A crash course in true political science

The group running the course, Scientists and Engineers for America, doesn't ask political affiliation of its students and has teachers from both parties, said Lesley Stone, a lawyer who runs the organization.

"Scientists are trained to solve problems and use evidence-based decision making and we think those are really useful skills for elected officials to have," she said.

Congress already has a sprinkling of scientists — three physicists, three chemists, a microbiologist and a biomedical engineer. There are also 13 medical doctors, two dentists, three nurses, two veterinarians, a psychologist, an optometrist and a pharmacist.

That's nothing compared with 215 lawyers.

"Physics is a lot more fun than politics because it presents a great intellectual challenge. You're wrestling with the secrets of nature," said Rep. Vern Ehlers, R-Mich., the most senior of the three physicists. "Politics is not hard. It's learning to work with people."

Ehlers described decision-making in Congress as "irrational" — not necessarily a bad thing because it may mean the decisions are connected to emotions and people.

Foster, the Illinois Democrat, said he already has seen a difference between his old world of physics and the new one of politics.

"Both worlds are populated by smart people, most of them trying to do the right things," Foster said. "The thought patterns and internal logic of why things happen are very different."

Suson, who recently moved from Texas to Indiana, says he's several years away from a first run for elective office. He worries that politics could be harder than physics: Learning physics went along "a fairly linear progression," he said.

"Politics is not that. You've got to do something that I find a lot of Ph.D.'s don't do well and that's listen," he said. "You have to pay attention to what people want."

But there's a risk, said Paul Light, author of the new book "A Government Ill Executed."

While the public perceives scientists as being objective, Light said he worries "the more active scientists and engineers in the political debate, the more they risk their objectivity."

Paul Bunje, a Californian who earned his doctorate studying snail evolution and works as a policy fellow at the Environmental Protection Agency, hopes Saturday's class isn't about big ideas and concepts.

The scientist in him wants to set the soaring rhetoric aside and learn the practical steps for an eventual dip into elective office.

"Just how different is this from the life of a scientist, and is this something scientists can be good at?" he wondered.

Light said it may mean making some personality changes for the scientists.

"Scientists will have to get rid of their pocket protectors and kind of improve their political skills and get a more visible sense of humor perhaps," Light said. "But I think they'll be fine politicians."

Academics may be used to the "backstabbing" of university life, Light said, but he added that politics includes something scientists could be less familiar with: "backslapping."

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