Would Charles Darwin Have Made a Good Congressman?

sciencehabit writes "It's a good 130 years too late to answer that question empirically, but at least symbolically Charles Darwin has won support from more than 4000 voters in the 10th congressional district of Georgia, thanks to an initiative headed by James Leebens-Mack, a plant biologist at the University of Georgia in Athens. Like many others, Leebens-Mack was deeply troubled by a speech his Congressman, Paul Broun (R-GA), gave at an Athens church in October deriding teachings on evolution, embryology, and the big bang theory as 'lies straight from the pit of Hell.' Broun, a medical doctor, is a member of the U.S. House of Representative's Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, and chair of its Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight. Leebens-Mack says the 'protest vote should make it clear to future opponents that there are a lot of people in the district who are not happy with antiscience statements.'"

Comments

We can't have good people

[Anonymous Coward]

It all comes down to this:

Why doesn't Leebens-Mack run against Broun himself in 2014? "I am a scientist, not a politician," he says. "I enjoy my job as a plant biologist. It would be too big a sacrifice to give that up to run for Congress."

Who doesn't feel the same way? That's not quite rhetorical; turns out you probably know someone who doesn't agree with that. But they're also someone you probably don't like, aren't they?

Re:We can't have good people

[TheRaven64]

Part of the problem is that politics is now a career. I wouldn't mind doing the job for a year, maybe two if I could do it part time - say two days a week so I could keep doing stuff that's actually interesting as well. There's no way I'd want to spend even five years, let alone the 20-30 that most politicians seem to have to put in.

Re:We can't have good people

[hey!]

Actually, the job of Congressman is crap; you get egoboo but you're a slave to fundraising and spend as much or more time in shabby political boiler room offices calling around begging for money as you do in your nice government office. It's stunningly degrading, and the average person wouldn't be able to stand it. You probably helps to be a major attention-hound, but it still stinks. It's much better when you get out of Congress and become a lobbyist who can afford to screen his calls.

Re:We can't have good people

[ShoulderOfOrion]

Actually, that's my opinion of how Congress should work. It should be like jury duty--your name is called at random from a nationwide pool of eligible voters to serve in Congress for a year or two. You, and the baker from Queens, and the auto mechanic from Des Moines, and the mini-mart owner from Phoenix, etc. You're there as often as the current Congress is. Your job is to pass the important legislation, balance the budget, and monitor and fund (or defund) the other two branches as necessary. Accepting money from lobbyists would be a serious crime. The sooner you get the job done, the sooner you get to go home.

I'd be willing to bet the result would be better all around.

Re:We can't have good people

[TheLink]

Still better than President of the USA.

1) One of the most dangerous jobs in the world - 9% die for job related reasons (get killed).
2) Almost everyone blames you for everything even though you don't actually have that much power.

Re:We can't have good people

[Jedi Alec]

You make a decent argument, and then provide the best reason why it is flawed.

If the current crop of politicians, who are mostly lawyers, are clearly and demonstrably unable to do a proper job, how do you know the baker and the mechanic won't do a better one?

Besides, politicians have to pass a lot of tests. The thing is that the electorate chooses to test on incredibly important subjects such as hair, teeth, flagpin wearing and the ability to spout immense amounts of bullshit instead of looking at minor details such as principles, realism and actual good ideas.

Let's face it, even if someone who is clearly principled and who actually tells the truth were to run, he/she wouldn't stand a chance. We don't want "leaders" who tell us the truth, we want ones that tell us that we're the ones doing just fine and everything would be peachy if it weren't for $them.

Rational

[RichMan]

Informed and educated opinions leading to decisions do not work with without rational politicians.
A democracy cannot function without rational politicians and citizens.

The first thing I would want in a politician is that they are rational.
If they are corrupt then ok, we have to figure out what motivates them and we can work with it.

Re:Rational

[PraiseBob]

And therein the problem: What rational person would go through the political process, where they are attacked relentlessly for months, with political teams spending millions of dollars to damage their reputation, digging up every skeleton in their closet, casting them as some type of dangerous idiot, and trying to turn a person's community against them?

That kind of job description has a hard time getting rational applicants who aren't motivated by goals of personal power.

Re:Rational

[TubeSteak]

And therein the problem: What rational person would go through the political process,

Someone who thinks they can make a change.
The 2010 batch of Tea Party representitives are a good example.
Despite holding political views way out in the fringe, they ran for office because they thought they could make a change.
They have: they've repeatedly stymied the Democratic agenda and, on more than one ocassion, have tripped up the Republican agenda too.
And I wouldn't call them irrational. Within their framework of ideas, they are very rational actors.

Elizabeth Warren is another example of a well meaning person who went through a bruising political fight to get a Senate seat.
She created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Republicans refused her nomination to head the agency,
so she ran for the Senate in Massachussetts.

Re:Rational

[eddy the lip]

This is something I have never understood. What's good for the economy is a healthy workforce; with enough money to spend (but not so much that they can squirrel it away where it does nothing); the ability to get your kids an education (for the next round of workers); making sure those with power, be it political or financial, are kept in check (to maintain the level playing field so important to vibrant capitalism) and keeping the commons intact so that it can continue to be used.

Absolutely none of those are priorities of the right, and yet it's liberals that are supposed to be bad for the economy?

(Grammar nazis will have to accept the horrible abuse of the semi-colon.)

It sickens me

[Reverand Dave]

It sickens me that someone as blatantly anti-science as this broun asshat is even allowed to open his mouth in public, let alone have oversight on the subject. I don't care if that guy was just pandering to a bunch of hillbillies or if he really believes the shit that fell out of his ignorant mouth, it needs to stop.

Re:It sickens me

[PraiseBob]

There are lots of cogent reasoned responses to those opinions, they are called Biology textbooks, and Physics textbooks, along with other great scientific works like "On the Origin of Species".

He would take one look at Congress . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

. . . and decide that humanity was not evolving, but devolving.

Would Isaac Newton have made a good mechanic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would Julius Caeser have worked out in a boy band?

Would Abraham Lincoln have been a good NASCAR driver?

Would Queen Victoria have been a decent haberdasher?

These, and the question posed by the article, are all equally important.

Re:Citing

[dl107227]

"...on evolution, embryology, and the big bang theory as 'lies straight from the pit of Hell.'"

By the way, it would be nice if the quote was an actual quote. When I see a semi-quote like this one, I tend to think there's a bit of bias involved with the citation...

That was pretty much a direct quote. Here is a video of him saying that and more.

Re:Darwin?

[geekoid]

" ObamaCare causing thousands of companies to fire and reduce hours for millions of employees?"
false. as has been proven over and over again with actual numbers and math.

" Or any number of other issues that actually affect every day Americans."
like sickness, disease, cancer and a myriad of other medical issue? yeah, he should do something about that.

"Or, if someone says something stupid, we get rid of them as an elected official?"
if they are factually lies like this dickhead said? then yes.

Re:Boneheads

[Sulphur]

So some congressman says some boneheaded thing. There's a big surprise. Now the correct respose is the boneheaded idea to elect Charlie Darwin to congress? Would Gengis Khan make a good hostess at the International House of Pancakes? Now that makes sense.

Until you ask for the Puree of Mongol soup.

Why not?

[tompaulco]

As a fellow Christian and college educated person, I think that Darwin would make an excellent leader. Maybe not a great politician, but we don't need great politicians, we need great leaders. Now science is not the most import plank for a governmental platform, but I think he would properly fund science and research, which has not happened since the heyday of 50s and 60s, when, by a bizarre and surely unrelated coincidence, the United States produced the greatest technological advances in history.

Re:Boneheads

[Genda]

All that raping and pillaging! Who knew all he wanted was a decent strawberry syrup!!!

Re:Boneheads

[Genda]

First person to laugh at Ghengis when he repeats your Rooti Tooti Fresh and Fruiti order finds out how hard it is to get a waffle iron out of the back of your throat!

Re:Well

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

That probably would be used against him.

However, remember that the entire rest of the world was full-bore racist at that point, even the ones who thought slavery should be illegal.

Darwin's science helped humanity in it's long climb out of that ignorance.

I have to laugh about people who point out problems with Darwin...or Lincoln or even Jefferson or the Founding Fathers for that matter. Back then, assuming you weren't a slave yourself, you'd be screaming epithets at the slaves, or maybe you'd be part of the small fraction who thought those inferior brown people should not be enslaved, if you were enlightened.