I’ll bet the figure is close to correct for scientists who don’t belong to the AAAS too but skepticism is a healthy scientific attribute:
From one of my law school classmates, regarding http://lincolndemocrat.com/?p=3410:
The underlying Pew study is at least a year and a half old [article describing it is from July 2009]. More to the point:
the online survey of scientists was conducted among a sample of 2,533 members of the AAAS from May 1-June 14.
Any documentation that the membership of AAAS is any more representative of ‘scientists’ in general than the American Bar Association is of lawyers in general? Maybe most Republican scientists think the AAAS is a bunch of commies and don’t want anything to do with it, let alone contribute dues to it. Thus if they aren’t members, they wouldn’t have been polled. What do you think the percentage of Republican lawyers in the American Bar Association or the Trial Lawyers group is?So IMHO there is no documentation for the claim that only 6% of American scientists are Republicans.
