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Science Debate 2008
bhmit1 writes "BusinessWeek is reporting about Science Debate 2008, an attempt to put the scientific issues front and center in the US Presidential race. After 12,000 scientists signed on in support of the idea of a debate focused on science, no campaign has replied to an invitation to such a debate. The article notes that only one candidate has said much about science issues in the campaign, and that some who are running are sufficiently anti-science as to deny evolution. There is a link to a comparison of the candidates' positions on issues informed by science. (Yes, Ron Paul is included.)"
Something makes me think, this will not be an entirely objective undertaking...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
At least one sane guy there, reading about Obama:
Reforming the U.S. Patent and Trademark OfficeSeems like that one is the geek choice.
c++;
I've been part of their mailing list for a while, and now that some major groups have joined the effort, it's good to see it finally getting some press. Hopefully this will explode, it's just too bad it didn't come to head early enough for most of the primaries.
Whether anyone wants to admit or realize it, scientific issues are exceptionally at the heart of most of the current debates. The article points out some cases, such as the "evidence" for Iraq, that would never have passed a scientific board of inquisitors. Stem cells and evolution are the obvious, but science plays a major role in the abortion and gay rights debate (assuming people think instead of react). Threats of terrorist attacks and various influenza worries are right alongside global warming and environmental concerns as being hugely public issues that basically come down to scientific discussion and knowledge. That some people have the gall to dispute all of evolution or climate change is a sign of a serious and, IMO, disgusting ignorance on the part of the American population. Scientific innovation is also at the heart almost everything we care about: social issues, healthcare, military innovation, prevention of disease, education - it's about time we got our public interested.
Then again, as the SD08 guys point out, we need the leaders to acknowledge this as well. I need only point to xkcd to make the point.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
If I were president I would swap the defence budget and NASA's budget.
You have a very narrow view of research. Almost all research that is done on government funding is invisible to you, the layman. They are fundamental topics that will see applications only YEARS down the road from now. The trick with private research funding is that they ensure only short-term success, since being investment-based that's all they can be.
Not to mention that private funding will always focus on the topics that will lead to business-applicable technologies soonest, as opposed to general research that will open up entirely new segments of science altogether, which is a long term benefit.
Government research support is absolutely critical. My brother is a researcher in the field of evolutionary genetics, something that few private companies will think about funding. But the knowledge is important, and in time has led to real advancements in our knowledge and our technology.
So please, keep up government scientific funding, it's the only competitive advantage the USA has ever had, and the only hope it has of maintaining its supremacy as a superpower.
The summary mentions that only one candidate has spoken about science issues during the campaign, without mentioning who it is. I'm sure you'll be as surprised as I was:
"It's hard to get 12,000 scientists to agree on anything," says Alan Leschner, chief of AAAS and former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "But science is the biggest issue facing modern society, and we are concerned that only one candidate--Hillary Clinton--has so far devoted any energy to science."
I came here for a good argument
Over the years our use of the term "evolution" became so vague that I'm not even sure what it means to say that someone "denies evolution" **sniff*sigh**
Yep. Basic research will almost NEVER be done by private industry, simply due to the fact that any benefits that come about due to it tend to be long-term, if there are any benefits at all. The purpose is purely to expand knowledge without knowing if and how that knowledge can be used. Private industry has no desire to do research simply to expand our understanding of the world--they only want knowledge that can be monetized quickly. It seems that most people that argue that government shouldn't fund research don't understand the distinction between basic research and applied research.
This guy's the limit!
The only proper position for a presidential candidate to make on science is, "It's none of the government's business!" Once you make science the province of government, it becomes subjective and political. In centuries past we had royal courts funding alchemists who always said what the king wanted to hear. Today we have government departments funding researchers who always say what the politicians want. What's the difference?
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Everyone talks about creationists trying to have the government force their views on society (e.g. teaching creationism in schools). I agree with that.
However, overly pro-science people can be just as bad. I'm just going to Godwin this right now: the Nazis killed a lot of people who had genetic imperfections (low IQ, susceptibility to some diseases) in order to improve the gene pool. If you go by a strictly scientific viewpoint, such actions are defensible. Eugenics programs are immoral, but they do improve the gene pool. It's safe to say the Holocaust would never have happened if Darwin and Mendel hadn't been born. This is why I don't want an overly pro-science candidate in office. Someone who believes the government should strictly adhere to scientific principles will ultimately attempt another Holocaust.
And then you have the fact that genetic determinism is an excuse for racism. Most modern racists are strong supporters of science, genetics, and evolution, as they claim it validates their immoral beliefs.
I don't want an anti-science creationist. I don't want a pro-science eugenicist. I want separation of science and state.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
The article mentions several times the number 12,000, that is "twelve thousand", the submission has an extra zero, not a misplaced comma.
Wouldn't it be nice just to hear the candidate's position on the scientific method? I'd bet several of the candidates would be against the scientific method, and most everything else on those position statements is dependent on their belief in using observable and measurable data to form a hypothesis.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
A popular conception of what it means to be scientifically informed is to swallow the party line given to you by popular sources of so-called scientific knowledge. There is precious little involvement from the actual scientific method, no better than just accepting on faith everything the pope says. The fact is, many people feel mistreated and mislead by this nebulous thing we call "science" and made to feel stupid when they question the status quo. That's ironic because science should be all about questioning the status quo. But when I was a child, questioning evolution and asking for more support for it (I was a kid in high school; I had no clear definition of it) was not met with the knowledge I asked for but derision for so stupidly questioning the God-given truth handed down by our priestly scientists.
Skepticism should be the default position of everyone who studies science, even skepticism of those things that are very strongly established. Yes, it is often the case that someone who is questioning a position may question it less if they have more knowledge in the area. But no one can be an expert in all areas of science, and it should ALWAYS be okay to question what we're told. (ObSlashdot: If we here weren't the questioning sort, we'd all be using Windows instead of Linux.)
So I put it to you that, by taking a skeptical position, some of these anti-science people are in fact more faithful to the underpinnings of science than those people who arrogantly call themselves scientists.
To the masses, "science" (much like "politics" or "medicine") is defined purely in terms of the output of those people who practice it, and not by the principles those practitioners are supposed to follow. Scientists are often full of shit. Plus, most of the science that people are exposed to is the stuff they didn't pay attention to in high school and the stuff they watch on Discovery Channel, both of which are utter crap. So what do you expect people to think?
Oh, and one other thing. Don't think anything's going to be fixed by improving science education. Yes, the education is crap, but science can be unintuitive even when taught well. The solution is to fix the scientists and their massive egos.
And where is AT&T Labs now? Xerox PARC? Businesses believed it before, but it would seem they no longer do. Also, think outside of the world of computer technology - our research is a bargain compared to fields like genetics and biology.
Not to mention even when we invented the transistor, we already could see applications for it - after all, it's immediately obvious that we can replace vacuum tubes and make a better computer. Computer research ALWAYS has a short-term application, it's easy to justify funding.
As opposed to the guys who discovered DNA. If you went up to a private company and told them you wanted millions of dollars so you can poke around inside a cell and figure out what's inside... I doubt you'd get much of the funding you wanted. But it's unquestionable that the discovery of DNA has led to real and HUGE leaps in medical technology.
It's also due to the stereotype of Republicans being religious zealots who refuse to believe in evolution. And while these types of people are doubtless more common amongst republicans than amongst democrats, it's hardly a fair accusation against the party as a whole.
A large chunk of the computer revolution can be attributed to NASA's need to miniaturize onboard systems for Apollo. Materials like Teflon come out of the space industry. NASA has been responsible, directly or indirectly for an enormous number of technical innovations. So while the space program is costly, there is a tangible payback to the taxpayer.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Look, you have governments in Europe, Japan and China pouring significant amounts of money into basic research. As it is there is a great deal of concern about the US beginning to fall behind. For now that shortfall is being made up by importing researchers, but to basically cut off a major part of competitive scientific research to fulfill some ill-informed Libertarian ideal and allow competing countries to finally pass the US by will truly represent the decline of the US as a major power.
This is why I think Libertarians are among the most historically ignorant people to be found. For a rather good example of how diminished state funding can lead to decline, look what happened in Rome. Virtually all the great public works projects, all the engineering innovations and the like were made early on. BY Constantine's time, Rome's technical abilities had fallen to the point where craftsmen would actually have to loot older monuments.
Private industry needs returns on investments that can be measured in years. There's nothing wrong with that, people want to make money on their investment. Basic research, however, is absolutely critical to long-term scientific advancement. Those big, expensive particle accelerators that open up the secrets of the universe will never be built by private industry, because there's almost zero chance of any meaningful financially-rewarding application. And yet, in the timeline of decades or perhaps even centuries, basic physics research may open up technologies we can't really imagine now.
Unless you turn it all over to the private sector, in which case it won't be Americans landing on Alpha Centauri or getting instantaneously transported from the Moon to Mars. Americans will be the people cleaning the ashtrays and vacuuming the floors.
To very loosely paraphrase Asimov, never let your ideology prevent you from doing what's right.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Of course, if there are compelling arguments to be made for the use of foetal tissue, I wouldn't mind hearing them. But I'll be very skeptical about "it'd make stem cell research way easier". Sometimes human dignity has to outweigh purely scientific advancement or we're making only a very narrow form of progress.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
The USSR did a helluva lot of research. Some of the best physicists were produced by the Soviets, even if the ultimate justification was building bigger bombs.
I don't think anyone says that all research should be publicly funded, but to dismiss the overarching importance of basic research, or to pretend that the private sector would ever pick up the ball in areas such as biology, physics, archaeology, anthropology and so forth is absolutely naive.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The political debate and the scientific debate are entirely separate beasts. While the measured facts may be awfully tough for you to interpret, scientists have put quite a lot of work into successfully interpreting them -- the results of which, I would bet, you refuse to accept.
You appear to believe that things have a single cause. This is either never or rarely true.
I do not know of a single sane and honest scientist that believes that humanity did not *contribute* to the current global warming. Any argument is WRT the degree of contribution. As measurements and models have gotten more sensitive, the degree of contribution has been appearing more significant as a major factor.
I'll admit that there are still uncertainties, but the major ones are WRT "How rapidly will the sea levels rise?" Recently glaciologists have been seeing results, not currently included in the models, that seem to imply that a rise of 30 feet in a few decades time from now is not totally out of the question.
It's quite true that there is no certainty that this is the correct interpretation. Further measurements are needed, and these need to be included in the models. Then the models need to be run with a range of plausible parameters. But it would be wise to start making preparations. Some reasonable preparations include to cease increasing the rate of CO2 accumulation, but others would include studying how to build and maintain dikes, and investigating where they might reasonably be installed. Large investments should probably wait upon the results, but initial studies should have already begun. But the lack of 100% certainty is a hoax. One never gets certainty. Certainty is a limiting case, that doesn't even apply to the Sun rising tomorrow. That one might get 99.999999%, or possibly another 9 or two. This is *close* to certainty. And that's the best one can EVER do.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I made no claims about the book and did not intend to. By its title and choice of topics, it's clearly not about science. (And, as I mentioned in another comment here, there are no facts about value judgments, such as ethics. As you correctly guessed, there are no facts about bio-ethics. There is science about biology, and that is the extent of it.)
"I doubt their interpretation, because I doubt their integrity. This particular aspect of science has immediate and vast political implications, which creates bias."
This is a black-box view of research: the claim that the results of research are readily tainted by the researcher's bias. Any level of scientific training will teach you otherwise -- while data can be manipulated, putting bias on your interpretations is obvious to a large enough group of educated readers. Findings can be easily verified by measurements of your own -- which is exactly what is done.
"Climatology is not a precise science, a lot of stuff is open to interpretation"
It is much more precise than this sentence. It belies a lack of understanding about important and basic scientific principles. All scientific principles are capable of conveying to you the limitations of their accuracy. While biased and uneducated naysayers love to deny it, anthropogenic climate change has long passed into the realm of "confirmed".
Science without Ethics is sociopathology.
"but there is nothing "anti-science" in not believing them"
There is everything unscientific about simply not believing them because you don't want to. Nor does it suffice to have no understanding of how climatology works, apply the claim "it's complicated", and then leap to whatever conclusion you happen to like.
"Which is exactly, what established and professional historians were saying about the history of Soviet Union"
This still has nothing to do with science. I'm glad you've figured out that simply listening to the establishment will not necessarily get you the right answer. Scientists don't give a shit about listening to establishment. Only if you have no understanding as to how the scientific process works can you confuse the matter and simply think that there is some cabal called "science" which makes unsubstantiated -- and likely to be wrong -- claims by virtue of authority.
"Why don't you just say it, the way king's dress-makers did -- whoever doubts it, is a moron?"
There's no doubt that you're a moron. It has nothing to do with the fact that you doubt, but the way in which you do so.
Fighting disease in adult humans is only one possible application of what can be learned by studying stem cells. And you're right that the possibility of creating stem cells from adult cells would be a big step in this direction.
But stem cell research was originally (and some still is) just one aspect of wide-ranging pure research into human genetics and biology. The main reason to study fetal stem cells is that it is the only way to understand the biology of how humans reproduce, and how genetic information is expressed to create a human. Some aspects of the basics of genetics can only be studied in naturally developing fetal stem cells. Artificially created stem cells skip these steps.
Unfortunately when Bush prohibited federal funding, his order covered ALL fetal stem cell research, not just the research that was aimed at fighting adult diseases. It would be like prohibiting all research involving neutrons just to fight nuclear weapons proliferation.
In terms of remains vs. resources, there is a ton of precedent for this approach to biology. Almost everything that is known about human anatomy was originally discovered by dissecting corpses. Medical students to this day dissect real human corpses in their anatomy and physiology classes. So even if we believe that embryos are essentially human, I don't think that automatically precludes their use in research.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Second: Lab reproducible abiogenesis? No. Lab reproducible evolution? Yes.
Third:
At some time t0 no life existed on earth.
At some time t2 life existed on earth.
Therefore, at some time t1 between t0 and t2, life came into existence (-genesis) on earth where there was no (a-) life (-bio-) prior.
Saying abiogenesis hasn't happened is exactly the same as saying that biological life has always existed, which is patently absurd.
Life would be easier if I had the source code.