Liberals outnumber conservative academics - Unbiasing Academia

Already well addressed:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/ideas-are-not-th...

Conservative ideology is inherently anti-science. It's deeply unsurprising to discover they don't go into scientific fields. Next you'll be telling me that atheists are underrepresented in the clergy.

I think this can be explained by a simple model introduced by Thomas Schelling.

Most people do not particularly like to be in a minority, for whatever reason. At cocktail parties, groups often begin to sort themselves into male and female groups. While everyone may have a total preference for mixed groups, they also have a steadily increasing preference not to be in a group dominated by the other sex.

Hence, when a woman leaves a group of 5M / 5F, the remaining 4 women feel slightly outnumbered. Then another one leaves. Before long the last 3 women have dried up entirely. A similar spiral can occur if a man joins the group in the first instance.

The same model can explain racially polarised neighbourhoods and politically polarised professions. Conspiracy is not required.