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More than a dozen science and engineering organizations worked with ScienceDebate.org to draft 14 top science questions to ask the two main presidential candidates this election year. Although President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney declined to debate these issues in person (at least as of press time), their campaigns provided written responses to the queries.
Because these are substantive issues that will play a critical role in determining the nation's—not to mention our planet's—future, the Scientific American editors summarized and rated the candidates' answers. Our following analysis is not a comprehensive guide to the election—you will have to look elsewhere for an evaluation of the candidates' positions on foreign affairs, social values or tax policy. Instead we focused on highlighting how the candidates differ from each other on science.
To make our determination, we invited readers to send us leads and solicited input from our board of advisers and other subject-matter experts. We scored the candidates' answers on a five-point scale (with five being best), using the following criteria: how directly and completely they answered the question; scientific accuracy; feasibility (including economic viability and clear accounting for both revenues and costs); potential benefits to health, education and the environment; and sustainability (meaning how well the proposed solutions balance the needs of current and future generations).
Overall, we found that Romney was more specific about what he would like to do in the next four years than Obama. His responses also fared better on feasibility. Obama had the upper hand on scientific accuracy. Romney's answers on climate change, ocean health and freshwater, in particular, revealed an unfamiliarity with the evidence that shows how urgent these issues have become. In a few cases, the candidates received identical scores for different reasons.
What follows is a summary. The candidates' full responses can be found at www.ScientificAmerican.com/nov2012/candidates or at www.sciencedebate.org/debate12. —The Editors
INNOVATION AND THE ECONOMY
Science and technology have been responsible for half the growth of the U.S. economy since World War II, when the federal government first prioritized peacetime science mobilization. Yet several recent reports question the U.S.'s continued leadership in these vital areas. What policies will best ensure that America remains a world leader in innovation?
ROMNEY offers a number of specific proposals. He would raise visa caps for highly skilled foreign workers, promote free-trade agreements with “nations committed to the principles of free enterprise,” require that all “major” regulations receive congressional approval and set a “cap” on regulations. He also promotes lower corporate taxes and a stronger tax credit for R&D spending. Regarding federal research funding, he criticizes the Obama administration for “attempts to play the role of venture capitalist” on “politically prioritized investments” but then says he will prioritize technologies that “serve as the foundation for private-sector innovation and commercialization.” He loses credit for ignoring the role of appropriate regulation in innovation.
OBAMA offers two policy proposals. First, he says he is “committed to doubling funding for key research agencies” (without specifying the agencies). Second, he says he has “set the goal of preparing 100,000 science and math teachers over the next decade.” He loses credit for an incomplete answer.
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21 Comments
Add CommentWhy no question on evolution and why no question on genetic engineering?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe questions were developed by ScienceDebate.org, not SciAm (we just graded the answers)/ But, I agree, I'd like to see an evolution question. Perhaps in 2016?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthanks for the prompt reply
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks SciAm for the analysis.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTell me a simple way to download the Nov. 2012 edition
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot sure why you call out Obama on this. Romney believes in the same. In fact, as a Mormon, he believes in more of what you call 'mythical beings' than most Christians do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisgeojellyroll,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are misinterpreting my use of 'more'. Mormons consider themselves to be Christians. Therefore, if Christians believe in X of your 'mythical beings' and Mormons believe in X + Y 'mythical beings', then, in general, Mormons believe in more 'mythical beings' than Christians do. (Since X and Y are positive numbers, X + Y is more than X.) Your dead-guy-on-a-stick would be counted in X, I assume.
geojellyroll,I believe that the issue about Mormons is that Joseph Smith, and his golden tablets, were never seen by anyone else, and that the entire thing is a fabrication, stretching to the Aztecs, created by Smith, in a time period fairly recent, with witnesses to the process. The fabrication was put out by a fellow only recently released from jail, after having been convicted of "being 'a disorderly person and an impostor,'in Bainbridge, N.Y.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee"God is Not Great," by Christopher Hitchens, starting on page 161. Hitchens refers to another book, of 1945, by Dr. Fawn Brodie, "No Man Knows My History," about Smith.
By the way, October 22nd, is the anniversary of the first date for the end of the world, in 1844, as given by the Millerites, also of upstate N.Y., according to the researches of their leader, Pastor George Miller.
Wanted to read, but sick of the stupid trick, clicking every few paragraphs for the next page and batch of advertisements. So annoying. I stopped on "page" 2. People, can we please revolt until they add a button for view as one page?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@jcblackmon - click "print" above the article title to see as a single page (it is to the right of the article date and "email").
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUmm, where are the five star ratings. I see a lot of subjective mumbo-jumbo, but no ratings.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInterestingly, SA posted a piece on psychopaths with a self-reporting test that led to two measures of psychopathy. Psychopathy is a dimensional trait, not easily defined by discrete measures, but SA could have devised more useful comparisons of the issues.
Or, maybe I'm missing something.
Romney turns out to be a five ring psychopath, by the way. Who knew?
Why did SA only include Romney and Obama in the survey? There 3 other candidates that are eligible for more that 270 electoral votes(the minimum number to win)? If you want to be viewed as non-partisan and fair you should have included the other valid candidates. Science is about the exchange of ideas, when you exclude 3/5 of the people you are censoring a lot of ideas, especially since the 2 candidates in your survey don't differ very much on most things.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKip Karl
It's really sad that SA would publish a good article like this, and several frequent posters would use it as a forum for their venomous religion-bashing. I swear it is like listening to the KKK talking about the things they hate. Please give it a rest.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese questions should be helping us get a feel for where the candidates stand on the specific scientific areas they were asked about. I found the detailed responses of the candidates about the internet and energy independence interesting. I think some of the SA comments clearly showed some bias, when they say contradict a candidate, or for example with respect to food production. They mention that it's unfortunate about not doing anything about the antibiotics in beef, without mentioning why it's used. It's not a problem to those who want to buy cheap beef - only to those concerned about drug resistant bacterial strains, or some moral issues related to cows. They probably don't eat beef anyway.
Falcon13: The FIRST date for the end of the world was probably soon after Jesus died. There's plenty of evidence that he was expected to return quickly--but he was dead, so he didn't. No doubt there've been hundreds of thousands of such dates since. I'm a Unitarian, and nowadays we stress skeptical rationality, but the founder of 16th century Reformation Unitarianism, Rev Dr Ferencz David, gathered his followers and went up a hill in what is now Romania to await the Millennium. As always, a few days later they came down, disappointed. Maybe that cured us. I haven't heard of any Unitarians since then who were Millennialists, or at least who were willing to embarrass themselves by publicly proclaiming a date for the return of Jesus.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course no one until the 19th century was a PRE-Millennialist, also called Dispensationalist and Tea Partier. As we know, those folk follow the far-out beliefs of Rapture Fundamentalism. They call themselves Christian but aren't. That faith has no Biblical source, but was invented by a mid-19th century British seance-conjuror, Darby, and his American colleague, Scofield, a disbarred lawyer and ex-con who revised the King James Bible by discarding the ethical parts to turn it into the Dispensationalist Bible. The details which Scofield put in the "new dispensation" are the ones that are more Zoroastrian than Christian, "sensational" as well as "dispensational"--maybe because of Darby's experience in spiritualism. Don't blame the Parsees, modern Zoroastrians, for the Tea Party! As many Christian theologians have written, the notion of the Rapture and a lot else are based on Manichaeanism, a heresy of Zoroastrianism that's lasted since the Roman Empire to date. It pops up in troubled eras since it makes the Devil ultra-powerful, something we can't find in the Bible, Old or New Testament--not even in Revelation, written by a poor soul driven mad by Emp. Domitian's persecutions and other tribulations. That book is plenty weird, too. It just barely got into the Christian canon and has almost been booted out several times. Read this verse at the end, 22:19, and you will see why it stayed in--a verse that Roman Emperors and bishops and religion-hyping tyrants of all sorts have loved!
One thing that Sci Amer is not taking into account is the fact that Conservative leaders will say almost anything if they believe it will help them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo Romney has made some reasonable suggestions, but he has no intentions of keeping them. Just as one example, Clean Coal, zero chance.
Closing tax loopholes on the rich & big corps, again zero chance.
Proper regulations, zero chance, "Free Market" deregulation, 100% chance. (see BP Gulf oil spill)
Cutting Social Security for future generations, 100% chance.
Privatizing government with little oversight, 100% chance. Improving public education, zero chance.
Union busting, 100% chance, increasing science funding, zero chance.
Subsidizing dirty fuels, 100% chance. Subsidizing green technologies, zero chance.
Lowering wages 100% chance. Improving quality of life, zero chance.
See where I'm going with this?
Conservative leaders are regressive, Democratic leaders are at least somewhat progressive.
:)
@jcblackmon: Brought up the request for a "Read on a single page" button at this morning's editorial meeting. Cannot promise that it will be down quickly but request was positively received. In the meantime, if you click on the "print" button, you will get the whole article on one page.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDISAPPOINTING ATTEMPT AT A FALSE EQUIVALENCE.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI found the article disappointing, with a shallow attempt to show a false “equivalence” between the two parties on science denialism. Not true. Only the Republicans deserve that criticism.
The comparison of Obama with Romeny is illustrative. On the “14 science questions” posed to the candidates, Obama got marked down with “incompletes” for not addressing parts of several questions, but he gave no frankly silly or divergent answers. On the other hand, Romney flat-out flunked several questions completely, including questions related to global climate change, environmental regulation, and energy policy.
Considering “science denialism” among the two political parties, the author struggles to find an example – ANY example – among Democrats, and then seizes on the claim that some unnamed Democrats apparently believe that vaccines cause autism. But this is unsubstantiated nonsense. Please name even one Democrat in a leadership position who has taken such a public stance. Of course, over on the Republican side we have the famous example of Congressman Dan Burton who has championed this silly autism-vaccine connection for years.
Furthermore, over the past ten years, we have seen plenty of Republican leaders who are either anti-science or spectacularly unfit to serve in any leadership capacity regarding science policy. Witness the pathetic performances of Representative Joe Barton on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Senator Imhofe on global climate change, Representative Akin on reproductive biology, or any number of Southern Republicans on environmental risk assessment, not to mention the sorry spectacle of a half-dozen presidential candidates raising their hands during a 2012 primary debate to proclaim their disbelief in evolution.
President George W. Bush was widely, and rightly, regarded as one of the most anti-science presidents in recent memory. There is no comparable example among recent Democratic presidents. Nor is there a comparable example of such reprehensible ignorance and bigotry among Democratic Congressional leaders. None.
This is absolutely not a “both-sides-do-it” situation. Science denialism is a feature of the current crop of far right-wing national Republican leaders. It was shameful that your author tried to tar both parties with this same embarrassing anti-science brush.
Thank you for this article
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI thought I was the only one who felt this way
The autism-vaccine thing is now a Republican idea too. At least for the HPV vaccine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@futuremd
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't know why you think this autism fallacy thing is Republican. The Republican governor of Texas, Rick Perry, required this vaccine for school, and the Democrats put up such a squawk that he had to back down. There are wack-jobs on both sides of this issue. Mostly it's the media's fault for spreading these myths causing the ignorant to get scared. Educate them not to run stupid stories. We know who does the fear-mongering. It's good for ratings.
In the article “Future Jobs Depend on a Science Based Economy,” the magazine states that “the bankruptcy of solar panel maker Solyndra in 2011, which critics have used to argue against government support of energy research, instead shows why such investment is important.” Solyndra’s failure was a business failure not a research failure. The public’s money should not be used for political purposes and while our money can support valuable research, making business investments should be based on business principals not political ones. There are successful solar panel makers who are not going bankrupt. the ones on my house were not made by Solyndra. Scientific American hurts it brand when it is serves a political agenda and does so inaccurately. Makes you wonder about other articles when the politics isn’t so obvious.
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