered" based on where they lie on the political spectrum.  

- JNOV

[myelo]

Originally posted by fdiron


Ok, so a hand full of professors were able to do something worth mentioning.  

A handful? LOL

Galileo
René Descartes
Blaise Pascal
John Adams
Pierre and Marie Curie
Max Planck
Niels Bohr
Enrico Fermi
Alexander Fleming
Francis Crick
James Watson
Milton Friedman
Stephen Hawking
Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf

Shall I continue?

[Maverick]

Originally posted by myelo


A handful? LOL

Galileo
René Descartes
Blaise Pascal
John Adams
Pierre and Marie Curie
Max Planck
Niels Bohr
Enrico Fermi
Alexander Fleming
Francis Crick
James Watson
Milton Friedman
Stephen Hawking
Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf

Shall I continue?

Myelo,

I am afraid you made the original statement about a "handfull" more reasonable by the use of the time frame your list spans. If you used names pertinant only to the last 20 years, your assertion would be more valid. By making such a short list span more than a couple of centuries you add validity to the handfull arguement rather than undermine it.

I don't have a dog in that particular part of this thread, I just thought I'd point it out.

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by Maverick
I am afraid you made the original statement about a "handfull" more reasonable by the use of the time frame your list spans. If you used names pertinant only to the last 20 years, your assertion would be more valid. By making such a short list span more than a couple of centuries you add validity to the handfull arguement rather than undermine it.

The problem with asking someone to "list" names is that invariably we'll strive to provide names that are recognizable.  The list of the most elite of the elite is always going to be short no matter profession.  The fact is that a large number of professors have contributed immensely to society without making public names for themselves.  A friend of mine's father is a Math professor at the University of Virginia, and his work on refraction/reflection dynamics has been used in the Hubble telescope and other land-based telescope systems.

Richard Neustadt in 1960 wrote a book on presidential power that has been required reading for all incoming administrations since Nixon.  The fundamentals of power politics he lays out there have shaped the way presidential administrations conduct business.

Martha Joynt Kumar and Terry Sullivan, both political science professors, headed up a five year project to streamline the appointment process for presidential appointees.  This effort resulted in Bush filling twice as many positions after the 2000 election as Clinton did after the 1992 election... in half the time.

I could go on, but why bother?  It's ridiculous to think of any of these individuals as failures who produce nothing worthwhile, or who are professors because they are incompetent to do anything else.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[myelo]

Mav,

Point well made.

But as Todd indicated, when you consider the likely acumen of those that would make such a ridiculous statement that we are trying to refute in the first place, the challenge is to find names they will recognize. After all, rap singers, NASCAR point leaders, and the winner of Suvivor: Thailand are not really what we had in mind.

So I could have mentioned any number of contemporaries, such as Wolfgang Ketterle, Carl Weiman, Herbert Kroemer, Jack Kilby, Martinus Veltman, Gerardus ‘T Hooft, Arvid Carlsson, Paul Greengard, Eric Kandel, and Gunter Blobel… but I think you see the problem.