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McCain Risks Becoming the Anti-Science Candidate
Among the possibilities that John McCain offered to those Republicans and Democrats who were looking for someone who could change the direction of that party, one that was not widely discussed but which was nevertheless significant, was the opportunity to remove the unfortunate disconnect between the current administration and the scientific community.
The administration of George W. Bush has differed qualitatively from the previous five administrations, both Republican and Democratic, in its attacks on scientific integrity, censorship of scientific information, stacking of scientific advisory committees with unqualified candidates, and outright distortion of the results of studies by government scientists. The situation was of such concern that an unprecedented collection of Nobel Laureates, National Medal of Science winners, and former Presidential Science advisors (both republican and democratic), later joined by thousands of scientists, wrote an open letter to the White House to urge a change in policy.
These issues became so widespread and well known that the journalist Chris Mooney wrote a bestselling book entitled, The Republican War on Science. I thought at the time that the title was inappropriate however. The Bush administration is not representative of all Republicans, including, for example, Ph.D. physicist and congressman Vern Ehlers, with whom others and I have worked to raise the profile of science in political discourse. Indeed, over the past half-century, Republican administrations have often been more supportive of significant scientific investments than Democratic administrations
John McCain offered hope and a new direction early on in his campaign. He had previously spoken out publicly about the need to preserve scientific integrity, for example, and criticized several actions of the Bush administration in this regard. With McCain as the Republican candidate and Obama as the Democratic candidate for President, it began to look like we might finally return to an administration that would appropriately adopt the results of science in policymaking.
Unfortunately, however, since becoming the presumptive candidate, about to become the official candidate of his party, John McCain has begun to slowly backtrack from the scientific straight-talker one hoped he would be.
Things began to look bad when McCain made a silly campaign promise: a $300 million dollar prize for new battery technology to help solve our energy crisis. If $300 million could solve our energy problems they wouldn't be problems. To develop effective new alternative energy technologies requires significant fundamental research on new materials, the kind of thing that government supported research is required for, as well as new investments in infrastructure. As has recently been pointed out, for example, our current national electric grid already cannot accommodate the influx of power that is coming in from new wind sources.
Things got worse when McCain began to advocate for offshore drilling as a way to reduce oil costs. As was well known, not only will new offshore drilling not have any impact on oil production in this country for at least a decade, but even if it does come online, the total oil production will be marginal compared to current usage, and thus the impact on the price of oil at the time will not be large.
The biggest blow to one's confidence in John McCain's commitment to sound science however came last week with his choice of running mate. Sarah Palin has not only expressed her disagreement with the entire scientific climate science community by suggesting that there is no human induced contribution to global warming, but she has also indicated in interviews that both evolution and its scientifically discredited alternative, currently called intelligent design, should be discussed in science classes. To be fair, she has not explicitly said that both should actually be a part of the curriculum, but she has not argued to the contrary either. It is easy to suspect, in spite of having a father who was a science teacher, her personal views on scientifically sound concepts like evolution and the age of the earth are similar to those of another conservative Christian governor, Mike Huckabee, whose statements on these issues during the Republican primary debates were widely derided.
On global warming, Palin's actions are eerily reminiscent of the Bush administration's cherry picking of the scientific. In a New York Times Op-ed she argued against listing polar bears as endangered species, saying her decision was based on a "comprehensive review by state officials." However a freedom of information request by Ed Steiner to see the review revealed that the officials had in fact concurred that the scientific literature indeed suggested that the polar bear population will significantly decline.
Finally, the Obama campaign has now officially responded to the request put out by various organizations, including ScienceDebate2008, to answer 14 questions on science and technology policy. John McCain's campaign has indicated they too will issue specific responses, however they have not yet done so. (It will be particularly interesting to me to see how they respond to the question of balancing belief vs scientific evidence.)
All of this puts Mr. McCain in a difficult position. If he public disavows Gov. Palin's misstatements on these issues and others he risks driving a wedge between himself and his chosen running mate. If he does not, he risks continuing or even exacerbating the unfortunate divide created by the current administration between Republicans and good science.
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Diane DeGette (Rep., D-Co.), who has several pieces posted on HPost, has been featured on CSPAN2 this weekend for her new book, Sex, Science and Stem Cell Research." The book discusses how the right wing has opposed science and health funding for a variety of reasons. She is deputy majority whip of the dem party in the house, and is on the pro-choice and diabetes committees. She said many of the people in the house are simply afraid of science. they don't understand the scientific method and don't realize that there is easily accessible scientific info available to the public. DeGette recommends reading Scientific American.
She also discusses attempts to ban nearly all contraceptives as abortifacients, including the diaphragm (!) and the inability of female soldiers in war zones to obtain the morning after pill (how about we send them care packages with the morning after pill instead of cigars?).
The anti-science bias in Congress is such that the pols are unwilling to take up various health issues on the floor because they simply don't understand them and don't want to make the effort to do so.
Ms DeGette said she has been informed that she will be working on the universal health plan come the next admin. She has been on important conference committees and says she acts as unofficial whip on various health and science related issues.
In today's environment, the very simple letter that Einstein sent to President Roosevelt alerting him to the potential for creating a nuclear bomb (that ultimately led to the conclusion of WWII) would be dismissed out of hand as the silly musings of a nerdy academic. We must get back to science-based reality.
Your article underscores what I already knew, moreso when he chose Palin as his VP candidate. The McCain/Palin ticket is deadly to the state of American education, as if it wasn't in dire shape already. The founding fathers broke away from the British mother country for the fundamental reason that religion should not dictate public policy. Anyone who detracts from religious dogma should not be held accountable for recognizing scientific facts in the court of public opinion. Organized religion always has been nothing short of superstition that now threatens to annilate any semblance of democratic values left in this nation. Our founders wrote Article 6 of the Constitution to preclude any religious test for elective office, contrary to the forum organized by Rick Davis. Rudy Giuliani falsely accused Obama 2 nights ago (Wednesday) of "dodging every question" Davis asked him, proclaiming inanely that McCain responded directly instead. None of these shenanigans have anything to do with a candidate's fitness to serve in public office, much less President, which is exactly why I've long believed we must have at least some agnostic or atheistic candidates as candidates, since their theological views will likely be far more intellectually honest than the anti-scientific nonsense we get from mainstream religion. I further hope that Bill Maher's upcoming film "Religulous" will knock some sense into voters' heads before Election Day.
I am totally aghast that McCain has chosen such a nut as his running mate. Perhaps he is secretly trying to make sure that the GOP loses this election so completely that they will never field another national candidate? Maybe it is all payback for the way the GOP mistreated him back in the 2000 campaigns?
Whatever the reason, McCain has put the GOP deeper into the hole it has been digging for itself, and it's beginning to look like this time they are so deep down they can't even see back up to the surface from whence they started.
So outlandish do I find the things that McCain has said and done that I fanticise that he is indeed trying to make sure that the GOP is thouroughly devestated in the election. At least two of us have that idea!
Wow! The radical right 'spinners' are out in force!
The Palin choice is laughable. Biden will wipe the floor with her quite soon.
Actually Galileo was persecuted by the 'church' for stating that the earth revolved around the sun and not the sun around the earth. From what I know of Palin so far my guess is she would still side with the 17th Century Church position.
There were virtually no agnostics or atheists during that period as we know them today.....Darwin hadn't been born yet. To state that these notable scientists were 'church goers' is a joke.
If you think the earth was created in 6 days 6000 years ago......welcome to the 'Flat Earth Society" where Sarah Palin is a distinguished member.
Let's support real science education people......not fundamentalists who want to call their religion science so they can sneak it in the back door without proper scientific documentation.
Intelligent Design/Creationism=Christianity.
Let's remember our laws are secular and that we have separation of Church and State.
DAE's comment is ridiculous as well as having some truth. "Galileo, Copernicus, Newton and Einstein" are not "liberals" in the current sense of the word. Newton was a devout Christian who predicted Armageddon to happen in this century, ie., the 21st century.
But it is true, I can tell you from personal experience as well as reading, that "elitism" is an unfortunate part of "science" today. Having four science Ph.D.'s in my family, I see that they are totally enraptured with an unproven macro-evolution theory; they are totally sold out to a false concept that mankind is the primary actor in "global warming".
The sun and its cycles is the primary actor in such global warming as we have, but the overall cycle is tending toward cooling.
There are no intermediate fossil records which have not been discredited as fakes, and even the fakes are few. Macro-evolution is unproved, while micro-evolution is obviously proven.
It is terrible to hear a "scientist" deny the above two concepts even in the same breath that he denies the role of God in creation. Especially when the scientist is one of your own relatives, who undoubtedly deserve the title "liberal" as it is used today.
But please do not call Copernicus, Einstein, Newton, etc. "liberals". They were God-believing people and would be horrified to be lumped with the secular humanists or mystic humanists who are taking over the direction of the geopolitical world.
Wow, a creationist, haven't seen one here in a while. Perhaps you can explain the actual biological difference between so call micro and macro evolution since scientist's don't actually recognize the difference, since so called macro evolution is mearly the sum total of all the micro evolutions.
You ought to listen you your Ph.d relatives as they obviously know what they are talking about, perhaps you wouldn't use these silly creationist commonplaces .
Biologists and geneticists have been looking for ways to expand on Darwin's theories. The right-wing religious establishment pounces on this as being in contradiction to Darwin's theories. But since Darwin was not aware of the existence of genes, chromosones, DNA or RNA, he couldn't possibly give a comprehensive explanation of how evolution works. All things considered, he did a pretty darn good job. There is much vigorous debate as to such ideas as punctuated equilibrium, etc.as more and more is learned about population dynamics, how genes work in concert, on-and-off switches, epigenetics, etc. The sociobiologists haven't helped much--a small amount of their work has been valuable in terms of kinship and altruism, but they have in large part given science a bad name. The only selfish genes that have been put forward in a convincing manner are those that are selfish on the molecular level: the 2 competing versions actually duke it out.
The theory of gravity only works in some respects; that doesn't invalidate the theory as a whole. But that foundation was built on. by later mathematicians and physicists.
Having four PhDs in your family does not guarantee that you got a winning ticket in the intelligence drawing of evolutions lottery yourself.
Your desperate desire to prove that you lost speaks volumes.
"The sun and its cycles is the primary actor in such global warming as we have, but the overall cycle is tending toward cooling."
This is simply a lie, there is truthiness in it for the unlearned, obviously the sun provides our planet with heat and light. Solar energy is cyclic. But it is a lie to say that our current global climate is cooling, it is warming, and the warming at an unusually high rate, the warming is partially caused by man-made green house gasses. Models that include solar cycles, heat from the inner earth, heat trapped in the ocean and all the factors you deniers point to, show that man made green house gasses are the factor causing the unusually high warming trend.
Elitists? People who get a PhD are elite, why should they put up with lies or ignorant opions like yours?
"Risks?"
We don't want these scientific elites making policy. They're obviously out of sink with the Republican base which has studied these questions extensively based on the most authoritative source available. Look where accepting the liberal ideas of Galileo, Copernicus, Newton and Einstein has gotten us.
I love your sarcasm, and I only mean to be helpful. I think you meant "sync."
He has already become the anti-science candidate, but he's still the cranky old man candidate.
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