Okay one more:

Jonah,
Just to let you know I’m a scientist/engineer
(environmental, no less), and I’ve got your back.
There are plenty of conservative engineers and
scientists, though they are definitely less prevalent
than they should be.
The main reasons engineers and scientists are often
lefties include:
– Engineers/scientists are rarely part of the popular
crowd growing up, shocking, I know. They see
conservatism as the home of the “normalcy”, and thus
constitutionally oppose it.
– I’ve met several scientists who think anyone who
votes Republican is a snake-handling Jesus-freak.
This is garden variety ignorance, sadly not uncommon.
In academia, other factors also contribute:
– All the other faculty/grad students are raging
lefties. Large collections of stupidity exert a
powerful gravity of foolishness.
– Academics tend to live in the theoretical, rather
than the practical world. In science, in particular,
the theoretical is actually a vital component of
knowledge. In politics, the theoretical is the first
pebble in the rockslide.
– Academics get much of their funding from the
government. The left tends to like spending
government money. Scientists and engineers like to
eat just as much as everyone else, even if they rarely
eat well. :)
And finally, ask Brad where an economist gets off
lecturing you about what engineers and scientists
think. By his standards, he should just shut it until
he has a real degree (note to Brad: talking down to
people is bad enough, but you should at least try not
to condescend to people higher up on the food chain).
Honestly, it doesn’t bother me that you or Brad want
to hypothesize about why scientists and engineers
aren’t more conservative, but he should at least try
not to use the “I’m so much more versed in this
subject than you” card. It’s intellectually lazy and
has not been empirically supported on his part
(science, evidence, and all that).