Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

[livingdead]

Politicians from other background make decisions based on inputs of an army of advisors anyway.
I would not be comfortable in a situation where specialists are given portfolios in their area of specialization, the outsiders bring a completely different perspective to the department they work with.

In India, aprt from Law Ministry, all other ministers have no relevent qualification for the job, and I dont think that to be a bad thing.

I dont think technocrats bring anything special other than rational thinking, but that is available to anybody with a good education.
Also technocrats in general do not communcate well with voters, an essential in democracy.

 

[Oldman1]

The President has a cabinet for a reason. We don't need to elect a President just because of his or her occupation. And thanks to Herbert Hoover with his hands off approach to the beginning of the Great Depression he's one of the worse presidents in our history. We elect leaders to make hard decisions.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

They did it not because they persuaded the people to elect scientists. The communists were actually against intellectuals and educated people and those communists included Chinese communists. Did you forget Lysenkoism that China adopted from the Soviets to disasters?

Biology is different. It is not as quantitative as math, physics and chemistry, so it is more open to "belief" and interpretation of observations independent of underlying theory.

Communist governments revere industries like chemicals, automated machinery, civil infrastructure, and metallurgy.

 

[Birbal]

America is a representative democracy. How would smart people represent stupid people?