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Obama Answers Science Policy Questionnaire
thebestsophist writes "A couple months ago, Scientists and Engineers for America, Science Debate 2008, and a bunch of other science organizations sent McCain, Obama, and all the Congressional candidates a bunch of questions on science and technology. Topics included biosecurity, genetics research, and national security, as well as the more common questions on research and education. Well, Senator Obama just answered."
Senator McCain has not responded to the questionnaire at this point in time, but the site has a profile of his views and actions relating to science policy, which provides a good basis for comparing the candidates' stances. We've previously discussed the differences between the two candidates' technology platforms. According to a recent NPR story, both candidates intend to keep politics out of science.
Actually, the candidates will not "keep politics out of science". Sarah Palin (Cheney in a skirt) is so owned by the oil industry, that she is unwilling to admit that global warming might be related to burning fossil fuels.
So no, 1. they're not going to keep religion out of politics.
And 2. they're not going to keep politics out of science.
But hopefully in the spirit of Rock, Paper, Scissors...
It's more that she's only attractive until she opens her mouth and stupid shit starts falling out of it, and you just want to slap her, but you can't because her boyfriend is on the football team and you don't want to be ruined.
There is a moral system which can reliably answer any ethical question with enough data in a logical and dare I say "scientific" manner. Most slashdotters would probably object to it, since like Economics it's not necessarily intuitive, and does not embrace "rights" as an absolute phenomenon. It's called Utilitarianism.
The difference is that people like you have a strange religious superstition that rats and trees and amoebas are gods of some sort, but that human beings are demons. You've got a silly notion of right and wrong, and while denying the label of "sentience" to any human being that disagrees with your cult leaders who have you brainwashed, you blithey acknowledge not only the sentience but the moral superiority of a piece of dirt. While your own stupidity and lack of self-will makes a case that some dumb animals could have higher IQs than some humans, I don't presume to judge them. Who knows, tomorrow you may evolve into a greater level of sentience than that rat you ignorantly worship.
THey're not all equally valid from a Utiliarian point of view. I know it's a Christian saying, but it really is the basis of science. Judge them by what they've produced. From a purely utilitarian point of view believing in Jesus kicks any other belief system's butt. Of course, you're going to next argue for a relativistic utlitiarianism where you get to pick which utilities are better.
Well...if the republicans are involved, they will end up with a lot less profit, but will not know where the money went!
"My immediate reaction is "WTF? What kind of moron doesn't make things 64-bit safe to begin with?" Linus