Presidential Candidate
mstebbins | October 28, 2008This is unbelievable. The Nobel Laureates for Obama effort just sent me an updated letter with an additional 11 names bringing the total to 76 Nobel laureates in science endorsing Obama. That completely eclipses the previous record of 47 endorsing Kerry and it is more than have ever endorsed anything in history.
Now, this is no group of sycophants, these are some of the greatest minds of our nation, so it is really impossible to view this as some sort of partisan blindness. I can't help but think that the recent ridiculous comments of both McCain and Palin on science have something to to do…
mstebbins | October 21, 2008SEA is holding a Presidential forum with representatives from the Obama and McCain campaigns duking it out on energy issues. Kurt Yeager, cochair of the McCain California Energy Security Coalition will square off with Dan Kammen, Senior Advisor on Energy & Environmental Policy for Barack Obama. If you are in the Stanford area, you can see it live at 6:30PT, Kresge Auditorium at Stanford University. If not, you can still see it live via webcast HERE.
mstebbins | October 14, 2008In yesterday's YouTube video posted by Marty Chalfie, he referred to the fact that all three science Laureates for 2008 had endorsed Obama. Now it is official. From the Obama campaign; "With one voice, 65 of the nation's greatest minds, the largest number of Nobel Laureates to ever endorse a political candidate for office, have encouraged the American public to vote Obama on November 4th."
Martin Chalfie, and Roger Tsien won the prize in Chemistry with for their pioneering work on the use of green fluorescent protein. Yoichiro Nambu won the prize in Physics for his mathematical model, which…
mstebbins | October 10, 2008Francis Collins, the former Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute and lead on the Human Genome Project has just published an opinion piece in the Virginian Pilot endorsing Barack Obama. Unfortunately the Pilot does not post their guest opinion pieces online, but a good friend in Virginia scanned a copy in for me. It is not a great quality scan, but it is good enough to read.
What is striking to me about it is not just that a rather apolitical scientist of his stature came out to endorse Obama, but that he did it in a Virginia paper with far less profile than he could have…
mstebbins | October 8, 2008One of the first things Martin Chalfie wanted to do after learning that he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry is endorse Barack Obama for President of the United States. That brings the total number of Nobel Prize winners in science endorsing Obama to 63. Originally 61 winners came out and endorsed Obama, but soon after the release of the letter, Murray Gell-Mann, who won the Prize in Physics in 1969 came forward to add his name.
Chalfie won the prize for his early work on using green fluorescent protein to mark cells. This is by far the largest number of Nobelists to ever endorse a candidate…
nisbetmc | October 8, 2008Democrats are far from innocent when it comes to twisting the reality of science policy for political gain. For example, back in 2004, when the Kerry/Edwards campaign tried to use stem cell research as a wedge issue against Republicans, Edwards infamously went well beyond the uncertainty of stem cell research and the realistic timeline for therapies when he said on the campaign trail: ""If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve will get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."
And now in 2008,…
mstebbins | October 6, 2008At the 18 September head-to-head between health advisors from the McCain and Obama campaign that Scientists and Engineers for America hosted at George Washington University, a question on in vitro fertilization completely stumped McCain health advisor Jay Khosla. The Obama campaign surrogate, Dora Hughes, MPH, MD answered it without hesitation.
Frankly, the inability to answer this simple question on a widely used assisted reproductive technology or clarify whether McCain will once and for all lift Bush's ban on use of federal funds for human embryonic stem cell research is deeply disturbing…
mstebbins | October 1, 2008OMG! The LA Times has an article from over the weekend that details a 1997 interaction between a Wasilla resident, Philip Munger, and then Mayor Sarah Palin. Now this is one man's story from a decade ago, but if it is true, then she is officially a worse candidate for VP than Dan Quayle ever was. There has been a lot of talk about Governor Palin's faith, but believing in God is a far cry from believing that man walked the earth with dinosaurs. Obviously Mr. Munger has a bone to pick with the Governor, but the story, if true, disturbs me to the core nonetheless. From the article:
Palin told…
mstebbins | September 30, 2008CBS is ever so slowly releasing bits and pieces of Katie Couric's interviews with John McCain and Sarah Palin. Last night they released the transcript and some of the video of the third part of the interview where Governor Palin addresses several key science and health issues including her opinion of the use of Plan B, on teaching creationism in schools and on the contribution of man to climate change. Unfortunately, her answers were often strange, but there were some moments of relief as well. Below are two excerpts from the interview with highlights added to the good bits. Of particular…
sheril | September 28, 2008On September 25th, Nature magazine published 'Choosing A Future,' telling us more about where each presidential candidate stands on science related topics. And despite the humorous and uncanny similarities of the front and back covers, this is a very serious issue because it outlines some differences in the candidates' strategies. Not surprisingly, of particular interest to me are their positions on oil drilling which I've posted over at NexGen.
The gist:Obama: Don't expand domestic drilling and reduce dependence on oil altogether.McCain: Drill Baby Drill! and expand offshore-drilling.
The…
mstebbins | September 26, 2008This is big news for science. Yesterday, the Obama campaign released their most detailed plan to date for how he will manage US government science and science policy. The 11 page plan (pdf) is a significant improvement on the previous "fact sheet" that they had up, which was severely lacking in detail. Somehow this story got buried by the letter from 61 Nobel Laureates endorsing Obama. (The timing of the two was clearly planned, but I am obviously not the only one who missed it.)
There is a lot of information in the plan, but right off the bat I noticed that he has now committed to…
apalazzo | September 25, 2008Umm ...
Seriously, the latest issue of Nature has a special section on the US presidential election, including another Q&A with the candidates:
Barack Obama accepted Nature's invitation to answer 18 science-related questions in writing; John McCain's campaign declined. Obama's answers to many of the questions are printed here; answers to additional questions (on topics including biosecurity, the nuclear weapons laboratories and US participation in international projects) can be found atwww.nature.com/uselection. Wherever possible, Nature has noted what McCain has said at other times on…
mstebbins | September 25, 2008A group of 61 Nobel Laureates have gotten together to endorse Barack Obama for President. Their letter and the signatories are below. This is the largest number of Nobel Laureates to ever endorse a candidate for office, more than endorsed either Gore or Kerry. (Kerry had 48 total.) That is a remarkable statement. Here is the link to the original letter of endorsement.
An Open Letter to the American People
This year's presidential election is among the most significant in our nation's history. The country urgently needs a visionary leader who can ensure the future of our traditional…
nisbetmc | September 25, 2008Bush-Gore Debates 2000: The focus was on performance rather than substance.
For those that have seen the Nisbet/Mooney Speaking Science 2.0 talks over the past year, you might have witnessed during the Q&A some disagreement over the merits of actually having the presidential candidates participate in a "Science Debate."
As I have said at these talks, I think the goal of raising the profile of science and environmental policy in the presidential election is a good one, it's just that I have doubts about whether or not pushing for an actual debate between the candidates is the right…
sheril | September 23, 2008From the New York Times to the LA Times, Obama's and McCain's answers to the 14 top science questions are getting great coverage, but the biggest question remains: Who's better for U.S. science?
Now's your chance to weigh in on their answers and tell the world what you think... Log on to www.sciencedebate2008.com/vote to give our presidential candidates an A - F grade and comment on how they responded.
- The Team at ScienceDebate2008
mstebbins | September 18, 2008
There will be a McCain vs. Obama campaign debate on healthcare today at 5pmEST that can be viewed live at Scientists and Engineers for America. It will feature campaign surrogates who are expert on healthcare issues, and is sure to answer many of the pressing questions. I will blog on it afterward.
George Washington University on Thursday, September 18 at 5pm.
Jay Khosla, Health Policy Advisor for John McCain
Vs.
Dora Hughes, MD, MPH, Health Policy Advisor for Barack Obama
Moderated by Julie Rovner, Health Policy Correspondent, National Public Radio
gregladen | September 18, 2008The other day I was reading this really fantastic blog and came across the following campaign video. This is for Ashwin Madia, running for Congress in Minnesota's Third Congressional District. Have a look:
Is there something interesting about this particular ad?
Listen. My understanding is that if Barack Obama is elected as POTUS, he will be the first president in the United States of America who already, on his own, uses email.
Let that sink in for a moment.
I am probably typical of a scientist/academic, in that I was using email in the conventional sense in the 1980s (bitnet and…
mstebbins | September 17, 2008The McCain and Obama Campaigns will be squaring off on healthcare this Thursday live on the web. The event is completely booked, but Scientists and Engineers for America will have it live HERE. This is going to be a very telling debate on where the campaigns stand on healthcare. Don't miss it. Here are the event details...
September 18, 2008
George Washington University 5-6:30pm
Dora Hughes MD, MPH: Health Policy Advisor for Barack Obama
Vs.
Jay Khosla: Health Policy Advisor for John McCain
Moderated by Julie Rovner: health correspondent for NPR
mstebbins | September 17, 2008Most people would agree that your health records are very personal. If you were applying for a job you might be offended and consider it an invasion of your privacy if your potential employer asked to see them. Yet, it has become commonplace for us to have Presidential candidates release their health records. They are, in essence held to a different standard for better or worse. That's why it was so unusual for the McCain campaign to only release his health records for a 3 hour period of time and only to a select group of journalists. What was surprising to me was that there were over 1173…