Matthew Chapman’s suggestion that the presidential candidates have a debate on science is naive, idealistic, and a step in the right direction. It will never happen, because the issues of science we could talk about are not up for debate, and I don’t think any of the candidates in any party are competent to discuss them, and they know it. They won’t step into a venue where their grade-school level understanding of science will face serious challenge, or where their embarrassing misunderstandings will be publicly aired.
Now what would be feasible, I think, would be a debate on science policy. What are they going to do about getting objective science information to congress? What do they propose to do to improve science, engineering and technology education in the schools, and specifically, what are they going to do to address major failures of the school to instruct their graduates in basic concepts like evolution? What are they going to do about an alternative energy policy, and global climate change? A lot of these questions would get down to the candidate’s understanding, but I’m more concerned that my candidate has a plan to improve the public understanding of science, rather than that they know it themselves.
At the very least, Chapman suggests that the debate be led by a panel of qualified experts. This is the best idea of all. We would improve the discourse and the depth of content of these presidential sessions immeasurably by the simple step of firing the incompetent jerks who are always tapped to run these circuses: give Tim Russert, Wolf Blitzer, and Random News Head #63 the axe (metaphorically would be good enough, but literally has some virtues, too). Why aren’t the candidates standing up before panels of economists, foreign policy experts, scientists, etc., and getting good questions asked of them by competent people? It would be far more informative, and it would give us a better picture of how a prospective president would handle his own shortcomings.
Can you imagine a Republican candidate debate on science?
That would be so much like stepping onto the psychedelic bus for a two hr ride into bizzaroland, it would be identical.
It was nice just to imagine such a world for a moment or two. Thanks, PZ
Why aren’t the candidates standing up before panels of economists, foreign policy experts, scientists, etc., and getting good questions asked of them by competent people?
Because such questions are complicated and difficult to answer with a soundbite or platitude.
Well, we don’t really have much in the way of “debate” these days, when it comes to politics.
But what serves in the place of debate, where the candidates talk about what they believe, or what they want, that COULD happen. It would be wonderfully revealing.
Science and science policy is a real issue, not like all the phony ones they get us all excited about (gay marriage, etc.).
People like us can make this happen. Make it pungent, make it viral, make it known, make it happen. Make it so they pretty much don’t dare not be there. If any of the candidates want to have “scheduling conflicts,” fuck it, make ’em regret they weren’t there by having post-event viral campaigns spotlighting them as anti-science.
The event should take place before either party has their primary, so we can get a line into the heads of the entire crop of candidates.
Set it up, alert the media, invite the candidates, see what happens. If the media’s not interested, bypass them and carry it solely on the web. (In fact, I’d love to hear ALL of them address the issues of net neutrality, net privacy, and Internet taxation.)
This should also be associated with one of those video question campaigns, so real people out here get to ask the candidates about science or science policy. The guiding ground rule for contributors would be “Let’s find out who’s most sympathetic to science, and make them our friends. Let’s give THEM publicity.”
PZ, would you or somebody over at Scienceblogs be willing to give us a forum for collecting preliminary questions and question categories? Like, right NOW?
As is very clearly shown here:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v449/n7163/full/449663a.html
it would be to the interests of one’s nation to educate their political leaders in science. In the EU, a lot of deals are struck between ministers with no consideration given at all to the science, just because of this lack of understanding. Ministers simply trade chips to maximise national advantages without a clear comprehension of what is at stake.
A presidential science policy debate will be ridiculous unless the candidates are informed; I am very certain they are not. The question of ‘what they are going to do about science’ is just ‘we have no clue’ otherwise.
How about The Science Guy as moderator?
There is a direct link between a countries scientific and technological expertise and its ability to compete economically and militarily on the world stage. The US will soon find itself facing another “Sputnik” moment where even our most “head in the sand” politicans and voters will have to face the realities that come from overlooking the role of science.
I make no predictions on how this country will respond to that reality, just that it will come to pass.
“How about The Science Guy as moderator?”
You mean Bill Nye? Or is there some Science Guy in the blogosphere that I’m not aware of?
Surely for matters of impartiality though, we couldn’t have someone so pro-science be moderator. We must have someone who is neither pro-science or anti-science, someone who is untainted by notions of the goodness of the scientific method, or indeed, any notions of the merits of any position or worldview. We need a blank slate. We need…Scott Adams.
Probably true.
Doesn’t stop them pontificating about religious beliefs, though.
Atheists are told by theologians that their criticisms of religion are misguided because they don’t know theology well enough.
You don’t here these same apologists criticising the beliefs of Presidential candidates, even though their grasp of theology is probably shallower than that of most atheists or agnostics.
I’m not sure that we really want to hear their answers to that question; some of the candidates would probably consider it a loaded one.
Oh, If only their understanding of science were at the grade school level, at least some of them.
At the very least, Chapman suggests that the debate be led by a panel of qualified experts.
Like Michael Crichton and Jim Watson.
BWWAAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAAHHAHAAHHAHA!!!!!!!!
*ahem*
A beautiful dream PZ, but I’m already settling in for the theocracy come January 20, 2009.
Thanks PZ, I’ve been trying to say that since I first read the proposal for a science debate by your politicos. I don’t even think it’s fair to really expect them to be particularly competent in the sciences. Put a bunch of scientists on the stand and ask us about details of law or economics or even about other branches of the sciences and I don’t think we’d do much better. Afraid to bring up Chris Mooney around here after the whole fr*ming issue, but he got it right in Republican War on Science that the only appropriate response from a politico about science is that they are not specialists but would turn to competent science advisers and act accordingly. Making science part of policy decision making, and not manipulating the science to make it seem like it agrees with policy. It’s arguably OK to make a policy decision that flies in the face of the scientific evidence, as long as they make that clear and say well “this is a policy decision” and don’t try fudge the results to make it seem like their political decisions are inevitable based on ‘sound science’. That’s just cowardice, and seems to be the norm in your neck of the woods lately. Mind you, as someone outside the US, I can’t help that my first reaction to the de-enlightenment of your once great nation echoes that of my old supervisor in Cambridge: “great, more jobs for the rest of us”.
I’m pretty sure Dennis Kucinich is some sort of science prodigy. I mean, look at the wife he made in his lab…
PZ- I’m so glad I stumbled upon this site yesterday (thanks to a sports blog no less). Its people like you that make me have faith, in an America where Behe is still employed by a legit research university, that we are NOT a nation of total buffoons.
I could never vote for anybody (or date/take someone seriously) who believed anything that had to do with ID or limitations on legitimate research.
To paraphrase the Big Lebowski “Say what you will about Creationism….at least its an ethos”, ID is crock…and I’ve rambled too long.
As a former sp. ed. and tech. teacher this reaeeaalllyyy struck a nerve:
“What do they propose to do to improve science, engineering and technology education in the schools, and specifically, what are they going to do to address major failures of the school to instruct their graduates in basic concepts like evolution?”
That’s it in a nutshell, PZ. Until this question is adressed, our kids are in a world of hurt in the psychological, cognitive and academic domains.
Until that question is fully answered by all politicians we are simply not educating our kids well.
You just answered your own question!
Ah, hell, I think it’s an excellent idea! A debate on policy, and on science, why not? The fundies get to have their freak show with newly “converted” gays and atheists, so why not let us have some fun? Great idea. For posterity.
So that the grandkids can watch the footage on television someday, and turn to their former ID-supportin’, global warming denyin’, DDT and HIV “alternative theory” mongerin’ elders and ask, “Why were people so stupid back then? Was everybody that stupid?”
Grandparents: “Oh, no – that was only a few people.” *Blush*
Payback. :-)
Frankly, something I’d like to see addressed in such a format is science funding, and policy concerning science funding. We’ve seen a dramatic decrease in funding in the last few years, and a dramatic concentration of funds into only a few very specific realms of research. The decrease in funding of pure research and the increase of research in very specific realms of applied research (including dead-end projects, like development of a vaccine for schistosomiasis) is….worrisome. Those of us who study, say, large scale trends in evolution are beginning to see the bottom of the barrel as far as funding is concerned. Decisions made within the next administration will affect the scale at which the scientific brain drain will occur as we enter into the next decade.
20th century presidents most knowledgeable about science: Hoover and Carter. Draw your own conclusions.
OTOH, presidents able to understand enough of what their expert advisers tell them, draw intelligent conclusions, and translate those into policy: FDR, Eisenhower, JFK, Clinton…
Yeah, I think science policy is a better topic for debate.
Dear PZ Myers,
You raise the issue of a presidential debate on science.
I do think debate is important and with that in mind I did raise some reasonable issues in relation to Haeckel’s fraudulent work and how it was perpetuated by biology textbooks most plausibly written and edited by evolutionists. I do think it is fair for me to ask you to reasonably address this issue.
Please look at these threads in relation to the questions and issues I raised: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/11/add_lee_strobel_to_your_list_o.php#comments and http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/02/wells_and_haeckels_embryos.php
Here is a slightly changed portion of what I wrote:
PZ Myers, I think it is fair for you to bring up the work of Gould and others dismissing Haeckel’s fraudulent work. However, I believe it is fair to say that you are being quite negligent in not raising the much larger point of why the evolutionary community allowed the fraud to be perpetuated for a full century and why so many biology textbooks which were most likely composed by evolutionists were allowed to be published and distributed in public schools.
PZ Myers, given the vociferous efforts of evolutionists to keep creation science and intelligent design textbooks out of public schools it is certainly fair to ask why that same vociferousness was not applied to keep Haeckel’s fraudulent work out of the biology textbooks which were most plausibly written and edited by evolutionists. Can you please answer this reasonable question?
Forget having the candidates debate eachother. Let the candidates debate non-candidate experts. I’d like to see the candidates field science questions from Richard Dawkins, economics questions from Alan Greenspan, foreign policy questions from Margaret Thatcher, and ethics questions from Henry Rollins.
The problem with the debate formula is that they’re all idiots – if they are allowed to argue amongst eachother it creates an artificial “floor” effect so that people don’t realize how freakin’ ignorant and medieval some of these chumps really are. Put them alongside some really educated and articulate people and everyone would be horrified.
Which brings me to my favorite fantasy constitutional amendment. In every election you list as an option alongside the candidates, “I do not like any of these candidates” – and if “I do not like..” wins with a majority you clear the slate and none of the candidates are allowed to run for that position again, and you hold another election.
A debate on science or even science policy wouldn’t really work in the televised stage thing form. Which brings up two ideas which might just work IMO (not at all mutually exclusive BTW).
Firstly, a debate focusing on Science and Technology Policy, Education, Energy, and the “Future Economy” might work well.
It is broad enough that there is plenty of room for ‘grand vision’ and to be of interest to a large audience (the whole public). All those topics are intricately intertwined (and putting them together itself usefully points that out). Also, “Energy” is a really hot topic these days which could actually pull enough interest/’relevance’ to get the debate to actually happen.
Second idea: Non-televised ‘debates’. This is not at all a new idea, since in the olden days debates often took the form of a series of published letters/editorials; anyone remember the ‘Federalist Papers’. Enabled by the internet, this old form could get quite interesting. Most usefully, it allows for in-depth responses.
Instead of just having competing policy papers on the candidates websites, there needs to be a common forum. Candidates should be able to respond directly to each other’s posts, which is what a real debate is all about. Also, the forum needs to have moderators who will actually fact-check and post editorial responses along with candidate vs candidate responses. This might be a accomplished in a ‘non-partisan’ way by ranking/moderator pushing pushing selected public comments up into the actual debate thread (the public comment thread needs to be forked off from the candidate debating thread so that the candidate’s posts don’t get swamped by crap).
Anyway, both these ideas are ones that have been rattling around in my brain for a while. The first would be sexier and might actually happen if some org/person with influence could get behind it (plausible given the topics). The second is probably more substansial, but longer term before it actually could begin to matter.
I think meritocracy is illegal in the states.
Oh Christ. Is Peter Moore back? I thought he died yesterday in a boating accident.
Here’s one for you Peter M. It is an article about the ass-munch Jonathan Wells.
http://thestubborncurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2007/06/embryological-vomit.html
You are welcome to post it on conservapedia.
Would everyone KINDLY ignore Peter Moore? Please?
Just think of him as your slightly retarded cousin who farts at the family picnic. Say nothing. If you draw attention to him, next he’ll be attempting “Classical Gas.”
How about a candidate session of “Are you smarter than a 5th grader?”
Comment 2 just ought to be repeated…
In Russia
theyPutin just abolished the option of voting “Against All”.Comment 2 just ought to be repeated…
In Russia
theyPutin just abolished the option of voting “Against All”.“their grade-school level understanding of science”
We didn’t have science in grade school back when I was there, so does “grade-school level understanding of science” mean no understanding of science whatsoever? I still remember one of my grade school teachers pretending to have a “science” lesson. I knew she was just making it up since I had read a couple of Isaac Asimov’s “Lucky Star” series, but I doubt if anyone else had any more of a clue than the idiotic teacher.
Politicians debate on science policy ?
You could achieve the same effect by getting a group of dogs to bark on cue. Much noise, little signal, and a waste of time.
What Peter the YEC is after is most likely something he can quote mine. Peter and conserva Lie-apedia construct dunghills by quote mining what other people say and write. Don’t trust a proven liar, death cultist, and nutcase.
I’ve got him down as Obsessive-Compulsive for his dozens of spams in 24 hours despite the fact that he knows what we think of lying, cultist, creos. But he could be psychotic. This continual spamming is a highly hostile behavior consistent with schizophrenia or bipolar. Psychotics often have large amounts of endogenous, free floating rage. Only Peter could enlighten us but who would believe what he says with his history.
PZ,
I think that debating the policies in regards to science is exactly what Chapman was suggesting.
Politicians debate on science policy ?
You could achieve the same effect by getting a group of dogs to bark on cue. Much noise, little signal, and a waste of time.
At least the dogs wouldn’t lie.
“Can you imagine a Republican candidate debate on science?”
Ron Paul’s an MD, so he at least passed those requirements. AFAIK, the rest of them are lawyers, so objectivity is something they’ve spent their whole careers fighting against.
-jcr
Brilliant idea, but it would make for “boring” television.
*wink*
Comparing past to the present, it always depresses me whenever I read about how in the 19th Century ordinary Americans came from miles around to sit and listen with rapt attention to the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, then would avidly discuss the debates amongst themselves after the event–when people took their civic duty and the great issues of the day seriously (and when their votes sort of mattered)…all in an era before television, before radio…and when I think how radio was so instrumental in the rise of early 20th century fascism, and how much more useful high-def cable and satellite TV is to distract and mislead…serious multiplier effect…plus the shallowness of many people’s reading in a digital-media-saturated environment…it’s no small thing that many of my librarian friends call this a “Digital Dark Ages”. The Internet, with its 2 way communication, is the one silver lining to this otherwise dark cloud, especially when used by thoughtful people who do still read, and discuss, and take things seriously.
Argh! I keep trying to comment at richarddawkins.net and getting MySQL errors… but if you’d like to hear the candidates respond to at least *one* question on science, how about doing it through 10questions.com? I’ve got a question there which is basically “What would your administration do for US science,” and if it gets enough votes it *will* get asked of them!
The video’s here, and a yes vote will help out a project at least making a bit of a go at this.
Err… and could someone be a dear and mention this link in the relevant RD comment thread? Heh…
William: “What would your administration do for US science,” I’m afraid that’s exactly the sort of open ended question that will get you a quick fill on your bullshit bingo. The reply will be a blanket “blah blah.. the American people.. blah rhubarb blah.. competitive.. blah blah.. science and technology.. blah blah innovation.. blah blah.. this great nation.. blah blah September 11th! blah rhubarb blah.. economy.. SEPTEMBER 11th.. blah blah.. security..blah blah.. bomb Iran.. Islamofascism..blah blah” and you’ll be left where you started. Hell, they won’t even answer a direct focused question let along one with built-in waffle factor.
At least the dogs wouldn’t lie.
Only if they’re sleeping.
20th century presidents most knowledgeable about science: Hoover and Carter. Draw your own conclusions.
To be fair Bullfighter, both of those presidents inherited financial catastrophes that were not of their making and, which neither was equipped to deal with (either support or prior examples, or experience). Look at what followed them:
Roosevelt actually used Hoover’s ideas, he just ramped them up to a national level. Also, whether they were good or bad, FDRs programs really didn’t pull the country out of the depression, WWII did.
Reagan adopted Carter’s defense budget stance (the actual increases in spending begin in the ’80 and ’81 budgets, IE Carter budgets). Reagan’s overall success? I’m not sure how you view the Reagan administration, but in the 12 years following Carter, we went from a 900 Billion dollar debt to a 4.7 Trillion dollar debt.
“does “grade-school level understanding of science” mean no understanding of science whatsoever?”
Yup, pretty much. Many people go into elementary ed. because they are afraid of science and math
The really sad thing is that by the time the kids reach high school, at least where I am, they have mostly moved from somewhere else. IOW, you can fix one school district, give the kids appropriate science education in elementary school, carry it through to middle and high school, but you still have to deal with the kids who moved to your school from Mississippi, where they were taught that God made the flowers from sunshine.
I had a student who was a senior. She was moving to Mississippi, and told me that her science credits did her no good at all. She couldn’t graduate because she hadn’t taken History of Mississippi.
A French astronomer makes a defense of fundamental research. It’s in French, but maybe someone can translate it for you.
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3232,36-974175,0.html
Here is part.
“Inversely, the system of public civil fundamental research must be stable. In the history of humanity we are better equiped(GPS), but we probably reflect as slowly as in ancient times. Although the growth of industrial innovation can be correlated to the number of engineers, that is not the case of fundamental research and researchers. The criteria of research excellence is not the rapidity of execution of a project nor the number of patents, but the liberty of the actors.”
…
“I am not asking your for alms or the moon. I am asking you for billions of euros. Fast. I am asking you to stop financing American research. I am asking you to stop taking researchers for employees of Total or the army. In return, I promise you absolutely nothing.”
dogmeatib:
I agree with your assessment of Carter v. Reagan and, while I disagree on Hoover v. FDR (which I think should be evaluated mainly by the criterion of knowing the right time to be bold), you have a valid point there, too. Yet, even with careful approach to Hoover and Carter’s presidencies, they hardly could rise above average. (At least the average of the two is not above average presidential accomplishment.) And my point was simply that a candidate’s understanding of science is a poor predictor of his or her eventual performance as president.
See today’s column from our local paper’s religion editor:
http://www.theledger.com/article/20080202/COLUMNISTS0402/802020333/1005/NEWS02
Seems to me a sensible accommodation for the extremists who would otherwise seek to impose their beliefs on the rest of us.