Obama Answers Science Policy Questionnaire 550
thebestsophist writes "A couple months ago, Scientists and Engineers for America, Science Debate 2008, and a bunch of other science organizations sent McCain, Obama, and all the Congressional candidates a bunch of questions on science and technology. Topics included biosecurity, genetics research, and national security, as well as the more common questions on research and education. Well, Senator Obama just answered."
Senator McCain has not responded to the questionnaire at this point in time, but the site has a profile of his views and actions relating to science policy, which provides a good basis for comparing the candidates' stances. We've previously discussed the differences between the two candidates' technology platforms. According to a recent NPR story, both candidates intend to keep politics out of science.
His VP want creationism taught in schools... (Score:1, Interesting)
She claims that "...I'm not going to pretend I know how all this came to be."
Apparently *educated* guesses (i.e. theories based on data) are not allowed either, or have the same status as mythological hooey.
Gosh, I feel more secure about the countries future and future science policies.
Re:Politics/Science (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds good to me. Let us start by teaching them about Tiamat, how she got raped to give birth to the elder gods, and how her head was crushed with a sledghehammer by her son to create the land.
And then other Assyrian/Babylonian myths, including the Judeo-Christian variety.
Let's not neglect the western varieties, like how the frozen milk from the cow Audhumbla created Burr, the father of Burin, the father of Odin, the all-father.
Cause they're all equally valid -- none of them more or less than the others. The important lesson to the kids would be that there is really no limit to people's gullibility.
Re:Politics out of science? what about religion? (Score:2, Interesting)
Aside from that, perhaps we should be granting rights to sentience rather than by genetics? Why? Because we don't grant rights to amoebas, we slaughter large numbers of living animals, etc, etc. And what then of the future, when other things, be they machine or bio-engineered, might become sentient -- are they to be denied because they don't have enough x% genome in common with the humans?
Your view isn't difficult to understand, but it's incorrect and based on emotions rather than reason.
Re:Bacchus Obama is still part of the problem... (Score:1, Interesting)
Obama is self-centered!? Are you serious? I guess all the good he did in Chicago was for himself then. You want to talk about self-centered, let's talk about McCain's VP Sarah Palin who chose to travel on a self-promotion tour while she was late into a pregnancy (without telling anyone) and her child wound up to have down syndrome. But no, Obama is the one who is self-centered! LMFAO! Instead of making such ridiculous claims how about you back them up?
So let me get this straight, you want to elect people who aren't 'hyper-ambitious'. You think that by holding an electoral 'lottery' we'll be better off, and yet by doing so we have no fucking clue who we might end up with and whether or not they might be even worse than the people there now? LMFAO AGAIN. Yea, +Interesting, insofar as a piece of steaming shit that looks like a horse is interesting.
Not many liberals on slashdot... (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be kind of silly for Obama to do much advertising on Slashdot. "Preaching to the choir", I believe it's called.
I'm not sure how accurate that is. There is no shortage of so-called "libertarians" here on slashdot, arguing for the virtues of "the invisible hand of the market". Just look at all the chatter that comes up anytime Ron Paul is mentioned in a story here...
And besides, if the bulk of the slashdot reader population was liberal, why would it be even worthwhile for McCain to run Obama attack ads here? I don't know of many liberals who want to ignore foreign diplomacy opportunities or chastise Obama as "the world's biggest celebrity".
And then if you check the slashdot list of stories tagged "slashkos" [slashdot.org] you'll see how many stories have been assaulted by readers for being too liberal. So clearly there are plenty of conservative / libertarian readers here who feel that slashdot is too liberal. Yet I don't see a "drudgedot" or anything of that nature used to tag stories that are too conservative (as well there ought to be)...
there are plenty of odds out there (Score:4, Interesting)
Cancer prognosis isn't exactly something unstudied, and having had multiple melanomas removed is obviously worse for the odds than not having had melanoma at all.
I'd have to dig up an account to get journal access to quote recent numbers, but if I recall correctly the 5-year prognosis for people over 70 with a localized melanoma removed is somewhere around a 70-75% survival rate. That's not a death sentence, but it's not great.
Re:Party planks are ridiculous (Score:2, Interesting)
Which is what I don't get about the whole "federal funding for stem-cell research" thing. Why do we need federal funding for it at all? I mean, the way the democrats talk, stem cells are going to cure everything from Parkinson's to athlete's foot and raise Christopher Reeve from the dead. If they can do all that, shouldn't there be a huge amount of profit to be made by pioneering the techniques to use them? And therefore, shouldn't pharmaceutical companies have no problem getting investors to fund the research? I don't understand why my tax dollars are the only way Michael J. Fox is ever going to be able to play Jenga again.
Is there something I'm missing here? I'm really curious. Why is federal funding of stem cell research so important? It sounds like a handout to big business to me. How come the democrats get to point the finger at republicans as being "in the pockets of the big pharmaceutical companies" while they try to underwrite their R&D?
Disclaimer: I am a libertarian who dislikes both parties and candidates, and will be writing in "Turd Ferguson" for president in November. But I would really like for someone more informed than I to tell me why it's vitally important that my tax dollars pay the R&D costs of multibillion dollar corporations.
Re:Party planks are ridiculous (Score:3, Interesting)
It is indeed sad, though of course not all posts against religion or Republicans are modded up. But that is the tendency here, it seems to me. Every forum has a bias, including /.; it's not a vast left-wing conspiracy, nor is it really surprising. It's simply self-selecting.
Here's my take on life, the universe and everything, and especially /. What the heck, karma is over-rated anyway.
It's human nature to mod up posts with which you agree, despite the rules. And a good proportion of /. is likely young, single technophiles - people likely to be somewhat to the left of center politically.
Many such folk think nothing of destroying human embryos to advance science, just as they think nothing of aborting a fetus if the mother doesn't want it. I suspect many wouldn't even object to allowing a living baby to die of neglect if the mother intended him to be aborted anyway; Obama has voted for just such legislation as a young state senator, though he seems to be backing away from it now. Young people tend to relate most strongly to other young people - like young mothers whose lives will be changed forever by an unexpected child.
As people get older, marry, and have kids and grandkids, though, they tend to move more to the right of center politically. They also often begin to value life more highly - perhaps because they have so many lives they value, or because they've seen so many new lives enter the world. They begin to relate more strongly to the unborn or newly born child, and less to the young mother whose choices most likely led her to her current situation. Aborting a baby or allowing a living breathing baby to die of neglect, just because the mother doesn't want it, just starts to seem wrong. Do we not devalue life when we destroy it just for convenience? And isn't a fertilized embryo life?
I don't believe it's a coincidence that Obama's strength is in young voters, and McCain's is in older voters. The life experiences of the two groups, to this point in their lives, tend to lead them to approve of the message of their respective candidate.
Of course this is all generalization, with plenty of exceptions, and it's all just my (informed) opinion, no sources offered. But since a majority of young people are pro-abortion and pro-embryonic stem cell research, and /. tends to attract young people, and people tend to mod up posts with which they agree more often than posts with which they disagree...
Re:Politics out of science? what about religion? (Score:2, Interesting)