I have seen studies showing that the more education a person has the more likely they are to be conservative, until you get to the level of PhD where you are more likely to be a liberal.
What I would like to know is the breakdown of political persuasion when compared to the type of degree earned. For example, I am certain that a business major is more likely to be a conservative while someone majoring in Chicano studies is probably a liberal. What about the hard sciences and engineering degrees?
I belive the OP is asking for information regarding the breakdown of the political beliefs of given majors, not a poll of your major and political persuasion.
That is interesting, all the phyisicists I know are conservative (to varying degrees)with the exception of one guy who never could make up his mind. He really REALLY wanted to be liberal but couldn’t quite make himself believe that a lot of the liberal programs would work.
I wonder if it has to do with where they work. Most of the physicists I know either presently work or used to work for one national lab or another. Most of them did defense related work at some point.
I will note that all most all of them are conservative on matters like defense and spending while being liberal when it comes to things involving personal choice.
I don’t think the OP is asking for a poll, either, but FWIW: I was a government major and history minor, then graduated from law school, and I’ve long been center-left politically. But you’ll find people of all different political stripes coming out of law schools (“politicians in the larval stage,” I’ve heard it said).
That may be a big part of it… Funding for defense industries traditionally comes from the conservative side, in this country, while funding for academia traditionally comes from liberals, and most of the folks I encounter are in academia.
Scholars who have lookd into this think one of two things is going on (or both at once). First, people with certain values and personality traits (including political orientation) may seek out college majors that will make a good fit. Second, the academic environment of the chosen major may reward certain behaviors and beliefs, shaping the student in ways that include political orientation. Put very crudely, does political orientation cause major choice, or does major choice cause political orientation? Or is it a combination of these things?
Hollands theory of careers has been the framework a lot of people go by. He even identified certain traits that careers (and majors) emphasize and reward. However, some fields with similar “environments” are associated, at least anecdotally, with different types of political leanings. For example, Holland described both journalism and business as enterprising environments which reward leadership and aggression. But we all know businesspeople are conservative; their navy suits conceal blackened, heartless souls. They are results-driven, and they demand low government social spending and zero regulation. Whereas journalists are long-haired liberals, impractical and unrealistic, cringing behind their precious consitutional freedoms as they write their bleeding-heart stories. Holland doesn’t really fully explain political persuasions, then.
As I recall, any reseach into political orientation and major choice has been unsurprising but pretty general. “Liberals tend to choose non-science majors”–that sort of thing.
I have a Ph.D. in Molecular Cell Biology, and a B.S. in Microbiology and Cell Science - Conservative (well more Libertarian)
I too have similar issues as you, but just figure there is room in my mind at least for both God and evolution. I think my importance is more on where money should be spent/what the government should be telling people to do/not do (which is where the libertarianism fits in). But I will say most people in science tend to be more liberal due to a) evolution/stem cell research and b) grant money comes from the government