Category Archives: Politics

A science debate, not a science exam.

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I was reading John Timmer’s post on Ars Technica about the call for a presidential debate on science and technology and found myself surprised at how many of the commenters on the post think such a debate would be a terrible idea.
It’s not just that the commenters think that the presidential candidates would use all their powers to weasel out of taking clear stands that might get them in trouble with one constituency or another. There are quite a few commenters who make variations of this argument:

I don’t see this as being a very good idea. These people are POLITICIANS, not scientists. I do not want to see them debating issues they have little worthwhile knowledge. If elected, they should rely on their advisors, and more importantly, the SCIENTISTS themselves to determine scientific policy. Science should not be “up for political debate.” Science should follow the scientific method. Having some sort of half-baked, pre-programmed, campaigning answers only politicizes science even more — which is exactly what we should try to avoid.

The list of questions I have for presidential hopefuls is manifestly not an oral exam on anything the candidates might have learned in their science classes. (Not a single question on intermolecular forces, I swear!) But just to be clear:

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In defense of ‘flip-floppers’: attention to reality matters.

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In response to one of my science-related questions for the presidential candidates, Drugmonkey points out that the question might not work the way I want it to because of the chasm between science and politics:

“8. If sound scientific research were to demonstrate that one of your policy initiatives couldn’t work (or couldn’t work without tremendous cost in terms of money, health risk, negative environmental impact, etc.), what would you do?”
This almost, but not quite, hits the fundamental cultural problem between the two societies, science and politics. Your question should be reframed as “what if research were to demonstrate your policy hadn’t worked in the first three years, then what would you do?”. The problem is that political behavior is unfalsifiable. “My policy didn’t work? Well, we just didn’t do it enough. Let’s do it more.” Tax cuts or welfare, same deal. No testing, falsifying and moving on to something else because the data told us the policy was flawed. Even the slightest sign of this and someone is a “flip flopper”.

I think Drugmonkey’s diagnosis of the politician’s MO is probably right. And, it occurs to me that this is the thing I hate most about politics-as usual. It’s what makes me want to hold the candidates down and ask them for their stand on reality.

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Questions for the presidential candidates: where do you stand on science?

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sciencedebate2008.jpg
Science matters. It’s hard to make good decisions in today’s world that aren’t somehow informed by sound science — especially if you’re the head of state of a country like the USA.
This means that it’s important to know where the people lined up to get the job of President of the United States stand on science. Those of us deciding how to vote could use this information, and even you folks who are subject to US foreign policy have a significant interest in knowing what you’ll be in for.
There ought to be a presidential debate focused on science and technology before the 2008 election. It’s not just the bloggers who think so, either. A bunch of serious scientists support the idea, too.
Here are some big things I want to know about where presidential candidates stand on science — the kinds of questions a science and technology debate might put on the table:

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Fifty years after Sputnik.

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Fifty years ago today, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, Earth’s first artificial satellite. I don’t remember it (because I wouldn’t be born for another decade), but the “BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP” heard ’round the world left indelible traces on the fabric of life for my parents’ generation, my generation, and for the subsequent generations, too.

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Freedom in the classroom.

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Perhaps you’ve already seen the new(ish) AAUP report Freedom in the Classroom, or Michael Bérubé’s commentary on it at Inside Higher Ed yesterday. The report is such a clear statement of what a professor’s freedom in the classroom amounts to and, more importantly, why that freedom is essential if we are to accomplish the task of educating college students, that everyone who cares at all about higher education ought to read it.
Some of the highlights, with my commentary:

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Reacting to PRISM and publishers’ concerns about ‘scientific integrity’ (the short version).

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Even though I’ve been frightfully busy this week, I’ve been following the news about the launch of PRISM (Partnership for Research Integrity in Science & Medicine). I first saw it discussed in this post by Peter Suber, after which numerous ScienceBloggers piled on. If you have some time (and a cup of coffee), read Bora’s comprehensive run-down of the blogosphere’s reaction.
If you’re in a hurry, here are three reasons I think PRISM’s plans to “save” scientists and the public from Open Access are a bad idea.

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Lessons from the Ward Churchill case.

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The news today from Inside Higher Ed is that the University of Colorado Board of Regents voted to fire Ward Churchill. You may recall that in May 2006, a faculty panel at the university found that the tenured ethnic studies professor had committed repeated, intentional academic misconduct in his scholarly writings. You may also recall that the close scrutiny of his writings was sparked by an outcry at some of the political views he voiced (especially that the September 11th attacks were an instance of “chickens coming home to roost”).
The mix of factors here — a movement to remove a tenured professor at a public university because his views are judged politically objectionable, plus a finding of real problems with the integrity of his scholarship, not to mention a whole set of issues around shared governance and the appropriate process within university hearings (which I will leave to the people with a much better feel for org charts) — have made the Churchill case a Rorschach test. How people interpret what the case was about, and how they will judge the outcome, probably tells us more about their priorities and anxieties around higher education than it necessarily tells us about Ward Churchill himself.

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Opening lines of communication between universities and the FBI.

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In the July 16 issue of Chemical & Engineering News (secure behind a paywall), the article “FBI Reaches Out to Campuses” [1] caught my attention. The gist of it is that academic scientists are increasingly the targets of foreign espionage, where the stakes have less to do with national security than potentially huge economic losses. The FBI would like to help academic scientists avoid being dupes and giving scientists in other countries an unfair advantage.

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Department of Homeland Security and academic labs.

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In the June 4, 2007 issue of Chemical & Engineering News (which is behind a paywall accessible only to ACS members and those with institutional subscriptions, I’m afraid) there’s an article on how college and university labs may be impacted by the interim final regulation on chemical security issued recently by the Department of Homeland Security.
In a nutshell, that impact looks like it could involve thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single university to comply with the rules, even if the chemicals they use fall into those specified by DHS as being at the lowest level of risk. As you can imagine, the colleges and universities are kind of freaked out.

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