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Bush vs. Kerry on Science
chrisspurgeon writes "The science journal Nature put 15 questions to Senator Kerry and President Bush. Read the candidates' responses on topics such as stem cell research, greenhouse emissions, and manned spaceflight to Mars."
...in .pdf format is here if you don't want to hassle with the Flash presentation.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
... Dracula vs. Wolfman on childcare.
While I will ignore the lack of proof in your comment to back it up (Even if it is in TFA) I must point out that looking to the bible for help does not necessarily indicate a person is not pro-science.
Being agnostic myself, I obviously don't do this...however, it is my opinion that religion as a whole is designed to instill hope, etc in a person. So what's wrong with reading a book while looking for a little help/inspiration/whatever?
I really hope you guys elect Dubya again. We in Europe need all the help we can get competing in science, so Bush is our man.
Oh no... it's the future.
He's also pro-life AND pro-war, go figure.
A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein
I really don't see the point of this kind of 'interview.' Basically, each candidate is asked a series of questions, each of which has a 'good' or 'bad' answer. The results will shock you.
You mean the fact that, even on the fairly open questions, they bot do their best to hedge their bets and say as little as is possible with as many words as possible? Yes, that's what happens when you interview professional politicians, and I have begun to wonder about the point as well.
Why do we put up with interviews that simply give these politicians a platform to speak, rather than interviews that actually question them in depth? How about trying to actually fish a position and some definitive words out of them, instead of letting them answer with the usual nice sounding but empty rhetoric.
Okay, to be fair to Nature this was a written interview, so they didn't really have much choice, but this style of political interview is pretty much all you see in the US.
1. Politician is asked a question.
2. Politician gives a stirring mostly pre-prepared speech that may even have some vague relevance to the question asked.
3. Interviewer moves on to the next question.
What's with that?! Watch some BBC interviewers - I'd love to see nice half hour or hour interview of Kerry or Bush conducted by some of the BBC political interviewers. I think I would learn far more in that half hour than I have in all the election coverage so far.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
This is interesting: "what would you do to ensure that your administration receives genuinely impartial scientific advice?"
Both essentially answer: "It is really important to get impartial advice, that's why I will take only impartial advice."
Both don't get at all into the problem - which is "how do you know what advice is impartial?".
Both answers have nice parts like Bush's world class sentence "I have sought out the best scientific minds..." - completely ignoring that the question was "how do you deal with the problem that it is hard to know what good science is?"
Kerry's reasoning is equally interesting when he says "[Hey, how do I ensure that I receive impartial advice?] My administration would never utilize biased advice."
That's true Mr. President. You can very well be sure that you receive impartial advice when you just don't utilize the biased advice!
JUST ALWAYS BE SURE THAT YOU PERSONALLY SEEK OUT THE BEST SCIENTIFIC MINDS!
Both candidates didn't say anything about the problem itself stating trueisms of the worst order.
You can attach boosters to anything. It just costs more. -
Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 07, @12:26PM
They ask an interesting question about star wars here. Bush claims that the program is working, and will be much more fully operational soon, Kerry says that more research is needed. However, the question only focuses on the scientific aspects of the system, not on it's stratagic usefulness. The world is much different than it was during the Soviet era. During the soviet era, outside the possibility of submarines the only way for the Soviets to attack the US was through missiles, because we hardly did any trade at all with our "enemy", but today the world is much different.
Suppose North Korea really wanted to nuke the US. They have missiles that could potentially reach Alaska, MAYBE California, and will soon have the nuclear technology to make weapons, if they don't have it already. But if North Korea really wanted to attack the US, why would they use a missile whose source can be detectable when they could just sneak a missile on one of the thousands of Chinese ships that come to the US each year that go virtually unsearched by customs? North Korea would have to be morons not to have spies working in the Chinese shipping industry(unbeknowst to China of course).
We are just dumping money down the drain on a system that is questionable both scientifically and strategically.
Monstar L
Although maybe we shouldn't publicise this, it might provoke a nationalistic wave of support for you know who...
It already has. One of the most effective slurs against Kerry has been "he looks French."
an ill wind that blows no good
The fact that you missed in the funding ban is that if a research lab pursues embryonic stem cell research, they will lose ALL of their funding in ALL of their areas of research. The Bush administration has made it clear that they do not want to be tie to this in any way. Nearly every major research firm in America recieves federal funds to aid their research in one fashion or another. They are not going to pursue private funding for research in this area and risk losing all of their funding in others. It is a scare tactic used by the government to stop the research and it works pretty effectively.
Throughout his time in office, President George Bush has been slammed by environmentalists for avoiding steps to reduce global warming. Climate experts recommend cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions - and John Kerry pledges to take a greener stance.
Kerry is also very careful to not actually commit to anything. He'll consider options, but potentially he could continue right along with Bush's current policy, and it would not actually contradict what he said.
Jedidiah
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
How good would it be to see an interviewer sit down and totally grill Bush or Kerry for a good hour, with no aides or press secretaries, or time limits to force them to move on, and with no fear of losing 'access' and no drip-fed policy announcements and spin.
I often think about this. I think I have decided that open press conferences should be consitutionally mandates. The President should have to face the public and the press at least once a week throughout his term, and during the campaign there should be both compulsory debates and compulsory open press conferences. None of this stage managed bullshit.
Doonesbury says it well.
Read Pynchon.
And what would either of those questions have proved? That neither Bush nor Kerry are scientists?
Bush and Kerry do not make policy, they are just the public faces presenting the policies of their respective parties.
Whether the creation of personality politics where you vote for the most attractive public face ("Oh, I don't like him, he has a parking ticket, I'll vote against him") rather than on parties and their policies is a good or bad thing I'll leave for you to decide.
For those who didn't RTFA, here's the answers:
... I can't believe I actually tallied these up.
Bush, questions 1-2, 4, 6-15: Yes, but no.
Kerry, questions 1, 6-15: Yes, but no.
Bush, questions 3, 5: No, but yes.
Kerry, questions 2-5: No, but yes.
A.
Political diversity can only be good for a country like the US.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
I'm an athiest, yet I don't need a set of rules written down in a book to know what is right and wrong. My morals are consistent also.
I've heard this argument before, but I just don't get it. Do you honestly feel that an athiest is some kind of wild-man who runs around in a totally sociopathic way?
Come on...
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
It's possible to lead someone without having authority over them. In fact, that's the way leadership usually works. Anyone can command somebody who has to obey them. But true leaders encourage, inspire, and persuade people who don't *have* to follow them.
That's how captains of athletic teams are usually picked, and why middle linebackers are so important to the performance of a football team's defensive backs. The US military picks its combat leaders based on their performance *before* they have authority, not after.
The leader of the free world, if the US President abandoned that role, could just as well be French President Jacques Chirac or Nigerian President President Obasanjo.
Jon
-- http://www.cerastes.org
On most of the questions the responses from the candidates were equally uninformative. Overall I was impressed with the use of actual figures and specific plans in the Bush responses, versus the vague generalizations and even clearly ambiguous answers on questions like Mars and ballistic missile defenses that Kerry gave.
For the slightly interesting questions, here is the summary of responses(I am sure that Bush did not write his responses personally; for Kerry I am unsure, but I suspect that he didn't either):
Stem cell research: Bush quotes amounts of federal money given for stem cell research, whereas Kerry promises to allow federal funding of stem cell research on new lines. Scientists interested in stem cell research will all prefer Kerry's response.
Nuclear weapons: Bush promises to fund development of new types of nuclear weapons, Kerry promises not to.
Ballistic missile defense: Bush promises to deploy a system within the next two years, Kerry promises not to deploy the system Bush proposes for immediate deployment. No word on whether Kerry plans to continue funding research or eventually deploy a different system.
Greenhouse gas emmisions: Bush quotes previously announced goal of 18% reduction in US greenhouse gas emissions. Kerry promises to join Kyoto protocol.
Space science: Bush quotes Mars mission plan. Kerry promises that NASA will be given sufficient support for any future missions he proposes. No mention of any planned mission proposals, and it implies that he will can the Mars mission plan, although it doesn't say that explicitly.
Not even close. I'm an American (actually I have dual-citizenship, but that's neither here nor there) and I think that many non-Americans are very poorly informed about the issues involved in this election. I read the foreign papers (I speak French and Portuguese), and the analyses I have found therein are extremely cursory and often irrelevant. I had a discussion on Iraq with my cousin who is not an American and he spouted off this nonsense about war for oil. My brother is currently living in France and is inundated with idiots who think Bush is Hitler (and who apparently have no understanding of their own history).
Whatever side you come down on in this election, Americans believe that this is an extremely important one. And not just for foreign policy reasons. The country is making a choice between a candidate with strong socialist leanings (wanting to nationalize healthcare) and one with more capitalist ones (Medicare expansion notwithstanding). Quite frankly, the American issues you care about are only a small fraction of the ones I care about. Taxes, school vouchers, Social Security reform, healthcare, tort reform, and judicial appointments matter to me. There is no way that these issues matter to you in the same way.
If non-US citizens could vote, they would select the candidate that emasculates American military and cultural influence the most in order to shift the worldwide balance of power in their favor. Based on America's interests both domestically and abroad, I am confident that Americans will not vote in the same way.
Well, I thought that Kerry's answers were generally a stark contrast to Bush's. Where as the Bush answers tended to be the standard ambiguous crap that usually comes out of his Whitehouse, the Kerry answers offered some firm decisions on some matters and ones that will make some officials sweat profusely if he wins.
For instance, on further Nuclear weapons, he was straight to the point. I paraphrase, "We will discontinue research for next-generation Nuclear weapons, they are not needed."
Also, he was very firm on all questions regarding international matters that America needs to work as part of the international community and not alone (read: not invading countries without the support of the UN or abandoning important treaties like Kyoto). It was good to see such positive assertions.
I also wonder why he's so consistent in referring to 'John Edwards and I'. Perhaps he wants to underline that he won't be a lone ranger?
This guy might actually be a reasonable dude. Of course, we all know that power corrupts, so it will be interesting to see if he (and John Edwards) stick to his (their) guns if Kerry does become the next president.
But whether Kerry can beat Bush probably comes down to whether people believe that Kerry will "kill those darned terrorisms that perpopulate the global world order and need exterminating by sending Arnie to war". Which is quite a sad indigtment of American politics. I don't know why I complain, British elections seem to pivot on who the Sun, Mirror, and Star (ie. the 'gutter' tabloids) tend to support. That and Blair is better than any current alternative.
Which makes me wonder... I wonder how Bush would do in a Prime Minister's Question time that Blair blazes through every Wednesday. (If you don't like Blair, you should watch PMQs, he's really rather good at verbally destroying anybody who attempts to attack him.)
Free Gamer - Free games list and commentary
Neil is wrong. If 90% of a source is crap but happens to be correct about 10% of its content, then clearly that source is a bad place to look for information about that remaining 10%. There is clearly a better place to look for information on that content.
:-)
Kinda like slashdot?
I have been paying close attention to science policy since the Nixon years. Every administration, Republican and Democrat has had serious problems with its science policy, but in my opinion, and in the opinion of many of us old enough to have been there, there has never been an adminstration where Science was so badly distorted for ideological reasons. From climate change to missile defense to abortion to environmental toxins to the teaching of evolution, the Bush administration has made science subordinate to its ideological positions.
As others in this thread have noted, the actual printed responses in the Nature article are mostly unhelpful canned PR blurbs (and it is a scary sign of ideological polarization to see Nature, the world's most prestigious general scientific journal, described as "far left"), but it is important not to lose sight of the fact that this is not just politics as usual. There are plenty of conservatives and Republicans who are friends of good science, but there is nothing conservative about the Bush administration in this regard: they are radicals, in favor of science only when it supports their ideology.
This is terribly dangerous. To paraphrase the great physicist, Richard Feynman, (whom I first heard make statements like this when I was a student at Caltech): For any technological society to succeed, sound science must take precendence over ideological conviction, because nature cannot be fooled. In my opinion, the Bush administration's failure to understand this concept presents a grave danger to our country and to the world.
It is confusing, isn't it? Basically, only in a clean-room hypothetical, would 90% of voters choose a third party. In the real world, third party candidates either don't get very much media attention for potential voters to care or are considered a bit too extreme.
The theory that a vote for Nader/Badnarik is a vote for Bush stems from the idea that people who vote for change are probably voting for Kerry and not for Bush. So, by voting for a third-party, you're effectively taking a vote away from Kerry.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
You have to forgive people for thinking that the motivation for the invasion of Iraq had something to do with oil.
Because as it has become apparent, it certainly had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction, nor with 'liberating' the Iraqi people. Or if it did, it was executed so incompetently that claiming an ulterior motive is almost charitable.
None of the evidence that has come to light so far paints the actions of the current US administration in a positive light, inasmuch as it relates to the wars it has started. As regards other international affairs, it has actively fought any steps that would impinge upon the short-term benefit of large US corporations, for example in the arms industry, drug manufacture, agriculture. And of course there is the blatant disregard for the US' contribution to global warming.
Policies based in religious thought, not science, shape the US' position when looking at international family planning and poverty issues; the US has thrown its political weight around in trying to stymie UN policies on education and family planning which touch on contraception.
In international policy the US has been consistently belligerent; even now it is unilaterally trying to bully Iran on nuclear issues. It has strained relations with major allies, and amazingly has made itself even more disliked in the middle East.
So there are very good reasons why people outside the US have a very low opinion of Bush. Calling him a modern Hitler is hyperbole, but such low opinion of him is not unfounded.
(We've not gone quite as far south as Russia, but Bush says he looked into Putin's soul and found a friend... and, no, I don't feel confortable posting this under my real name. Yes, it's that bad now in America.)
Look I hate Bush as much as anyone else, but that simply isn't true. Go to any left blog and look at some of the ranting there. Do you think those people are being tracked and locked up?
Ummm
It's not as if the only people who have been detained were provably in the act of actually trying to kill US citizens on or off US territory.
A lot of the detainees in Guantanamo were actually non-US citizens found in a non-US territory who have yet to have been proven to have any intention of killing US (or otherwise) citizens. The government has refused to provide any evidence outside of closed military tribunals to back this up. They've just said 'unlawful combatants' and said the Geneva convention doesn't apply.
The person who you were responding to was pointing out this very same thing.
So, er, what right to hold these people is this actually acting on again? Certainly not for having actually found them in the act or demonstrated what they're accused of.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
"Bush makes it quite clear that people should stop thinking of stem cell research as a solution to all medical problems, and especially NOW, at the current time, we shouldn't be giving false hope to people who have recently been diagnosed."
Let's turn that around, shall we? Replace "oil exploration" with "stem cell research".
Bush makes it quite clear that people should stop thinking of [oil exploration] as a solution to all [energy] problems, and especially NOW, at the current time, we shouldn't be giving false hope to people who have recently been [paying jacked-up oil prices].
One more time, with "ballistic missile defense system".
Bush makes it quite clear that people should stop thinking of [the ballistic missile defense system] as a solution to all [national security] problems, and especially NOW, at the current time, we shouldn't be giving false hope to people who have recently been [attacked by terrorists]
See, when you divorce the logic from the religious dogma held by some re: stem cell research, it's sounds incredibly stupid doesn't it?
Let me point out some fallacies I see being repeated over and over again throughout the threads on this topic:
Fallacy - The set of people who are scientists does not intersect the set of people who are Christians.
Fact - Many scientists are also Christians, including myself.
Fallacy - Bush does not allow stem cell research.
Fact - Bush does not support fetal stem cell research with my personal tax dollars. Dollars for stem cell research are still being spent by our government, and private institutions can perform their own embryonic stem cell research if they so choose. You can even donate your own personal money to support embryonic stem cell research.
That is all for now, thank you.
Dude, The New Republic is full of neo-conservatives and hardly qualifies as liberal. You want left/center-left, read The Nation or Dissent, or go to the Center for American Progress.
Most of the question answer pairs go something like this: Nature: If elected, how will you balance [some issue - e.g. the environment] with [some conflicting issue - e.g. industrial growth]? Candidate: I plan on a adressing [issue one] without sacrificing [issue two]. sadly this is probably too late on the board to save anyone the trouble of actually reading the pseudo-interview, but hey, I tried.
not everything is a science experiment!
And while you might trumpet the lesser of two evils, I pity you for your shortsightedness and lack of character.
As I pity you for yours.
Really, it's just a difference of priorities. IMO the most important thing is to get Bush out, mainly because he'll take Cheney, Ashcroft, and the rest with him. The action most likely to achieve that is to vote for Kerry.
I may disagree with Kerry on a few issues, but I think he'll be a fine president. I don't need, or even want, a clone of myself or a puppet who just parrots my beliefs. What I want is someone capable of independent thought, who's not so blinded by their ideals that they can't at least give consideration to the opposing viewpoint.
I see those qualities in Kerry, and therefor conclude that he will be a fine president. Yeah I have some disagreements with him, but I have equivalent or stronger disagreements with every third party candidate I know anything about. A thoughtful man can be reasoned with, and is capable of changing his stance when he finds the available facts warrant it. So, I pick the one most likely to unseat Bush, which, if you recall, is my primary goal in this election.
Since I'm sure you're wondering what I meant in my opening sentence, here it is: Your shortsightedness is you apparant failure to recognize the extent of the damage Bush and company will do, not just in America but all over the world, if given another four years. Your lack of character is your refusal to do what's necessary to prevent that.
Remember, the only thing necessary for evil triumph is for good men to do nothing. I think you are a good man (social liberal + fiscal conservative = good in my book) who has allowed himself to be blinded by his ideals.
I don't mean to flame you necessarily, but it has always been my opinion that anyone taking so aggressive a stance has clearly missed something, and needs to be hit in the face with an opposing viewpoint.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.