Presidential Science Debate: What to ask the candidates?

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Science Debate is an organization that has been trying to get the presidential candidates to directly address important science policy issues. After several months of meeting and convening and conversing among top science organizations and seeking public input, Science Debate Dot Org has nailed down what questions they feel should be asked at a presidential debate. Without further ado, here is the press release from that organization just as it came to me moments ago:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—JULY 19, 2011

Organizations List Top Science & Environmental Questions Obama, Romney Should Tackle

Fifteen of the top U.S. science and engineering organizations today released a list of the most important science policy questions that presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Mitt Romney should be debating on the campaign trail. The group, organized by the non-profit grassroots science advocacy organization ScienceDebate.org, says that because science now affects every aspect of modern life, presidential candidates should develop and release their science positions earlier in a campaign.

The participating organizations include the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, the American Geosciences Institute, the American Institute of Biological Sciences, The American Institute of Physics, the American Physical Society, The American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the American Society of Chemical Engineering, the Council on Competitiveness, the US Institute of Electricians and Electronics Engineers, the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, ScienceDebate.org, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. ScienceDebate.org’s media partner for the project is Scientific American magazine.

“This should be a no-brainer at this point,” said Shawn Lawrence Otto, CEO of ScienceDebate.org and author of the book Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America. http://bit.ly/fool2 “Candidates debate the economy even though they are not economists, foreign policy even though they’re not diplomats or generals, and faith and values even though they are not priests or pastors. They should also be debating the big science questions that have equal or greater impact on voters’ lives.”

The list includes questions about innovation and the economy, climate change, energy, improving science education, protecting food and fresh water, requiring vaccinations, managing the Internet, competing in research, preventing pandemics, improving ocean health, exploring space, securing rare natural resources, and improving scientific integrity in the federal government. It is available online at http://www.sciencedebate.org/questions.html

The group said the fourteen questions are the most important science questions the candidates and voters should consider in the 2012 election cycle.

ScienceDebate.org asked thousands of scientists, engineers and other supporters to submit questions online for a possible science debate to be held among the leading candidates. The group then recruited the science and engineering organizations to help refine the questions and shape them into a fair and nonpartisan list.

Otto said the most impressive thing about the list is the universal consensus. “The fact that these diverse science and engineering organizations came to a universal consensus shows just how important they feel it is that Americans – and the candidates for president – pay attention to these critical problems,” said Otto.

Otto said the group has asked the Obama and Romney campaigns the address the questions by mid August.

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9 thoughts on “Presidential Science Debate: What to ask the candidates?

  1. They left out one important question:

    Do you plan to arrest people involved in the global warming ponzi scheme or do you just want them to get away with ripping off the public and funding globalist schemes?

  2. Hehehe. Would you want economists to actually control the economy? Would you want generals to run foreign policy? Is the prevalence of priests and pastors a Good Thing? I don’t want candidates to debate scientific results – I want them to accept expert advice. Anyone who prefers their own delusions to confirmed scientific truths is not fit to govern.

  3. I don’t trust expert advice especially when the experts show their bias. I do not want candidates to debate scientific results either since the candidates almost never recieve a full impartial scietiic report of the subject at hand. Like global warming. The information given to both Romney and Obama about this subject is usually something they read in a magazine, see on tv, or is given by some czar hired for that puropose. The report only shows one side of the story. It discounts 30,000 plus scientists who doubt the credibility of the UN funded global warming science experiments. There are always two sides of the coin and until both sides are presented how can an intelligent and real debate happen?

    Generals running foreign policy? Probably disagree there, however it is the generals, particulalry the ones with first hand combat experience, that i would definitely take advice from more so than some hired political czar who never set foot anywhere near a military base.

    Obama has many czars all of which will be fired and possibly investigated for suspicious activities if Romney does get in. Why does the president need 70 plus personal czars?

    Yes the prevalence of preists and clergy is a good thing. It’s hard to get away from the heritage of America. Before the founding fathers going all the way back to the pilgrims wh landed here, the settlements and colonies were very christian. There were different variations like Quakers, Protestants, and many more, but I highly doubt if any of the colonists in jamestown were muslim, atheist, gay, or believed in evolution or socialism.

    Yes, according to liberals Jesus was a socialist and jamestown being a CHRISTian establishment, I bet they never mandated free stuff for no work in return.

    Economists controlling the economy. That’s a tough one. The liberals are half right. there are some greedy capitalists who have ruined a once sound financial system, but just like communism or socialism, people at the top of the system can bring about its ruin. There are just as many greedy socialist billionaires as there are greedy capitalist billionaires, only the capitalist ones are not calling for the confiscation of other people’s stuff in the name of equality.

    Only under socialism and communism can you keep everyone poor and call it equality. Trickle down poverty never worked so great. In socialism the only people who actually benefit are the socialists who run things at the top. Everyone else is equal. Equally poor. At least under capitalism everyone has a reason to work – for reward. if there is no reward, then why bother even working for anything? You do it for yourself, not for everyone else.

  4. socialism is like this:

    You are walking down the street and some poor man asks you for some money.

    You gladly agree to give the POOR man some money, but not your own. You grab the money from the guy in the suit in front of you to hand to the poor man.

    Socialists never give away their ow money to the poor. it is always someone else’s stuff they confiscate in the name of equality.

    There is a Bible verse that warns against that. It reads:

    THOU SAHLT NOT STEAL.

    Plain enough.

    One more example maybe you can follow better being a liberal and probably an academia addict.

    Let’s say you have a classroom full of students and a test is given. Some students study for the test and some do not. The ones who studied the hardest and made the best greades are the top 1% of the class. You are among the top percentage. You made a nearly perfect score.

    So, in the name of equality the teacher decides to “level the playing field” and make everyone equal” so he adds up all the grades and averages them out and everyone makes exactly the same grade.

    Now the lazy goofs at the bottom who did little or no work are happy that they got this free handout and are now equal with those greedy A+ students. However, the ones who had an A+ score are pissed off becuase you got part of what they worked for.

    Is this fair? Thought not. Money works the same way. The tops does all the work and the bottom sponges off the results and names it Equality for all.

  5. Kevin: You are babbling, but as a matter of interest, do you really believe that nonsense about 30,000 scientists who doubt the reality of global climate change?

    I’ve not gone to the link yet, but the topics noted seem to cover a good range.

  6. Kevin,

    He needs that many Czars because most of them are going to be given geographic areas (the states, territories, and formerly Canadian provinces) to rule over when he initiates martial law. Of the remainder, I believe five will be put in charge of the five FEMA camps which will be allocated as reservations in Alaska, California, Texas, Vermont, and Maine. The rest will be in charge of such things as his Brownshirts, the Bavarian Grove (where the Bilderberg group has their orgies when they’re not implementing the New World Order), the UN, and the like.

    Don’t tell anyone.

  7. Glenny,

    There are no FEMA camps in Alaska. There is an enormous one in Colorado and one in Utah that we absolutely know of. You can drive right by it.

    There is one speculated to be near Atlanta and one in Florida. Never heard of one on maine or Vermont. Texas I am not sure about since the people of Texas would probably burn it down and hang the people who built it.

    The Bilderbergs are dangerous. They run the world. Wouldn’t surprise me to learn they were behind the middle east turmoil to rid every single leader over there and elect one leader to rule over the entire Islamic middle east as one large nation.

    Martial law may be coming. Everything is set in place to implement it except for gun confiscation and up until two nights ago in Colorado the UN and the goofs in wahsington had little reason to continue to act in treason by disabling the Second Amendment. Now that they have fuel for their fire (very convenient), I would not be surproised to see UN soldiers on the streets of America. Little do thye know that some good ole boys are quite sneaky and a number of them may be found sliced open hanged in public places. Little do they know that former military memeber would more than likely form their own militias and defend this country against their invasion and treachery.

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