Science vs Family Values

[espritch]

Some time back, a group called ScienceDebate 2008 (http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/www/index.php?id=2) started an effort to try to get the presidential candidates to participate in a debate on Science related issues (such as Science Education, Global Warming, Alternative Energy policies, etc.). I signed up on this effort and sent emails to all three campaigns urging their participation. So far, Clinton, Obama, and McCain have all pretty much ignored efforts to arrange this debate.

I thought some of you might find this recent update interesting:

I am sorry to send two emails in such short succession, but I thought you should know that after declining our invitation to debate science in Pennsylvania, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton yesterday agreed to attend "The Compassion Forum," a forum of "wide-ranging and probing discussions of policies related to moral issues." CNN will serve as the exclusive broadcaster of the "presidential-candidate forum on faith, values and other current issues" at Messiah College near Harrisburg, Pa., April 13 at 8 p.m. You can read more here.

Perhaps among the moral issues discussed should be whether they have a moral obligation to more fully engage on science issues, since the future viability of the planet may hang in the balance, for starters. Is there a larger moral imperative? How about the future economic health of the United States and the prosperity of its families? Science & engineering have driven half our economic growth since WWII, yet but 2010 if trends hold 90% of all scientists and engineers will live in Asia. Then there are the moral questions surrounding the health of our families with stem cell research, genomics, health insurance policy, and medical research. There's biodiversity loss and the health of the oceans and the morality of balancing destruction of species against human needs and expenses, there's population and development and clean energy research, there's food supply and GMO crops and educating children to compete in the new global economy and securing competitive jobs. Science issues are moral issues.

So the candidates are happy to debate "family values" even though the government doesn't have any damned business defining family values. But they don't want to debate issues that the Government does have a big hand in and which are rather critical the future of this nation. Are they all too scientifically ignorant to debate these questions, or have they just cynically decided that spewing homilies about "values" is more politically expedient.

Are these three really the best this nation has to offer? If so, we are in real trouble.

P.S. In an earlier email, they noted the following:
A debate would help focus the candidates and the nation on assessing whether the candidates' plans are adequate, and what hopeful steps we can take as a nation to rebuild our economy around clean, low-carbon energy technologies like the ITER project, which congress inexplicably zeroed funding for in the last omnibus budget bill.

ITER (http://www.iter.org/) is a multi-national effort to develop a working fusion reactor. Considering that Fusion may well be the only real solution to our current dependency of fossil fuels and foreign oil, the defunding of this project strikes me as idiotic at best. Has Washington gone completely insane?

[llanitedave]

Are these three really the best this nation has to offer? If so, we are in real trouble.


These three have a particular idea of what their constituents are itnerested in hearing about. That idea probably has some justification.

So yes, we're in real trouble, but those three are the symptom, not the cause. I'm considering taking courses in Chinese.

[Preno]

The Congress decided to cut the funding to ITER? God, that's retarded!

[lpetrich]

I agree -- however, I think that renewables are a much better bet. Especially wind and solar.

Nuclear fusion has been worked on for the last half-century, and it's proven to be a VERY difficult goal. I do think that it's worth researching, however.

But renewables like wind, solar, etc. are here now. In my opinion, they mainly need economies of scale to make them competitive with fossil fuels. Numerous technologies have become cheaper and more available with larger-scale production. Cars, computers, you name it.

I'm not saying that every renewable is automatically good; biofuels have serious problems, for instance.

And I recall GWB once threatening to veto a pro-renewables bill on the ground that it would be unfair to the oil and gas industry. What a weenie.

[ninewands]

Has Washington gone completely insane?
In a wordm "Yes." It happened many years ago.

[RAFH]

Have you forgotten one of the most important insights in the Hitchhiker series?

The President, or whatever position is the supposed head honcho, is there to distract the populace from the real arbiters of power. They are lightning rods, there to absorb both the good and the bad expressions of the populace. That is then read and analyzed by the arbiters of power (not in any way a cohesive or monolithic entity) to gauge how they should act to preserve their positions. This is true of all human organizations.

[disgracian]

And the message is clear: we want our Presidents borderline retarded.

Cheers,
D.

[dug_down_deep]

The candidates are discussing those issues because they want to win the popular vote. Science-minded people are probably already a wash for the Democrats, though I think that the recent conservative movements towards sensibility on the global warming issue are an attempt to capture a slice of that pie. (Call me cynical.)

"Moral" people win elections. (And yes, the quotes are needed.)

[Obd]

The Congress decided to cut the funding to ITER? God, that's retarded!

From what I read in a tech magazine that was just part of some cuts to the science budget to somewhat counter the effects of the Iraq war on the budget.

[damitall]

Whatever the truth of global warming, it's undeniable that fossil fuels are a finite resource. You'd think, as rational people, that those to whom we have ceded the power of spending our wealth would make some concerted effort to develop and utilise alternative energy sources.

But then, "we" may be rational: politicians rarely are, particularly when they depend upon the votes of a scientifically naive electorate.

Democracy may not be the best way to run a country - or indeed a planet. Anyone got a viable alternative?, (apart from declaring me Emperor of the Universe and doing what I damn well tell you to do, of course)

[dug_down_deep]

Democracy may not be the best way to run a country - or indeed a planet. Anyone got a viable alternative?, (apart from declaring me Emperor of the Universe and doing what I damn well tell you to do, of course)
A council of experts in their fields leads the executive branch, like a mini-congress, with oversight provided by some sort of peer review mechanism.

An accountable meritocracy.

[llanitedave]

Accountable to who? It always boils down to who decides the membership in the "expert" council. In a lot of ways, this was the original theory behind the USA. Jefferson and Madison, et al, never conceived, I don't think, of the "professional politician", who would spend his entire term of office running for the next term.

[dug_down_deep]

Accountable to who? It always boils down to who decides the membership in the "expert" council. In a lot of ways, this was the original theory behind the USA. Jefferson and Madison, et al, never conceived, I don't think, of the "professional politician", who would spend his entire term of office running for the next term.
Just a half-baked thought - nothing I've worked out to any detail. Accountable to their peers, I guess. To people who are also experts in the same field.