From Janet Raloff’s post at Science News, I learned a bit about the sixty one Nobel Laureates signing the open letter to everyone about Obama’s science policy. I quote (see her post for more):
Huh. Well, it seems that both presidential campaigns have finally got around to answering the questions about science and science policy that the ScienceDebate2008 team prepared a while back. (The team’s banner line on all this is “Who will be the best President for America in a science-dominated world?”. Who indeed. (In case you’re wondering, the “best” was in place when there were several more contenders.)) I hope it is more than just hot air and empty promises. Right now, it’s […] Click to continue reading this post
Well, there’s all sorts of rhetoric on all various matters from the main presidential candidates, and there’s still a long way to go until November. It’s nice to hear a bit of chatter about global warming, gas prices, research into alternative fuels, cars with higher efficiency, and other issues that have a high degree of science playing a role in shaping our decisions about our policies and actions, in all aspects of society. (Although there is some occasional mention at some points at state level, it would be nice to hear a lot more about concerted thoughts about public transportation infrastructure, but perhaps that’s just way too much to ask in a society still rather naively obsessed with individualism at all costs.)
So what are the official positions of the candidates on science, across the board? Well, […] Click to continue reading this post
The Union of Concerned Scientists is running a science cartoon contest* (mostly political cartoons, really), and would love you to vote. Here’s one:
With the rise in gas prices, I’ve been seeing more and more people on the streets, walking and cycling, and more people using the subways and the buses. While I know that it has been producing real hardship for some people, I have to admit that it has been fantastic to see this change. So many streets and street corners have come to life. It has always been clear that higher gas prices would have this positive change, and I’ve hoped for it in some ways, but I wish that it had not come about in this way. I’d rather that it was because we’d managed to break out of a political climate so selfish and naive that nobody could propose raising taxes to an extent that would simultaneously give an incentive for people to use their cars less while at the same time providing much needed revenue with which to improve public transport infrastructure. Sadly, instead we’re just having high prices with nothing to show for it but a bunch of expressions of anger, while the oil companies and producers get fatter and fatter.
When I say I’d been hoping for higher prices, I need to clarify. I’m completely aware of […] Click to continue reading this post
Oh dear, I liked Ken. Now he’s gone from office. Ken Livingstone really understood public transport and did something about it. And the congestion charge…(which was my idea!!!)… took someone with real guts to push it through. We need more people like him to fight the car lobby – to get people to change their behaviour and do something for their environment.
Thanks, Ken.
-cvj
(Image from “Underground Etiquette”. Worth a read.)
Sheril talked a little bit about the lack of a debate on Science by the presidential hopefuls, and pointed to a number of articles on the matter. Recall (from my earlier posts and many other sources) that she is one of the movers and shakers behind ScienceDebate2008. The candidates simply punted the issues.
Shame really. The Franklin Institute’s good china was all laid out and the space made ready to host the debate, and several were hoping it might really happen… But it was politics as usual on all sides, with lots of silliness, and pandering to the much more powerful “Faith” constituency.
Or, as Bob Park put it in his excellent “What’s New” column of the 11th April:
NO SCIENCE DEBATE: CANDIDATES WILL DEBATE JESUS.
Excellent title! He goes on to say: […] Click to continue reading this post
[Update:- NB: This was an April Fool joke. -cvj]
Some breaking news for a change. I’ve only heard snippets of this and so I’ll update later with more as I get it. That silliness that was in the news about two physicists pursuing a lawsuit against the Large Hadron Collider has suddenly become serious. (Image right: the CMS detector at the LHC, taken by Valerio Mezzanotti – from a NYT article last year.)
Recall that the issue was that there would be the possibility of the experiment creating mini black holes that could gobble up the earth and that the CERN scientists have not done enough to demonstrate that this was not a safety issue. Of course, and has already been said in several places (see e.g., Phil’s general level post about the physics and the case here), this is utterly ill-conceived and in any case certainly not the way to go about things, but it seems that the legal route can be quite damaging for science, in the right hands.
What seems to have happened is this. Since the suit was filed in Hawaii, it falls under US Federal jurisdiction, and has been taken up as an emergency issue before the Supreme Court. Somehow the litigants got a hearing on this with the help of powerful friends who have what can only be thought of as another example of the anti-science agenda we’ve a lot of in various branches of the government in recent years.
The upshot is that the Supreme Court has announced today that they are requiring all […] Click to continue reading this post
So Chris and Sheril have announced the next step in the journey to a real debate about science issues of note that intersect with the current political sphere. And they’ve come a long way in a short time! Here’s some of what they said in a recent post:
ScienceDebate2008 is now co-sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academies, and the Council on Competitiveness. We were looking at venues, and finally settled on an offer from the Philadelphia-based Franklin Institute–named, of course, after one of this country’s first and greatest scientists. We can’t think of a more appropriate venue.
And guess what?! They’ve actually invited the candidates: Hillary Clinton, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and Barack Obama.
So the next step is to get the event (they suggest April 18, 2008) taken seriously by the […] Click to continue reading this post
At the Science Blogging conference earlier this month, there was a very interesting discussion about communication of science, science and the media, and science in politics. It was led by Jennifer Jacquet of Shifting Baselines, and Sheril Kirshenbaum and Chris Mooney (both of The Intersection), who each did a mini-presentation (Sheril and Chris doing a sort of tag-team double act, starting off with discussing Sciencedebate 2008, and moving into discussions of “framing” science, the separation of the cultures, and so forth – and of course, opportunities for bloggers). Happily there was a video made, and I’ve embedded it below (the quality is mixed, but overall […] Click to continue reading this post
Taking a break from scribbling equations, I confirmed the he-must-be-crazy suspicions of people around me in a cafe the other day by bursting out laughing out loud at this Onion article: Bill Clinton: `Screw It, I’m Running For President’:
After spending two months accompanying his wife, Hillary, on the campaign trail, former president Bill Clinton announced Monday that he is joining the 2008 presidential race, saying he “could no longer resist the urge.”
You’ve probably heard about it already (it was even mentioned on today’s Morning Edition on NPR), but in case you have not, it’s a timely read. My favourite bit:
“No longer will I have to endure watching candidates like Hillary Clinton engaging in single-pump handshakes with voters, as I use every last […] Click to continue reading this post
This is a quick note to let you know that today’s Science Friday will feature the Science Debate 2008 (which has been nicely gathering momentum since I blogged about it): Friday, January 11th, 2008 Hour One- 2pm EDT The Call for A Science Debate “Should the presidential candidates participate in … Click to continue reading this post
Ok, a sidestep into politics for a short, but important moment.
With all that’s going on with all the presidential debates and press conferences and other appearances, has anything struck you as a major topic (or class of topics) that is simply missing from the national discussion? A topic that affects our lives in so many ways, and helps shape our futures in a most profound manner?
I’m thinking of science. I’m thinking of it in all the forms in which it intersects with politics – where decisions made by the president involve policy directly related to science (climate change and stem cell research are two of the most obvious), scientific research (both basic and applied), safety and security issues (consider the EPA, Katrina and other natural disasters), resources (the ongoing and coming battles about water sources, for example, pollution and air quality go here too, as well as under other headings), and energy (well, take your pick of example issues there). There’s also science education, on which there ought to be coherent effort for many reasons […] Click to continue reading this post
Not surprisingly, there’s been a lot of interesting chatter about the recently announced stem cell research results I blogged about earlier. I did a longer blog post over on Correlations that might interest you (I managed to think of the pun for the title that I knew was in there somewhere, but could not manage it this morning over here).
Mentioned there are two more NPR items I thought were of note: […] Click to continue reading this post
Don’t forget to look at the latest IPCC report released today! Full details including helpful digests and summaries can be found here.
News reports and discussions can be found all over the place.
News reports and discussions can be found all over the place. (Update: there’s an NPR report, with audio, here.) A report on the BBC by Richard Black begins:
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