Hillary Clinton, that is. She’s made some concrete statements about what she’d do for science as president: take steps to depoliticize science agencies, lift limits on stem cell research, invest in alternative energy and global warming research, subordinate manned space missions to earth science research (not entirely happy news there, but at least she’s being realisitic), and she’s pro-evolution! (That last is utterly shocking, I know.) She’s also going to push to have congress restore the Office of Technology Assessment.
Of course, she also threw in a sop to the deluded: “I believe that our founders had faith in reason and they also had faith in God, and one of our gifts from God is the ability to reason.” I will excuse her useless pieties as long as they don’t interfere with her practical efforts to support good science. I’ll also rub the noses of the trolls in that every time they whine about coupling evolution and godlessness, since our politicians seem to have no qualms about coupling evolution and superstition, so it will be rhetorically useful for my purposes.
Now, let’s see the other Democratic candidates follow suit and be as forthright in stating their support for science. That doesn’t mean they should compete with her to outdo the stupid god and faith part of her statement — I could well imagine that some might — but that they should outline their specific science proposals and state without reservation their support for basic science. And now that the media has broken the ice with Clinton, let’s see all of the other candidates probed on these same issues.
While her comments regarding scientific research are encouraging, I won’t hold my breath for one of the candidates to actually support the separation of church and state. A nice comment about our founding fathers having the foresight to leave religion out of policy might be a refreshing change from this “founded on Christian values” nonsense.
You forget the most important reason to support Senator Clinton. She annoys the crap out of the Republican wing of the Republican Party. They deserve to suffer as I did for the last six+ years.
From the write-up in Wired:
Surprise, surprise – she says science is important to a load of scientists! Let’s see what she says to an audience of religious people.
Realistically, if the next president is a Democrat
(which had better be the case!) it will in all probability be Clinton. I’m resigned to that, and I guess we may as well learn to make the best of it. I admire her intelligence, discipline and toughness (at least she knows how to play hardball against Republicans!), I just wish she weren’t so hawkish and so bought and paid for by the corporate wing of the party.
Steve,
I feel precisely the same way. I will say that I could deal with some of the Republican candidates as president, so long as we retained a Democratic majority in Congress; I’ve always been a fan of splitting power between the parties.
On a side note, I am utterly convinced that Barak Obama will be our president someday, but I don’t think it’ll be in ’09.
Hillary is the closest thing to Bush out there. She is unprincipaled and now she is matching Bushes Bribe the vote with her 5,000 child bond. This is a tax on those who don’t have children. This is pathetic pandering and ridiculous expansion of government.
I will excuse her useless pieties as long as they don’t interfere with her practical efforts to support good science.
Appeaser!!!!
I agree with Steve. Clinton was always my least favourite of the pack, but as time passes I am seeing her as more than the hawk. I still don’t like the fact that she is such a hawk, but she’s gradually improving as a candidate in my eyes. And, of course, it helps that she is talking pro-science.
On the religion front – this article is worth a read.
Manned space missions are a waste of money anyway, we can do just as much research for a fraction of the cost using satellites and probes.
PZ, I’m surprised st you! Hillary has got to be one of the most illiberal senators running. There are more criteria by which to judge a candidate than her attitudes towards science.
To say our founders “had faith in reason” is an insult to them, and frankly is just plain stupid. Once a person has used sensory data to do anything in life (to cross a busy street, for instance), they no longer need to have faith in reason.
I don’t agree with Obama on several issues, but at least he seems like a real person. Clinton is the sum of a thousand strategies. For instance, does anyone believe Clinton would make good on her 5k baby bond plan? Maybe she’s got the money in her piggy bank to pay for it.
And for those of us more interested in actually getting people into space and reaping tangible rewards (i.e. mining and solar power, as well as possible colonization) we feel the exact same way about the latest xyz-ray thermojiggy space probe you guys want sent up. A probe that will, realistically, serve no other value than as a notch in the academic scorebook and a platform for a dozen grad students thesis papers.
Yes you can probably get more INFORMATION from probes, but not everyone’s only interested in information. Does that mean we should support the ISS? Hell no, it’s nothing but a blackhole for funding. Things like missions to the moon or the astroids? That’s an entirely different story.
I was just at a conference with a Nobel winner and scientists in various fields…they all emphasized that we need to contact our politicians to get something done about environmental/global warming/energy issues… we can’t do it as individuals. So it’s nice to see she’s supporting it (at this point). The problem is always when lobbyists show up, everything gets canceled. Although, I think Bush(the candidate) said a certain number of encouraging things about the environmental issues too, then he got elected.
Her plan to criminalize people without healthcare is a little scary.
To those who are interested in such topics, the University I work at (Drexel) is hosting a debate for the Democratic candidates October 30th. I’ve opened a thread at my old blog here for suggestions on questions to ask, should I get the opportunity.
(The blog itself’s pretty dead, but it makes a better place to centralize responses than a comment thread on PZ’s property — unless he wants to promote a “What would you ask?” topic to the front page!)
I recall PZ objecting to Clinton on the principle that he didn’t approve of political dynasties.
I agree with PZ past. What does it say for us and the system that we are starting to vote in sons and spouses of former presidents rather than find someone from outside of their gene pools?
And restore the OTA! I’m not sold on her, but that’s a big deal in my book. Good for her.
It’s almost as if Hillary read Chris Mooney’s cover story in the latest SEED magazine.
Eh. She’s a chameleon.
My concern with Clinton is that she, and most of the Democratic candidates, are too conservative. Their stance on business, with the exception of taxation and a bit more oversight, isn’t that different than the Republicans. Out economic policies have been too pro–business and pro-elite profit for far too long. The unbalanced trade policies of our last four(?) administrations have virtually gutted our ability as a nation to produce anything other than second rate cars, third rate electronics, and ideas (the most ephemeral of them all).
Outsourcing: Above and beyond the harm it does to American workers (which I don’t dismiss), it is strategically a horrendous idea. What role did we play in WWI? How did we win WWII? How did we outlast the Soviets in the Cold War? Our economic strength, especially our heavy industry. We no longer have that capability, products are, at best, assembled in the US (I believe Apple makes a big deal of this fact).
In addition, outsourced jobs go where? To countries that have almost no environmental protections. One of the reasons these companies are able to make such a profit is because they are able to ignore EPA guidelines that cost them money. As we saw in the 60’s and 70’s, corporations will defecate on their own dinner to make a buck.
“Free Trade:” We talk about this as if it exists and will solve everything. First, it’s a crock, second, it facilitates our decline as a country. The countries of Europe, China, and Japan, our biggest trade partners, all have barriers that hinder the sales of the few products we still produce. We, on the other hand, allow them to not only get away with this, we make it easier for them to sell their products here, with no real effort to make certain that they meet our own product standards. Republicans and Democrats are equally responsible for this.
As a nation we are increasingly reliant upon foreign countries to produce 90% of the products we use. If you were to suggest to these interchangeable bobble head dolls that are running for the presidency that we turn over 90% of our military, or 90% of our nuclear weapons to overseas friends to protect us, they’d look at you as if your senses had completely left, but they support doing so with our economic security year in and year out.
I suppose the only positive thing is that our economic and political collapse will likely come about the same time as the environmental collapse, so none of the nations of the world will be in any shape to get a little payback for us acting like such world class jackasses over the last 5 years or so…
She’s pandering to the scientists. She’ll pander to the religious when she needs their vote. Or the ‘think of the children’ and ban music and violent games crowd when she needs that one. She’ll always run to the center to get whatever she perceives she needs. This just suited her for the moment.
Any of the top three Democratic candidates would be a vast improvement over Bush concerning science. Hell, even the top four Republican candidates would likely be a vast improvement concerning science. (The bar is set that low.)
That we haven’t changed much since the founding of our country?
The 6th president was the son of the 2nd.
The 23rd president was the grandson of the 9th.
The 32nd president and the 26th were cousins.
And of course the 43rd was the son of the 41st.
…and one of our gifts from God is the ability to reason…
Does she not realize how contradictory this sounds?
If we are so good at reasoning, why are we still stuck with these idiotic beliefs about God?
Pandering is not a pretty thing to behold. I wish she would just stop it.
I agree that we shouldn’t pay much attention to that kind of statement until she makes it front of a less friendly audience for it.
The big question with Clinton for me, is whether she’ll actually follow through and pull us out of Iraq, or get stuck in the same “legacy” trap that Bush is in now: that of not wanting an even bigger disaster on her watch. It should be clear to everyone by now that the strategy of Bush and his Republican enablers in Congress is simply to continue the status quo until he leaves office, and hand it off to the next administration. He’s even said in interviews that he wants to lock in a situation where the next president, regardless of party, is forced to stay in Iraq. As Edwards recently said (and he’s not my favorite at the moment, Obama probably is):
I think any of the Dem frontrunners will be better for science than this current administration. They’re not that far apart on the social issues I care about either. The difference is how they’ll handle Iraq.
Also, I think Clinton will be the least likely (among Dem candidates) to roll back the aggressive expansion of executive power that Bush/Cheney will be leaving the next president in charge of. Giving up power isn’t what the Clintons are all about. I can see Obama, and maybe Edwards saying “yeah, they went too far with that.”
I agree with Ian (#3).
If she doesn’t contradict herself at some other venue, I will consider her statements to be potentially true.
Don’t get the wrong impression. Clinton is nowhere near the top of my choices, and I’m well aware of her shortcomings to someone of my deep liberal bias. But this is a step upwards.
And like I said at the end, the real positive step here is now other candidates will be asked their position, and we’ll have a standard to measure their responses against. Let’s see them all vying to be the most pro-science candidate!
Wow, just wow.
“Eh, she’s a panderer.”
Jesus H. f-ing Maxwell Christ on a crutch, welcome to politics.
She’s a politician. And a good one. She’s in politics, running for a political office. Accusing her of being a politician is like requesting police protection and then being upset that there’s someone around you carrying a gun all the time.
I have had my fill of amateurs who aren’t any good at politics trying to be politicians. You’d prefer a bad politician? One who never changed their mind or modified what they said depending on their audience?
If what you want is a president who sticks to what he believes, never listens to others, never considers the effect of his words before blurting them out, never pays attention to polls, never cares whether what he says is popular or well-received — well, we’ve got one already. How’s that working for you?
I like Gore better than Edwards, and Edwards better than Obama, and Obama better than Clinton, but any of them would be so dramatically better than anything on the other side that I have only contempt for these concern trolls harping about her supposed inauthenticity.
Honestly, she may not be my favorite politician, but there’s absolutely nothing she could conceivably do that would not result in this kind of concern-trolling. Limbaugh has been demonizing her for fifteen years, to the point where a vague distate is in everyone’s mouth for completely unconscious reasons, and she’s accused of falling short of impossibly unrealistic standards.
She made up her own mind by looking at dinosaur bones? What did she conclude, that many dinosaurs are big?
The evolution of antibiotic resistance is a better blurb, but perhaps not especially relevant to, say, human evolution, at least not without bringing in a whole lot more context.
I really mean to criticize politicians’ science knowledge in general, not Hillary’s in particular, because I’m glad that she at least comes out as quite pro-science–if not evidently very knowledgeable about it.
The best news is probably not Hillary’s statements, but that she apparently believes that there are enough pro-science votes out there to make her statements pay politically. I expect that we’ll hear these sorts of statements from her during the primaries much more than during the general election, when being anti-science, or at least not pro-science, will be a better sell. Even so, it’s good to see a prominent politician courting the pro-science votes, even if it might be only during the primary season.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
I agree with Plutarch.
Manned missions are a waste of money and resources. We will get more for our money if we work on developing space-based telescopes and robotic probes.
At this point in time, I personally have no reason to believe that our government will be willing to commit the money and resources needed to make a successful mission to Mars. It will be just like the Superconducting Supercollider Project in the early nineties. The government will lose its nerve and pull the plug half way through the project.
In the end, we will have spend billions and have nothing to show for it.
Well, it’s good to see that she’s got a better outlook on science that what we’ve had for the past 8 years, but that alone won’t convince me that electing her as the Democratic nominee would be a mistake.
For those of you who have resigned yourself to Clinton winning that nomination, you obviously have not been to Iowa, where from my vantage point at least, she is running third behind Edwards and Obama. The fact that the New York and Washington-based media are touting her inevitability is only going to make her fall harder when she loses Iowa to either Edwards, Obama, or both.
Don’t get me wrong. I won’t vote for her in the primary (I still lean pretty strongly towards Edwards), and I hope she can be stopped. But the moment she locks up the nomination, if she does, she’ll have my enthusiastic support. We just can’t afford another Republican president.
I myself am an Obama supporter, but I definitely prefer Edwards over Clinton.
I have more substantive problems with Edwards, but in terms of tactics, Obama is also better suited to defeat Clinton in the primary, having raised more money that her, having about the same amount of cash on hand (we’ll have to wait for the FEC filings to be public to know for sure) and with a broader operation in the Feb 5 primaries than either, he has the most potential to use a victory in Iowa to win other states, whereas Edwards is focusing mainly on Iowa.
If Edwards were to win the nomination, we’d have problems dealing with Republican attacks because of his acceptance of public matching funds, which caps his spending until the convention, thus leaving him weak until then. There have been arguments regarding electability that have come out of all campaigns, but Edwards severely damaged his argument by taking those funds.
Obviously I have my biases, but I lost confidence in Edwards’ electability after that.
She’s also going to push to have congress restore the Office of Technology Assessment.
Since Congress defunded it in 1995, they can re-authorize it anytime they want. What has Clinton done, as a Senator, to restore the Office of Technology Assessment?
#33:
Hillary has apparently been supporting the re-creation of OTA since April 13th 2007:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/14/us/politics/14clinton.html?ex=1181016000&en=3c546f5e762287e0&ei=5070
This was well within our current primary season but at least she said it once before this speech to a group of scientists.
(for the record I don’t like her and I support Obama)
Ahhhh, politics. It’s not enough. Just saying she’s going to support science, that is. Yeah, and Bush said he wasn’t into nation building. What’s it been, something like 80 years since we had someone other than a Bush or Clinton in the White house? No more. My freshman students were just kids the last time we didn’t have one of those houses in charge. Four or eight years from now I don’t want my students to have NEVER been alive during anything other than a Clinton or Bush rule. Time for a change. Go Obama!
Well, I think Hillary Clinton is the best of all the presidential candidates. I find criticisms from the left of her positions on economic matters to be mostly ignorant or incoherent.
Regarding human space flight, it can’t really be justified in terms of immediate practical benefits or scientific research. What justifies it is less tangible benefits, and ultimately the survival of the species. John Tierney had a short but interesting piece on the importance of private funding for human space flight in last week’s New York Times
I must respectfully disagree with Plutarch and Tony Popple in the strongest possible terms. It’s true that unmanned probes are enough to collect raw scientific data but as much as I appreciate those scientific discoveries they’re only part of what space exploration is all about.
The potential resources that can harvested from space a numerous and vast. Helium-3 for aneutronic nuclear fusion, mineral resources by the gigaton from the Moon and asteroids, cheap, constant solar power and who known what sort of exotic materials that can be made in micro-g manufacturing plants. All available without pounding Earth’s eco-system worse than it already is I might add.
All those potential benefits need infrastrucure in place though and that requires people to go up and put it in place and that’s what manned space travel is important for beyond the raw science.
That’s not even considering the danger of having all humanity’s eggs in a single basket either. It’s a statistical certainty that one of the Apollo asteroids sooner or later will collide with Earth. A permanent presence in space would make them far easier to detect and deflect and if we miss… well a self-sustaining off-world base or colony might be all that’s left of humanity. Some of the Apollo asteroids are large enough to match or exceed the body that struck at the K-T boundary.
So I say role on the moonbase! And from there to Mars, the Asteroids and Jupiter’s Gallilean sattelites!
She had me at “space elevator.”
(She did mention that, didn’t she?)
Knight of L-sama:
I don’t disagree with you about the potential value of manned space flight. I think the bigger issue is that the government only gives NASA 12 billion or so to work with, but we spend 50% of that on sending people to space and on the ISS. If we had more money, then by all means we should expand the manned space flight program; however, as the funding situation stands now, it seems a waste to send men and women into space simply because we can.
The entirety of that woman’s “qualifications” for office are 1) she’s not GWB, and 2) people know her name.
Sorry, that’s not nearly good enough for me.
-jcr
Obama has previously stated: “Evolution is more grounded in my experience than angels.”
eyelessgame, #27: Exactly.
Until the human species evolves out of this near hopelessly backward GAME of politics (if it ever does) its what we’ve got to deal with. Power games are all about deception, feint and distraction, in order to obtain a seat of influence, and always has rendered ideals such as “democracy” very nearly moot. regardless of the label, populations have always been subject to the decisions of individual and influential “leaders”.
I don’t trust her either, but saying so doesn’t mean much considering one can’t trust any of them. Its campaign time and they’re playing POLITICS. Determining their veracity or sincerity can’t be done BEFORE they obtain their post. One is forced to go with the candidate that appears to make the most noises that coincide with one’s views.
Its a HORRIBLE way to run a world, but there it is.
I go along with PZ on this: she’s made a (sufficiently bigger) noise in favor of science.
I just wish Obama or Edwards could summon the guts too.
eyelessgame, #27: Exactly.
Until the human species evolves out of this near hopelessly backward GAME of politics (if it ever does) its what we’ve got to deal with. Power games are all about deception, feint and distraction, in order to obtain a seat of influence, and always has rendered ideals such as “democracy” very nearly moot. regardless of the label, populations have always been subject to the decisions of individual and influential “leaders”.
I don’t trust her either, but saying so doesn’t mean much considering one can’t trust any of them. Its campaign time and they’re playing POLITICS. Determining their veracity or sincerity can’t be done BEFORE they obtain their post. One is forced to go with the candidate that appears to make the most noises that coincide with one’s views.
Its a HORRIBLE way to run a world, but there it is.
I go along with PZ on this: she’s made a (sufficiently bigger) noise in favor of science.
I just wish Obama or Edwards could summon the guts too.
-jcr #40 says, “The entirety of that woman’s “qualifications” for office are 1) she’s not GWB, and 2) people know her name.”
You left three little but very significant words out in number: 1) she’s not AS STUPID AS GWB.
Let’s be a little more comprehensive, shall we?
The link in comment 41 doesn’t work.
The link in comment 41 doesn’t work.
I like Hillary a lot more than Bill, and my prediction is that she is a better president than her other “weaker” half. My personal preference would be for someone like Gravel or Kucinich rather than the Clinton, Obama, Edwards centrist-types. Yet, in order to swing to the left, we have to go through the center to get there. So I can live with a Hillary presidency. She exudes competence, which is something severely lacking in most of those running from either side.
She seems like one of the better of a bad bunch.
A while ago, I read how she and her campaign team were on the lookout for a poster child in order to get on the “video games are teh evil” bandwagon. I’m not sure if they got anywhere with that one, but it definitely left a bad taste in my mouth.