# Do political scientists today feel a sense of futility? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 19, 2017, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-political-scientists-today-feel-a-sense-of-futility/791666 "2017-07-19T18:36:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Chad\_Sudan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chad_sudan/32/4509_2.png) [@Chad\_Sudan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chad_Sudan)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2017, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-political-scientists-today-feel-a-sense-of-futility/791666/1 "2017-07-19T18:36:22Z")
It seems to me that the ultimate objective of political science is to improve governance. It also seems to me that in the last nine months, we in the U.S. have taken a massive step backwards in the quality of our governance (re: Trump). This was an unforced error that occurred despite all the knowledge that we as a society have amassed through political science. Doesn’t that bring the value, or the effectiveness, of political science itself into question? I’m curious whether U.S. political scientists today - the liberal-leaning ones, at least - feel any existential despair concerning their profession. Do any of them wonder whether the decades of research in this field might be, in some sense, futile, or at least greatly devalued, by the developments of the past year? Do any of them feel that political science might need to be rethought in some way? ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2017, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-political-scientists-today-feel-a-sense-of-futility/791666/2 "2017-07-19T21:48:13Z")
Political science is no more about improving governance than physics is about improving the structure of the universe. Political science is the study of how politics works. Part of what is understood by anyone who is involved in the science is that it’s based upon the actions of flawed human beings. Now, what someone might wonder is why it is that, despite significant advances in our understanding of the science of how politics works, we insist upon using political mechanisms in this country that have remained essentially unchanged for over 200 years, and were developed when the “science” of politics was producing the works of Voltaire. In other words, why haven’t we improved our politics by using the results of political scientists? This is a very important question. But it’s very much not the bailiwick of the political scientist to try and improve politics, any more than it is the job of the chemist to improve the oxygen atom. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2017, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-political-scientists-today-feel-a-sense-of-futility/791666/3 "2017-07-21T02:09:17Z")
I think that political scientists, both the professional and amateur varieties, are trying to reach a kind of Hari Seldon state where the thorough study of the past can be used to divine, and perhaps influence, the future. The oxygen atom is pretty much perfect as it is, the state of our politics, not so much. ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2017, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-political-scientists-today-feel-a-sense-of-futility/791666/4 "2017-07-22T23:46:32Z")
I majored in History and Political Science. But never in my life, have I even HEARD of someone being hired with the title of Political Scientist. As DSYoungEsq hinted at above, we who study History, and who take it seriously as an important contribution to the accurate understanding of humanity, aren’t often the kind of people this thread seems to imagine that we are. It’s usually the other way around. Politicians, if they study History at all, are most commonly just sorting through it like it’s a sort of rummage sale bin, where they hope to stumble across something to use crudely to make their ideas appear to have grounding in the positive past. No none has yet come up with any reliable formula for making politics “work.” Mostly, I myself feel a bit like I imagine many climate scientists do, that although we have plenty of useful information and insights to offer political leaders, they have never paid any serious attention to us. From another point of view, what has happened of late, is what I might call “drearily encouraging.” That is, the absurd nonsense that today’s politicians are turning the world into, is very consistent with everything we’ve come to understand about human behavior from our studies of the past. It’s a bit like a physics professor knowing well how gravity works, watching as a bunch of nut cases push the only available car off a roof, because they are convinced it will allow them to fly, if they just push it off fast enough. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2017, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-political-scientists-today-feel-a-sense-of-futility/791666/5 "2017-07-23T00:24:05Z")
Trump should be a goldmine for political scientists. How someone so deranged, unqualified, authoritarian, criminal, treasonous and inept managed to get 63 million votes is a testament to how fickle voters are and how fragile democracy is. This will probably lead to a lot of research into finding ways to strengthen democracy against authoritarian movements, and find out why voters don’t care if their politicians are qualified to rule. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2017, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-political-scientists-today-feel-a-sense-of-futility/791666/6 "2017-07-23T01:59:32Z")
Another PolSci major checking in. Yeah, Trump will provide fodder for tons of theses. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2017, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-political-scientists-today-feel-a-sense-of-futility/791666/7 "2017-07-23T03:39:23Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > …tons of theses. Oh THESES! I thought you said f…oh, never mind. ---
**Author:** ![squidfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a87d85/32.png) [@squidfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squidfood)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-political-scientists-today-feel-a-sense-of-futility/791666/8 "2017-07-26T18:37:14Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Another PolSci major checking in. Yeah, Trump will provide fodder for tons of theses. May you live in publishable times. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2017, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-political-scientists-today-feel-a-sense-of-futility/791666/9 "2017-07-27T12:23:19Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > I think that political scientists, both the professional and amateur varieties, are trying to reach a kind of Hari Seldon state where the thorough study of the past can be used to divine, and perhaps influence, the future. > > The oxygen atom is pretty much perfect as it is, the state of our politics, not so much. As somebody ([not sure who](http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/26/not-science/)) has said, any field with “science” in the name isn’t science.