"Scientists used to be well represented among the nearly half of Americans who voted Republican. But that's changed over the years, and one poll found that just 6 percent of scientists call themselves part of the GOP now."

"What happened? There might not be textbook answers, but there are theories.

Barry Bickmore, a professor of geology at Brigham Young University and onetime Republican convention delegate in crimson-red Utah County in the nation's reddest state, has pondered the issue at length. He contends his party is increasingly ruled by zealots and a demand for "ideological purity" that turns off scientists.

He says most examples are in the environmental sciences. And he points to the time in 2009 when majority-party Republicans in the Utah Capitol put climate-science doubters on a pedestal — while rejecting the mainstream scientist view about the danger global warming poses and even taking a beef about a Utah State University physicist to the university president."

Judy Fahys reports for the Salt Lake Tribune August 28, 2013. [2]