Why researchers don't become elected representatives in the U.S.

I was speaking with representatives of a political party near where I live, and we were discussing how people can get involved in the political process. I, like many others in the currently political climate in the U.S., was interested in getting more scientists and researchers elected as representatives in Congress. During this conversation, I mentioned that if I was an elected representative and someone from the other side of the political spectrum proposed a bill that solved important issues regarding the economy, education, foreign affairs, etc., and that person had impressive evidence and convincing arguments for their approach to the point where it did seem that their bill was the best option, that I would vote against my party in support of that bill. I emphasized that loyalty to the facts trumps loyalty to the party. They politely disagreed: "It sounds like you don't want to get elected."

While this response may seem simplistic and pessimistic, on reflection I think this response is a simplified form of the complex task of becoming an elected representative. Simply put: the election process does not reward the skills that researchers have. All you need to win an election in the U.S. is a simple majority: one more vote than your closest opponent. You do not need to be correct, you do not need to have your policy decisions backed by objective evidence, you only need to have 1 more person vote for you.

The problem with this system is that it rewards charisma more than it rewards reason. You don't have to be well-informed and as correct as your evidence supports, you only have to appear better. This being the case, your efforts are best spent improving your public image and how people feel about you rather than spending hours of your day combing through the peer-reviewed articles in respected journals just to come to a tentative decision on only one issue. You don't have the luxury of "wasting" your time doing due diligence on every issue you speak about because election day is the end of the line. Far better to just have ready, confident answers that sound right to at least one more person in your district than your opponents, regardless if those answers are actually correct.

That might sound hyperbolic, but let's imagine a scenario where a significant amount of registered and regular voters in your district believe that the earth is flat, or that evolution isn't real, or that crystals have healing powers. If these issues come up on the campaign trail, you have a difficult and important decision to make. Do you come out against these beliefs because of they are scientifically unsupported (i.e. wrong) and risk losing all of those votes, or do you placate these constituents and at best deflect giving a hard answer against these beliefs in order to win the election?

As researchers, we are beholden to the facts that we can ascertain through the scientific method. We are obligated to change our beliefs in accordance to the data in order to remain intellectually honest and effective. Regardless of how we feel or what we believe, to paraphrase Richard Feynman, if it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong, and we have to abandon that belief. Granted, researchers are still human and this ideal is not always lived up to, but there are consequences within the scientific community for stubbornly holding onto a belief that has been shown to be incorrect. This is why you don't see too many alchemy professors or fronology researchers anymore, because those fields were demonstrated to be wrong, and continuing to be wrong is foolish, unproductive, and holds back further discovery.

For the politician, however, there is no such quality control mechanism. In order to secure a vote, the politician would do better to embrace the flat-earther, the anti-evolutionist, and the crystal-healer as "underrepresented groups" or the alchemist and fronologist as "fringe scientists". The politician is rewarded by being the best at making as many people feel appreciated and important as possible, not by being as correct as possible.

There are clearly many other variables to consider and this issue is far more complex than this, such as party loyalty partially being incentivized by campaign funding, lower voter turnout skewing potential benefits of an educated electorate, and many others. But there clearly is a fundamental problem for researchers who would attempt to enter into politics, as many are wishing for. As it stands, the researcher would have to abandon many of their skills and values in order to be successful in U.S. politics, or at least become much less effective at actually sticking to them. To be elected, winning must be valued over evidence.

Sounds like I don't want to get elected.