Science and the next president
This month in Seed Chris Mooney calls for the next president of the United States to be a sort of scientific researcher-in-chief:
As a prerequisite, the next president must grasp how science flows into a democracy at all levels. Whoever wins the election—man or woman, Democrat or Republican—will face profound science-based challenges and questions. Will space become militarized, or remain a neutral zone of unfettered international access? Will we successfully protect our populations and cities from the threats of nuclear and biological terrorism, as well as from emerging pandemics? Can we bring the AIDS crisis in Africa under control? How can we foster continuing biomedical advancement without crossing moral lines?
Will there be enough jobs available to employ the nation's scientists? If foreign researchers are better qualified for those jobs, will they receive visas so that US companies can benefit from their skills? And what of research in areas of pure science? As Europe's Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva—the world's most powerful particle accelerator—heads toward a slated May 2008 startup, will the US revisit the idea of building its own collider, and willingly take on that next phase of research into the very nature of matter? More important, will the next president understand the significance of such scientific questing? And if so, will he or she also know how to tell that story to the public?
Watching as the issues of the future careen toward us, a true national leader will recognize the moral imperative to take what we know from (and about) science and use that knowledge to build a better and smarter America. That's not to say the next president must be a scientist. Being able to talk shop with the NIH lab workers isn't a job requirement. It's far less important that the next president know any field of science in depth than that he or she knows how to learn—how to become informed about scientific or technical subjects where there's often much uncertainty and yet also a pressing need for a policy decision.
It's hard to argue with Mooney's desire for a president who will make a good-faith effort to draw on the expertise of the nation's scientific community. (Policy decisions based on fact and careful consideration of the evidence? Where do we sign up?) But the scientific issues Mooney highlights -- climate change, stem cells and forensic neuroscience among them -- are also intensely political. The challenge for the science-based administration will be to keep science from turning into just another interest group (or, more than it already is).
-Greg Dahlmann
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The American people have suffered due to the fact that they have had faith based politicians running this country over the past seven years. The conservative right is trying to stop scientific progress that they deem immoral. It is time for people to vote on a president that is willing and able to leave his morality out of the scientific and medical fields. By a president doing this it will only accelerate scientific and medical advances in the United States. If the U.S. has a open scientific and medical market it will not only benefit the people of the United States it will also benefit the people in our world. If we elect a scientific president he or she will be able to recognize that our world is in danger due to the effects of global warming, and with an open mind will work with the other leader of the world to fight against this issue. The next president of the United States needs to recognize the accomplishments we can bring to the medical fields by allowing stem cell research an forensic neuroscience. Scientists are a dying breed in our country due to dare I say Christian conservatives, who feel that there hard work is immoral and against their faith. We are at a crossroads in our nation’s history, we can keep voting with our moral logic and continue shunning scientific progress, or we can use our scientific logic and integrate scientific progress into our nations culture. By choosing the second choice we will start to better the American and world society.
- by Devin Christianson on Oct 9, 2007 at 2:30 PM | link
"It is time for people to vote on a president that is willing and able to leave his morality out of the scientific and medical fields."
This is how you get Mengele and his ilk. Have we learned nothing?
"If we elect a scientific president he or she will be able to recognize that our world is in danger due to the effects of global warming...."
Uh-huh. No possibility of a "scientific president" drawing any other conclusion there.
- by Laura(southernxyl) on Oct 9, 2007 at 6:26 PM | link
Has a scientist ever been elected president of the US? Congress? Governor?
I'll do some searching.
Meanwhile, here's a message for my fellow scientists: RUN! if you have it in you.
Actors, lawyers, bankers, bodybuilders, professional wrestlers...scientists.
- by Wallace J. Nichols on Jan 2, 2008 at 1:57 AM | link