Dear Ms. Quijano,
I wrote to you last week at your office, essentially saying what I now say in public below.
I am a feature director, author, screenwriter, activist and great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, but most importantly an American citizen and president of ScienceDebate.org, a non-profit I started with some friends to try and get presidential candidates to debate science.
Recently, I wrote An Open Letter To Presidential Debate Moderators here in The Huffington Post encouraging all moderators to ask questions on the issues that will more than anything else determine our future and our children's future.
Without doubt, these are science and technology.
From our many environmental problems (oceans, air, fresh water, climate change, biodiversity), to medical issues (research, mental health, emerging diseases, women's health) to the vast impact science and technology have on our economy -- no group of issues is more important nor more neglected.
Before you finalize your debate questions, why not just glance at this. We asked Clinton, Trump, Johnson, and Stein to answer our 20 Science Questions - and they did, all of them.
If you devoted a single segment to science it would be an absolute first and make your debate the most original and impactful of them all, a game-changer. That candidates don't debate science is bizarre given its importance and in a recent poll we found that more than 85% of both Democrats and Republicans agree, and would like to see their candidates talk more about it. And who is going to make that happen?
It could be you.
If you helped fill this vacuum, you'd alter the nature of what a candidate needs to know and talk about when seeking high office in modern America. You'd open the door to a critical discussion of critical issues and you might, by doing this, avert tragedy and save millions of lives. You'd become a reference point for all future debates. You could turn this debate into the most important of them all.
As president of ScienceDebate.org, I offers its full support to you and to all moderators who want to talk about science and democracy. We have the best resources in America and no organization has ever had more success in getting presidential candidates to talk about science - and we've learned a lot. We have the support of scientists and science-interested voters not just here in America, but across the world. The last time we published our Science Questions And Answers, we reached over 850 million people.
My email address is Matthew@ScienceDebate.org
Respectfully,
Matthew Chapman
Further Details:
Our membership is diverse and includes actor/activists like Mark Ruffalo, Kathleen Turner, longtime environmentalist, Peter Coyote, and science fan, Johnny Depp; Elon Musk and others in high-tech; politicians as diverse as Newt Gingrich and Rush Holt; more than 20 Nobel prizewinners; 100 university presidents; and basically the entire science community in America. We can, through our partner organizations reach over 100,000,000 scientists and engineers and find an expert on any subject within minutes.