Do scientist’s looks, religion, politics, or personality affect how his or her data are regarded?

I would think that the scientific method, thoroughness of research, and logic of the conclusions based upon that data would be the important thing. Much of the “regard” for any area comes through publication in juried journals and forums. At that point, many of the people reviewing the materials would have no idea of the researcher’s looks, religion, politics, etc. Or gender in the case of neutral names. They read the materials, sometimes even “blind” so there is no reference to who did the work and only the work itself can be evaluated.

Maybe I am wrong, but I don’t think there is pervasive discrimination against scientists? If there is an issue on a particular campus, then the faculty governance board should be involved no matter what department the potential discrimination is in. And if a scientist is purposely limiting his or her data, or disregarding it because of other aspects of personal life, then he or she is not much of a scientist — certainly not a serious one. In that case, finding another area of research, or another area of work altogether would be better than spending time on data that is incomplete or inaccurate.

A more chilling issue is the situation where science is disregarded because politicians do not like what the scientists are making apparent. The suppression of factual science and substantive research by people who have no qualifications to judge the validity of the work is a far more serious issue in today’s world.

If we do monitor discriminatory behavior without restricting academic freedom, then we are taking away their freedom of existing without their privacy getting violated. For the first part of your question, my answer is yes, they do affect, because fair or not, people have some preconceived notions on how a person of a certain status should look, act and behave. I doubt the religion factor would matter too much. Nobody buys into the act of associating every scientist with an atheist, anymore. I personally know a great number of scientists who are people of faith. The faith they choose to practice their spirituality in, wouldn’t matter for any intellectual person. I can’t speak for the ignoramus ones, though. HTH.

Question 1. Naturally a person’s belief system never affects how they look at the world.

Question 3. Hire government monitors/political thought police to watch and monitor each scientist just like they did in the old Soviet Union.

A good one will look at thing objectively.