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A Call For Science Policy Debate Among Presidential Candidates
Marissa Fessenden writes about a campaign to get Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to address important scientific issues in the run-up to the 2012 presidential election. ScienceDebate.org and Scientific American have posed a set of questions to the candidates, as well as congressional leaders, and they're rallying support for those questions to be answered before the election. The responses will be published and graded for citizens to see. The questions include topics such as biosecurity, climate change, the safety of food and water supplies, vaccination, and environmentally sustainable energy. This comes at a time when the basic scientific literacy of elected officials is under heavy scrutiny.
Why? One can't talk or think without the teleprompter and other will quote the Old Testament.
Which is why it becomes important to determine(admittedly by way of various imperfect proxy measures) what their chosen science minions will do for them...
While it might be an interesting change of pace to elect a scientist rather than a lawyer or executive, that seems unlikely. However, even the personally-dimmest are going to end up making choices about the sort of 'expertise' they choose to cultivate around themselves, and we'll likely see a few differences in that advisory group.
Republicans will see the list of suggested topics ("biosecurity, climate change, the safety of food and water supplies, vaccination, and environmentally sustainable energy") as unfair and biased toward the Democrats' agenda. However, this says more about the Republican party's interest in science than it does about ScienceDebate.org's political bias.
How about implementing safer forms of nuclear power?
Such a technology does exist: the liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR), a prototype of which was tested in the 1960's and early 1970's at Oak Ridge National Laboratory with very promising results for power generation but was discontinued because it couldn't generate uranium-235 and plutonium-239 needed for nuclear weapons production.
There are numerous advantages to LFTR nuclear power plants, as I've mentioned in other posts in the recent past. And it uses thorium-232, which is quite abundant in nature, so finding it is not an issue. (Indeed, China wants this technology because they can't figure out what to do with all that thorium ore dug out as part of China's extensive rare Earth mining program.)
Wind and solar power may be nice, but large installations of wind turbines could pose a major hazard to birds and most large-scale solar power array installations take up huge swaths of land. Meanwhile, a modern LFTR using Brayton turbines to generate power takes up a very small amount of land just to generate 500 to 1,000 MW, which means very cheap construction costs.
We are no longer electing a person we are electing an ideology.
1. Innovation and the Economy: Democrats, More money into funding NSF, and Public Universities. Republicans, let the private market innovate themselves, allow competition to improve be the driving factor.
2. Climate Change: Democrats, More money into less effective green energy in hopes that money will make it work better. Republicans Increase use in Nuclear and Natural Gas production and let the market decide what is best for them.
3. Research and the Future: Democrats,More money into funding NSF, and Public Universities. Republicans, let the private market innovate themselves, allow competition to improve be the driving factor.
4. Pandemics and Biosecurity: Democrats, Wait until something happens in the US then we will have an answer 15 minutes before the problem climaxes, From a federal funded scientist. Republicans, Wait until something happens in the US then we will have an answer 15 minutes before the problem climaxes, from a drug company scientist.
5. Education: Democrates, More money into schools, we will put some stupid metrics to show that it works. Republicans, vouchers for private schools, all competition of schools force them to improve.
6. Energy: Democrats, More money into less effective green energy in hopes that money will make it work better. Republicans Increase use in Nuclear and Natural Gas production and let the market decide what is best for them.
7. Food: Democrats, screw scientific results they are just from some corporate drone anyways, ban anything that sounds scary. Republicans let it all go out, and lets not try to measure it, until enough people are dying.
8. Fresh Water: Democrats, Find the most polluted areas spend a lot of money to clean it up (It cannot be used for drinking, or fishing. But there is a 50% reduction of pollution!!!), and show a nice big percentage number to show the improvement. Republicans, tell the population to buy water cleaning systems for their house.
9. The Internet: Democrats, Policies that will favor the internet companies that fund them More Open, but we tax it more. Republicans, Policies that will favor the internet companies that fund them, less open but no taxes.
10. Ocean Health: Democrats, heavy restrictions on all companies. Republicans, The Ocean is in in international waters... Not our concern.
11. Science in Public Policy: Both sides will give some BS answer and only cite science when it is for their benefit. Discredit the source when it isn't.
12. Space: Democrats, Wast of Time and Money. Republicans, a military strategy.
13. Critical Natural Resources: Democrats Put money in protecting or expanding and regulating the users. Republicans, Supply and Demmand will correct itself, once becomes to scarce price will rise high enough for alternative.
14. Vaccination and public health: Democrats, force it on everyone screw what their religion or belief is. Republicans let people decide for themselves, and allow the spread of misinformation too.
We are no longer getting candidates for leaders, we are getting ideology enforcers.
Democrats, Will spend want to spend more money to solve the problem, money will solve all problems.
Republicans, Will want private business to solve the problem, businesses can solve all problem.
What we need is a leader not an ideology. Who can look at these issues and say. If we change a process here we may be able to solve a problem without that much money. Or this area does have a good process but it needs some more money to reach critical mass. Analysis when there is policies are in conflict with each other and try to measure the trade offs.
But one of those guys would be those horrible moderates, or as we call them Flip Floppers. They do crazy things like listen to both sides, and use their own mind to come up with a solution. We don't want one of those people to rule our country. We want easy to digest sound bytes that follows a consistent ideology. Because a simple ideology will solve all our problems, the problem is always the other guy who will not allow us to implement our ideology.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Nope, just reality.
If you want to believe the Earth is flat go for it. Just don't expect not to be mocked. Same thing for thinking the universe is 6000 years old.
Not all issues have two sides. Like with the shape of the earth there just can be no argument. Just reality and crazies.
The attack by conservatives on science and reason has nothing to do with "control over your life". It's quite the opposite, in fact. Once you defeat the idea of rational governance, you're free to exercise power in a completely arbitrary way, in response to the needs of your corporate patrons or any whim at all. Total power is not constrained by the requirement of rational justification.
And before conservatives complain about government abridging their freedoms, they should reflect on the long list of groups (women, gays, non-christians, etc. etc.) that they deem undeserving of the same consideration.
Even though I agree with 1/2 of this, someone bringing up "teleprompter" deserves all communications flushed down the memory hole.
The people who actually need to be scrutinized are the cabinet members. Since the candidate probably know less about science than I do, a debate between them would just be sad and ideological. Instead, there should be some public debate regarding potential cabinet members and at least some democratic accountability for them.
As much as I would love to see such a debate, it simply not going to happen. In order to participate in a debate, or any other campaign function, the candidate has to see a significant upside that outweighs the potential pitfalls. In other words, the campaign needs to have a sense that they can win votes and avoid losing votes. Let us examine that calculus for the two leading contenders:
Obama:
Pros - Gets to look like an informed policy maker. Gets to highlight his record (real or perceived) as president: green energy, funding for innovation, R&D corporate tax credits, higher mileage standards, network neutrality, access to education. Gets to try to make Romney look like an ignorant fool touting flat-earth nonsense that panders to an ignorant base.
Cons - The people who are going to vote for him anyway already know this. The people who are undecided probably won't be swayed by his performance. His record thus far hasn't really satisfied environmentalists. Could come off as an egg-headed wonk rather than a substantive leader. Solyndra! Killing jobs in coal country! Higher energy costs! Loss of manufacturing!
Romney:
Pros - Gets to pound Obama on his record (real or perceived). Gets to pound Obama about job-killing regulations from the EPA, FCC, FDA, etc. Drill, baby, drill! Innovators are harmed, not helped, by government.
Cons - Doesn't have a coherent platform of his own to promote, other than the magic mystery of the markets and ending (unspecified) regulations. Will either have to 1) pander unscientific nonsense that accords with his base, 2) speak intelligently on science and technology and alienate his base, or 3) speak in platitudes (innovation good! climate change? I dunno. Government bad!) that won't win over anyone. The people who are going to vote for him anyway won't be any more committed to him any route he chooses. He might end up losing votes. He isn't likely to get many undecideds from his performance.
In short, there really aren't a whole lot of votes to be won from such a debate. There are votes to be lost. Nobody wants to appear uninformed on camera. Despite its indisputable importance, science and technology policy just doesn't deliver votes.
I think Science Debate is the greatest thing to happen to those of interested in science and politics. When they got Obama and McCain to answer science questions in the 2008 election, I immediately cancelled my membership to the Union of Concerned Scientists and started donating to this grassroots organization.
I have one issue that I vote on, and that's science. It's the only issue I understand well enough to evaluate the candidates on. If they know their science or have advisors that understand science, then I will trust them with most everything else. I summarized Obama's 2008 responses here, McCain's here, and my calls for who won on each issue. Obama's responses won on most issues, but McCain did not do poorly. Since Obama has taken office, he has impressed me with his support of science with Data.gov, Science.gov, a Memorandum on Scientific Integrity, proposed major increases in science funding, and put the Office of Science and Technology Policy back in the Whitehouse.
These might seem like small accomplishments, but compared to the Dark Ages of the Bush Administration they were a breath of fresh air. Unless Romney answers the science debate questions this election cycle, I won't even consider him.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
One can't talk or think without the teleprompter ...
Oh please, will you Fox News-watching nuts give it a fucking rest? Reagan used a teleprompter. Bush used a teleprompter. Clinton used a teleprompter. Bush II used a teleprompter. Did you not see Obama in his QA session with republicans in 2010? He answered every one of their questions point for point, not a teleprompter in sight. Watch. Could you imagine Dubya having a grasp of the issues and being able to think on his feet like that?
Drill baby drill - on Mars