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.

Comments

Re:Politics out of science? what about religion?

[jjohnson]

The national GOP just approved a plank in their platform that bans all embryonic stem cell research, publicly funded or privately funded. A private lab using discarded implantation embryos would be illegal if McCain and the Congressional GOP pass a law implementing that plank.

They're not from aborted fetuses, theyre from IVF

[Anonymous Coward]

The stem cells don't come from abortions, they come from the embryos grown in test tubes in fertility clinics. They usually grow upwards of 10 "just in case", and freeze the rest. The majority of these "expire" in the freezer, at least they expire for the purpose for which they are intended. They would otherwise be trashed, and you have fallen for the pro-life propaganda if you think they are from abortions.

Re:Party planks are ridiculous

[dachshund]

When you accuse the parent poster of partisanship, it's helpful to make sure your post doesn't smack of the same thing!

As to the Dickey amendment--- that was written by a Republican Congressman and attached to a major appropriations bill (that's what "rider" means). Clinton signed it because there's no line-item veto, and thus a President sometimes has to accept undesirable riders when the alternative is killing an important bill. It is in no way representative of his or the Democratic party's agenda.

Someone reading your post might come away with the mistaken impression that Clinton did not care to fund this research, and therefore Bush should be commended for his flexibility! Surprisingly, that reader would be greatly mistaken. Due to lobbying by scientists, the Clinton/Gore administration actually implemented a plan to fund of this type of research in spite of the amendment. The plan involved a grant deadline of March 2001 and had no restrictions on embryonic research. This is when incoming President (a man named George W. Bush) went ahead and stopped the grant review process and imposed his (and in the opinion of researchers --- quite harmful) Executive Order preventing funding of research on new embryonic lines. http://www.nrlc.org/news/2001/NRL02/doerside.html

Now, the interesting thing about your post is that it's technically correct on nearly every point, and yet the overall thrust is entirely misleading. Some might even consider that this was deliberate! Now, you have to remember that people read these comments and judge you on the way you make your argument, not just the factoids that you throw out. So if you're going to offer your opinion, I believe that it's important to your cause that the facts fully support your argument. By offering arguments that are technically correct, but lead the reader to a surprisingly false conclusion, you actually do serious harm to your credibility and damage the cause you support.

(If you'll forgive an old man his rambling, I'm inclined to believe that reliance on this sort of "truthiness" is one of the reasons that the conservative brand is experiencing such a terrible backlash right now. You can fool people once, but they get really pissed off when you do it. Or something.)

Re:Politics out of science? what about religion?

[amRadioHed]

How can you say that someone who has been a chief executive of a state (and a city) is unqualified compared to someone who has never run a company of any size and whose sole federal experience is less than one term in the Senate?

Alaska is a state the size of a small city and Wasilla is not a city. Sure, maybe in Alaska it qualifies as one but nowhere else. I grew up in a town in Massachusetts and that town had twice the population of Wasilla.

As for Obama, how is it that for him the only experience you count is Federal? Palin has 0 years of federal experience compared to Obama's 3 years. Gee, that sounds like Obama has more.

If we include state experience, which you only saw fit to mention Palin, we see that Obama has 8 full years compared to Palin's 2. Wow, that also sounds like more experience for Obama.

Additionally, while in the Senate Obama has served on the Foreign Relations Committee as well as the Homeland Security Committee. Those two committees deal directly with one of the biggest political issue the next President will have to deal with. How's that compare with Palin? Well according to her "[she hasn't] really focused much on the war in Iraq." So no Obama doesn't have any executive experience, but he does have experience that relates to actual issues a President will deal with. All the executive experience in Alaska will not give you that.

Barack Obama is only less qualified for office when you distort the facts to fit that conclusion. My mom was spouting the same nonsense the other day, but she has an excuse since she is a willfully ignorant fundamentalist.