Can I Buy an Engineer?

I was recently watching a rerun of Real Time with Bill Maher, and I was reminded of a very interesting point made by Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson during that episode. Tyson, a prominent astrophysicist, questioned the wisdom of a political system that contains a disproportionate number of lawyers - 57% of the Senate and 38% of the House by his count. His main points can be summed up quite succinctly: In our legal system, what is "right" is determined by who argues best. Does that sort of thinking result in the best solutions when applied to government? Does the presence of so many lawyers foster the kind of combative partisanship that pervades our politics today? (Tyson's remarks can be found here)

It's obviously an overstatement to blame lawyers for all of the partisan bickering we see coming from Congress these days. In fact, Congress has been composed of mostly lawyers since its inception, so one should be wary of drawing a direct connection between political polarization and the shape of our legal system. But this line of thinking does prompt some interesting discussion. What would our government look like if it were filled with engineers and scientists rather than attorneys and "career politicians"?

At this point, I'd like to direct your attention to some examples in the 112th Congress to illustrate my point. Unfortunately, the few scientists and engineers currently serving in the legislature of our great country are fairly obscure and haven't made enough waves to even be worth mentioning, making this little more than an intriguing thought experiment. But when it comes down to it, isn't that a reflection of why there aren't more engineers and scientists in Congress in the first place? Lawyers know how to put on a show. They know how to yell and wave their hands, and they sure know how to tell people what they want to hear. So when it comes time for "The People" to choose their leaders, the guys from MIT are left staring at their shoes while the Harvard Law grads clean house.

We don't have much evidence to know whether some technical folks would be able to turn the ship around. But it's probably a safe assumption that they couldn't make things more dysfunctional than they already are. So the next time you're contemplating your choices at the ballot box, give some thought to the candidates who've spent some time in a clean room instead of a court room.