Conservative ideology is inherently anti-science. It's deeply unsurprising to discover they don't go into scientific fields. Next you'll be telling me that atheists are underrepresented in the clergy.
Re:Liberals outnumber conservative academics - Unbiasing Aca...
by jacques_chester on Thursday February 10, 2011 @08:24PM
(#2204734)
I think this can be explained by a simple model introduced by Thomas Schelling.
Most people do not particularly like to be in a minority, for whatever reason. At cocktail parties, groups often begin to sort themselves into male and female groups. While everyone may have a total preference for mixed groups, they also have a steadily increasing preference not to be in a group dominated by the other sex.
Hence, when a woman leaves a group of 5M / 5F, the remaining 4 women feel slightly outnumbered. Then another one leaves. Before long the last 3 women have dried up entirely. A similar spiral can occur if a man joins the group in the first instance.
The same model can explain racially polarised neighbourhoods and politically polarised professions. Conspiracy is not required.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/ideas-are-not-th...
Conservative ideology is inherently anti-science. It's deeply unsurprising to discover they don't go into scientific fields. Next you'll be telling me that atheists are underrepresented in the clergy.
Most people do not particularly like to be in a minority, for whatever reason. At cocktail parties, groups often begin to sort themselves into male and female groups. While everyone may have a total preference for mixed groups, they also have a steadily increasing preference not to be in a group dominated by the other sex.
Hence, when a woman leaves a group of 5M / 5F, the remaining 4 women feel slightly outnumbered. Then another one leaves. Before long the last 3 women have dried up entirely. A similar spiral can occur if a man joins the group in the first instance.
The same model can explain racially polarised neighbourhoods and politically polarised professions. Conspiracy is not required.