Here’s one answer: Science may be heterogeneous and its policy implications widely dispersed, but recent governmental neglect of science has been MONOLITHIC. Consider the following issues on which our policies could be criticized: climate change, energy policy, science education, stem cell research, censorship of gov’t scientists, FDA oversight, research funding… They all have one thing in common: the neglect (from ignorance or malice) of science. It’s “the two cultures” on steroids!

So, while the specific problems are numerous, the root cause is pretty singular. What better way to address the pervasive neglect of science than to get the presidential candidates to debate and the nation to watch?

Martha

These issues (the environment, health and medicine, and science and technology policy) are or should be integrated parts of the larger political debate, and I don’t see how candidates can effectively and usefully debate these issues in the isolated and artificial environment of a science debate.

As someone who is intensely interested in matters of basic science and engineering, including science and technology policy, I’m all for the candidates discussing their policies in these areas. But what should we hope to gain from Science Debate 2008? Is the scientific community hoping to see which candidate knows the most science? To borrow some topics from the SB2008 website, do we want to know the candidates’ position on the best way to fight antibiotic resistant bacteria? or the best way to combat species lost and promote conservation?

I don’t expect a candidate to know all these things. I expect a candidate to follow the advice of advisers who are experts in their fields. Such a debate seems more like a platform for various parties to promote and push their agendas, seeking either for some promise which they can leverage against the future President, or, in the egotistical fashion of someone who would demand a science debate in the first place, the opportunity to ridicule the candidates for a scientific understanding that fails to match that of the experts promoting the debate.

Again, why should science have its own debate? I would love to hear them expand on these issues in more depth during the debates, but the same could be said for any one of the issues covered in the debates or indeed any one of the number of issues that are never brought up. And as I mentioned before, most of these issues cannot be debated in a vacuum but are integrally related to other policy topics.

At the end of the second paragraph above, you say that the candidates must “must be able to clearly articulate how they will harness that counsel to lead the United States toward” a few important science-related policy goals. But it seems to me that asking for such specific policy proposals belies the stated importance of relying on the advise of experts in the ever-evolving world of scientific knowledge.

I don’t want to sound too critical. I think this is a well-intentioned initiative and part of me is actually torn on the issue. I think the discussion surrounding Science Debate 2008 is worthwhile, and even (as I see it) more important than having the debate itself.