Reader survey results, biologists vs. non-scientists

Reader survey results, biologists vs. non-scientists

There are now over 400 responses to the survey. Here is a link to the responses in CSV format. If you import this into R, an extra parameter in regards to encoding may be necessary:

responses=read.csv(“responses.csv”,sep=”\t”,header=TRUE,fileEncoding = “UCS-2LE”)

I decided to separate the respondents into two categories, biologists and non-scientists (therefore, excluding other types of scientists from further analysis). You can see the filtered responses for biologists and non-scientists yourself. Below are some comments on interesting differences.

Non-scientists
Biologists

Completed Doctorate
57
19

Completed University
23
38

Feminist
36
46

Important to prenatala screen?
83
75

Abort if 90% chance Down syndrome?
79
83

Abort if 90% chance 80 IQ?
58
54

GMO should be labeled
45
39

Drink every day
16
30

Never drink
13
3

Non-environmental race differences in personality
64
54

Non-environmental race differences in intelligence
69
57

Non-environmental sex differences in personality
85
77

Non-environmental sex differences in intelligence
58
39

Overpopulation is a major problem we are neglecting
28
44

Believe in policy responses to fertility differences across groups
33
13

Gattaca is unrealistic
28
41

Blogs read regularly

Bad Astronomy
26
24

Cosmic Variance
19
15

Loom
22
32

Ed Yong
24
47

Pharyngula
16
24

Why Evolution is True
15
28

Marginal Revolution
36
18

Kevin Drum
11
3

Instapundit
14
6

Steve Sailer
48
26

Matt Yglesias
17
10

DailyKos
7
7

RedState
2
3

Sandwalk
4
15

John Hawks
43
43

Dienekes
47
40

Panda’s Thumb
8
3

It makes sense that people who say they’re biologists tend to be very well educated. One thing not evident explicitly in the table is that the biologists who read this weblog tend to be more conventionally Left-liberal in their views, and I think that explains some of the differences in response to questions such as …

Razib Khan