Neil deGrasse Tyson has a great question...

[JDPriestly]

12. Legislators write laws.

Law is actually a kind of specialized language and a set of rules and customs developed over centuries. Lawyers go to law school to learn that language, those rules and customs. That is why our legislatures are full of people with law degrees. Because people with law degrees are trained to understand what the repercussions of the language in laws will be.

Scientists and engineers can go to law school. In fact, some of them do. And they become, for example, patent lawyers.

I must ask, where are the scientists and engineers when it comes to membership in the Bar Associations, the courts and the law. They are witnesses.

Similarly, when scientific or engineering issues arise in our legislatures, experts in science and engineering are invited to give their input. Some of them are hired as staff by legislators.

Scientists and engineers are as free to become legislators as anyone else, but they would probably be bored to tears over the discussions about whether to use "may," "should" or "must," or other linguistic details that go into writing laws. I realize that legislators hire people to do the actual drafting of laws, but lawyers are better trained to understand the legal meaning of the laws that are submitted to them by the staff.

Would you really want lawyers writing articles on scientific matters? Not often.