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Until the candidates provide more detailed responses on their own, AAAS has compiled a table comparing the positions that McCain and Obama take on issues related to energy and climate change, health care, and competitiveness and innovation. The most detailed information is available for issues related to energy and climate change.
The information AAAS provides is informative. But I hope that the candidates will provide more. I urge them to tell us more about their views on the role of science in policy making, the role of the federal government in protecting water resources, and the role of the federal government in preparing students for careers in science and technology. I urge them to answer all of the 14 questions.
- Voters place a significant amount of importance on public policy decisions that are based on science and technology to solve problems we face today, like global warming, energy, public education, and health care. Roughly seven in ten voters (72%) rate this between 8-10 on a 10-point scale (where 0 is not at all important and 10 is extremely important). 43% of voters give this statement a rating of 10.
- Majorities of voters say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who is committed to advancing science and technology on a range of issues.
- Majorities across partisan lines say they would be more likely to support a candidate who is committed to these issues.
On behalf of the American science and innovation community (see who here), we have submitted these questions to the candidates for President and asked them to do two simple things: A) provide a written response, which we will publish here, and B) discuss these questions in a nationally televised forum.The 14 questions asked of presidential candidates include the 7 questions asked of congressional candidates. You can find out how your representatives, senators, and their challengers answered the questions by entering your zip code in the Innovation 2008 box at the bottom of the page.
David Goldston had doubts about earlier incarnations of ScienceDebate2008, and his doubts caused me some doubts of my own. But after looking at the 14 questions that have been posted, I am really looking forward to the answers. They will tell us a lot about our next president.1
More evidence of the rotting of the right's brain. Conservapedia objects to the finding that a bacteria strain evolved the ability to better utilize sugar over 20 years."Rotting of the right's brain", or if not the whole right, at least those who run Conservapaedia. Writing at ArsTechnica John Timmer notes
Problems with group think and incendiary discussions are common complaints about what happens behind the scenes at Wikipedia. The irony here is that Conservapedia was ostensibly founded as a response to precisely that behavior. It appears that the victims may now be trying the role of oppressors on for size.
Joe Trippi claims that emphasizing the training in rational thinking (and by implication evidence-based decision-making) could be a real advantage to political candidates now. He claims that Americans are tired of the "Vote for me, and I'll cut your taxes" approach.
The SEA will launch a forum in July where scientists considering public office can seek advice.
No, this isn't about ScienceDebate2008. Nor is it about recent challenges to the integrity of science. It's about drawing a lesson from recent events that illustrates an important wy in which the process of reasoning science is different from our everyday reasoning, a difference that is often poorly understood.
If you're a Democrat, your candidate won in Wednesday night's presidential debate -- that was obvious, and most neutral observers would recognize that. But the other candidate issued appalling distortions, and the news commentary afterward was shamefully biased....
To understand your feelings about Wednesday night's debate, consider the Dartmouth-Princeton football game in 1951. That bitterly fought contest was the subject of a landmark study about how our biases shape our understanding of reality.
Psychologists showed a film clip of the football game to groups of students at each college and asked them to act as unbiased referees and note every instance of cheating. The results were striking. Each group, watching the same clip, was convinced that the other side had cheated worse – and this was not deliberate bias or just for show.
“Their eyes were taking in the same game, but their brains seemed to be processing the events in two distinct ways,” Farhad Manjoo writes in his terrific new book, “True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society.” (Nicholas Kristof, Divided they fall, The New York Times, 17 April 2008)
From this week's AIBS Public Policy Report:
As recent state-level legislative attacks on the integrity of science clearly illustrate, advocates for creationism/intelligent design and similar religious viewpoints are now actively pursuing “academic freedom“ initiatives across the southern United States. Despite a recent setback in Oklahoma, where a broad cross-section of academic, business, and religious leaders beat back an "academic freedom" initiative, several similar initiatives have surfaced in other state legislatures.
A science debate among presidential candidates has not yet occurred. There are several dates when such a debate could take place; as of this writing, none have been agreed to by the candidates. After a decade of what could be seen as antiscience in our nation's public discourse, and in a mainstream media culture more suited to sound bites than paragraphs, politicians are understandably reluctant to engage. But that reluctance is the very reason for this effort and for similar efforts. In an increasingly scientific world, science will become ever more intertwined with policy issues. Scientists must embrace every opportunity to engage in broader public discourse as ambassadors, popularizers, inspirers, educators, and, especially, policy-makers.Our primary mission, to raise the profile of science in our national dialogue and in the minds of policy-makers and the public, remains. The effort has made the candidates aware of how critical science policy issues are in our global society whether they show the courage to debate them or not, and their response to this initiative will be on record and will form a basis for future development. Looking ahead, the science debate initiative may provide a means of injecting science into political discourse in the next cycle of congressional races and the presidential race of 2012.
So it doesn't appear that there will be a science debate in Philadelphia next week. But that doesn't mean that organizers of the debate effort have given up. It simply means they've shifted their focus. Here's what Shawn Otto has to say in an e-mail that I received this morning (see the related report on MSNBC):
Our opening gambit, an April 18 debate in Philadelphia, is looking less and less likely. Obama has declined, Clinton has been non-committal, and McCain has been non-responsive. We want to acknowledge a national debt of gratitude to the Franklin Institute for their outstanding and visionary leadership on this issue, and we will undoubtedly work together with them in the future.But if not April 18 in Philly, then what? Is it over?
Not by a long shot.
Rather, the candidates' reluctance demonstrates the very reason why our initiative is so important and must continue. These issues will not go away by sticking our heads in the sand, and neither will the candidates' responsibility to tackle them, or the voters' right to assess the candidates on their plans. So like the candidates, we are beginning to focus on the next major primary venue, which is Oregon in May.
