A Call For Science Policy Debate Among Presidential Candidates

Marissa Fessenden writes about a campaign to get Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to address important scientific issues in the run-up to the 2012 presidential election. ScienceDebate.org and Scientific American have posed a set of questions to the candidates, as well as congressional leaders, and they're rallying support for those questions to be answered before the election. The responses will be published and graded for citizens to see. The questions include topics such as biosecurity, climate change, the safety of food and water supplies, vaccination, and environmentally sustainable energy. This comes at a time when the basic scientific literacy of elected officials is under heavy scrutiny.

Re:Why?

[TapeCutter]

While it might be an interesting change of pace to elect a scientist rather than a lawyer or executive, that seems unlikely.

You may be surprised how many politicians, lawyers, and executives have a BSc or better under their belt. For example the Iron Lady was a chemist trained at Oxford, her scientific training probably helped her to become one of the first world leaders to call for action on AGW in the 80's...OTOH...the Iron Lady did have other ideas in other areas, more than a few of those policies can be used to demonstrate that technocrats have shitty policy ideas just like everyone else.

Re:Loaded questions? Sort of.

[Entropius]

I don't know any non-kooks who want to completely ban fossil fuels. Most want either to say "no burning fossil fuel without a permit" and issue permits equal to a desired level of emissions, or implement a carbon tax tuned to reduce emissions to that level.

As for vaccinations: yes, they should be mandatory. No religious whackjob exceptions or crystal-clutching hippie exceptions. Go read about the polio epidemic and you'll understand why. Possibly there can be one exception: a parent puts up a bond for the cost of getting their kid tested for the presence of polio/measles/whatever every couple of months, and if the kid tests positive at any time then parent goes to jail for assault against both the kid and whoever the kid may have infected.

Again, nobody on the Left wants to outlaw water treatment plants, either, given that they're rather fond of building the things in the first place.

Won't happen, and here's why

[necro81]

As much as I would love to see such a debate, it simply not going to happen. In order to participate in a debate, or any other campaign function, the candidate has to see a significant upside that outweighs the potential pitfalls. In other words, the campaign needs to have a sense that they can win votes and avoid losing votes. Let us examine that calculus for the two leading contenders:

Obama:
Pros - Gets to look like an informed policy maker. Gets to highlight his record (real or perceived) as president: green energy, funding for innovation, R&D corporate tax credits, higher mileage standards, network neutrality, access to education. Gets to try to make Romney look like an ignorant fool touting flat-earth nonsense that panders to an ignorant base.
Cons - The people who are going to vote for him anyway already know this. The people who are undecided probably won't be swayed by his performance. His record thus far hasn't really satisfied environmentalists. Could come off as an egg-headed wonk rather than a substantive leader. Solyndra! Killing jobs in coal country! Higher energy costs! Loss of manufacturing!

Romney:
Pros - Gets to pound Obama on his record (real or perceived). Gets to pound Obama about job-killing regulations from the EPA, FCC, FDA, etc. Drill, baby, drill! Innovators are harmed, not helped, by government.
Cons - Doesn't have a coherent platform of his own to promote, other than the magic mystery of the markets and ending (unspecified) regulations. Will either have to 1) pander unscientific nonsense that accords with his base, 2) speak intelligently on science and technology and alienate his base, or 3) speak in platitudes (innovation good! climate change? I dunno. Government bad!) that won't win over anyone. The people who are going to vote for him anyway won't be any more committed to him any route he chooses. He might end up losing votes. He isn't likely to get many undecideds from his performance.

In short, there really aren't a whole lot of votes to be won from such a debate. There are votes to be lost. Nobody wants to appear uninformed on camera. Despite its indisputable importance, science and technology policy just doesn't deliver votes.