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the most able body of people in the country

Most able at what? Most people who are in elected office, or who have been in elected office, have a certain repertoire of skills in getting along with other people and in keeping track of mutual obligations that helps make the political process work. Some scientists or engineers who become politicians

http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/jimmycarter

http://mcnerney.house.gov/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vern_Ehlers

http://holt.house.gov/

http://olver.house.gov/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Foster_(Illinois_politicia...

http://sharp.sefora.org/issues/111th-congress-degrees-by-typ...

have had some degree of those skills, and some people with other academic degrees have gained understanding of how science relates to public policy.

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9226.html

But scientists and engineers are still fallible human beings,

http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300123852

and the political process will still come under influence of concentrated interest groups

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PublicChoice.html

regardless of which people fill the offices.




Of course, if a technologist tries to get elected on his own, he won't win because he isn't a natural politician. What I'm saying, with all the talent that exists in this the sceience/engineering/programming community, if they organized, built software systems and mathematical models etc, I believe they could get "their man/woman" in every office in the country.


Did you miss tokenadult's list of many technologist politicians? Also, http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Biss




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