What are the most important things the next U.S. president needs to do for science? Earlier this year, an impressive group of scientists and media types got behind the idea that the presidential candidates should have a debate on this very topic. Several months later, it’s clear that their goal won’t be met.

So where do we go from here? The prospects for elevating the public political discussion on science aren’t great, given the circumstances: Campaign strategists—and likely the nominees themselves—see science as a policy area with a world of downside and not much upside.

But when either Barack Obama or John McCain is sworn in as the next commander-in-chief, he will inherit a cauldron of serious problems, from energy to the environment to health care, that will take significant science research and knowledge to solve. As such, we figured it was a good idea to scratch the debates and get right to the recommendations.

With that goal in mind, we bring you the DISCOVER Science Policy Project, in which we give a group of the country’s most celebrated scientists and thinkers the chance to answer the following question:

What are the three most important things the next president can do to positively impact scientific research in the United States?

In the November issue of DISCOVER, we compile and analyze the results. In the meantime, we will be posting each response in its entirety here on Reality Base, as well as additional answers from authors, conservationists, geneticists, and more. Feel free to offer your own ideas and analysis in the comments section.

The time for debate is over. Let’s start providing some answers. All past responses can be found here.

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• Reading a teleprompter with gusto doesn’t mean you know jack about science (or anything else, for that matter).

• Counterpoint: Biden on the environment.

• What’s really going on in the North Pole?

• And while we’re on the topic, just how much of a sea level rise can we expect in the near future?

• The neuroscience of Zen Buddhist meditation, a.k.a. “How to get through an entire McCain speech without committing seppuku.”

• Finally, this has been all over the Internet—and now, including here:

As any lawyer knows, the difference between “and” and “or” can mean winning a seven-figure award versus having your a case tossed out of court. Or, in this case, millions of dollars for stem cell research versus none at all.

It all started last week, when the Republican Platform Committee approved an amendment to the party platform regarding embryonic stem cell research. The change boiled down to that one crucial word—from “and” to “or”—in the platform’s call for the ban of (emphasis added): “the creation of or experimentation on human embryos for research purposes.”

Which means, essentially, is that if the party has its way, virtually all human embryo research, from freezing embryos at fertilization clinics to the privately-financed creation of new stem-cell lines, will be shut down.

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We’ve seen plenty of official statements and soundbite-ready quotes on science policy from both sides of the presidential race. But there’s still plenty of room to nail down exactly where each of the candidates stand on the most important issues. Enter ScienceDebate2008 and Scientists & Engineers for America, who, along with a group of other science and engineering organizations, put together 14 questions for each candidate. The questions hit all the major bases, including climate change, energy, education, national security, biotech, conservation, and health care. (For a full list, go here.)

The first set of responses, from Obama’s camp, are now online. While a lot of it is straight from the political rhetoric handbook (or from policies his campaign has already laid out publicly), it’s a concise and helpful overview of his stances on science. Here are a few highlights: (more…)

So, yeah, Sarah Palin was named as McCain’s VP choice last Friday, in the slim chance that you hadn’t heard. The pro-hunting, anti-choice, pro-drilling, experience-lacking Alaskan governor already has the media—and much of the country—talking in circles about whether her nomination is a boon for women, conservative voters, the GOP, etc.—or a disaster. But while her “talk tough” ways may sound progressive, and her willingness to penetrate the “good ‘ol boys network” may signal a positive direction for the GOP, her views on teaching creationism are anything but encouraging.

The daughter of a public school science teacher (sweet irony), Palin had this to say during the Alaskan governor’s race when asked about teaching creationism in public schools (via Tapped):

“Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information.

Healthy debate is so important and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both. Growing up with being so privileged and blessed to be given a lot of information on, on both sides of the subject—creationism and evolution.

It’s been a healthy foundation for me. But don’t be afraid of information and let kids debate both sides.”

When later asked to clarify her position, she backtracked into “I’m just promoting the free exchange of ideas” territory:

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The crowd was bursting at the seams in Invesco Field last night—MSM reports have put attendance anywhere from 75,000 to more than 84,000—but for those not packed into the confines of Mile High Stadium, Obama’s historic acceptance speech was alive and well on the Internet. The Democratic nominee’s address—made on the 45th anniversary of civil rights leader Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech—was streamed live on MSM sites, posted to YouTube with astonishing speed, and blogged at length. But one real winner for the night, in addition to the Democratic candidate, was Twitter.

The micro-blogging site, which has been gradually but surely infiltrating the political realm, had a huge night, with Wired‘s Sarah Lai Stirland reporting that “[m]ore than 6,500 tweets poured through the service in just 20 minutes…most of them brief, two-line assessments of Obama’s performance.” While Obama may not have the most comfortable lead in the polls, he does lead the world’s most followed Twitterer list by a wide margin, with 67,969 followers, though he wasn’t the only Democrat to inspire tidal waves of Tweets—Bill Clinton’s speech the night before also drove viewers to their computers and cell phones.

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Last week we discussed the “heavy greening” efforts touted by planners behind both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. So how are the ultra-environmentally-friendly efforts in Denver faring so far? Here’s a report from Playboy.com blogger Carol Keeley on the bag of freebies presented to all credentialed journalists:

The media swag bag was surreal. Examples: a flat white plastic UPS truck that contains mints; an AT&T DNC ringtone gift card; a shitload of advertising for all things green, using shameless quantities of paper and plastic; a card with an embedded radio; Joint Juice; a metal pin of a bicycle advertising a phone company; a metal pin of a windmill; a plantable card; a card announcing that Coca-Cola is the Official Recycling Provider at the Pepsi Center; a plastic water bottle; and Dale Carnegie’s Golden Book, which includes his bio plus tips from How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Et tu, DNC committee?

The 2008 conventions are fast approaching, and the host cities—Denver for Democrats followed by Minneapolis/St. Paul for the RNC—are bracing themselves for the mass influx of reporters, supporters, and political insiders. Which leads to the inevitable question: What is each party doing to keep the events environmentally conscious?

For its part, the RNC has sprung into action to keep its energy use and waste to a minimum. The St. Paul Pioneer Press via Politico reports that their efforts will include the following:

[H]ybrid electric trucks delivering soft drinks to the Xcel Energy Center. Almost 300 containers for used cans, bottles, paper and all other things recyclable. A thousand bicycles available for convention-goers to get around the Twin Cities. Recycled desk chairs, cubicles and carpeting. Even 45,000 biodegradable discount cards for visitors.

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It’s no secret that, when it comes to Internet savvy, the two presidential candidates are about as different as BASIC and LINUX. And nowhere does their Web contrast play out more than in their respective campaigning. The Economist reports that in June, Obama raised $52 million in total, $31 million of which came from donations of $200 or less that were mostly generated by his Web site. He also has 1.3 million Facebook supporters to McCain’s 200,000, and also keeps regularly updated profiles on MySpace, LinkedIn, and other social networks.

And then there’s video. While YouTube has been embraced by just about everyone as a great way to spread viral campaign messages, Obama has his own video team on the payroll. So far, the group has shot more than 2,000 hours of footage and uploaded around 1,110 videos on his YouTube channel–more than four times the content on McCain’s channel. And all that work has paid off: The Illinois Senator’s videos have been viewed 52 million times to McCain’s 9.5 million.

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We’re only too happy when the political debate turns to science, even if it means scrapping over who said what.

The latest altercation began earlier this week when Obama announced that he was revising his position on the U.S. space program to include a “comprehensive space plan that includes $2 billion in new funding to reinvigorate NASA” as well as a “promise to make space exploration and science a significantly higher priority,” according to the Washington Post. Details of the plan include finishing the International Space Station, supporting aeronautics research, and flying an additional shuttle mission to carry a $1.5 billion particle detector to the ISS.

The plan marks a shift from Obama’s position earlier in the campaign, when he proposed delaying NASA’s Constellation program in order to fund an $18 billion education plan—a proposal that was soon dropped. Still, McCain wasted no time in blasting his opponent for changing his position (“flip-flopping” accusations never seem to get old in politics) and proclaiming that by contrast, McCain himself would “ensure that space exploration remains a top priority and that the U.S. continues to lead the world in this field.”

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Over at Better Planet, Ben Nugent discusses a recent poll showing that voters view the economy and high fuel prices as the biggest concerns this election season. In another AP-Yahoo News poll that’s been running since last November, 87 percent of the respondents now say gas prices are a “very important” issue to them personally, while “roughly the same amount as before the primaries — 62 percent—say the environment is at least a very important issue.”

All of which is good news, from an environmentalist perspective—high gas prices have thrust conservation and alternative energy into the everyday lives of most Americans, and have thus made it to the top of the candidates’ priority list. The less good news is the political lean that these priority lists are taking. While a few months ago, according to the AP, more voters were swinging towards energy conservation efforts, now the pendulum has swung back, with voters evenly divided between support for “drilling and other exploration” versus conservation.

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Research has shown that TV news disproportionately portrays African American as the perpetrators of crimes, typically against white victims. But while watching the news is often held to be a positive means of staying informed, it may be outweighing its benefits by promoting racial stereotypes.

Two new studies by University of Illinois communications professor Travis Dixon found that the more people watched either local or network news, the more likely they were to believe negative stereotypes about African Americans.

In both studies, Dixon used data taken from the results of a telephone survey of 506 adults in Los Angeles County conducted from November 2002 through January 2003. After controlling for other factors that could influence beliefs such as gender, age, race, education level, political ideology, income, and newspaper exposure, he found that even among people who consider themselves largely prejudice-free, those who watched more local or network news were prone to seeing blacks as more intimidating, violent, or poor than those who skipped the news.

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Anyone who’s turned on a TV or read a newspaper lately can’t help but notice that race is currently at the forefront of American politics. But the subtle biases operating in the current debate aren’t always obvious, or even visible on the surface. In one example of how embedded racial biases can play out, researchers at Duke, the University of Toronto, and Northwestern business schools found that Americans still overwhelmingly expect business leaders to be white, and rank white leaders as more effective than their minority counterparts.

The study’s data came from 943 undergraduate and graduate students, nearly all of whom had experience working for a company or corporation. They were given fictitious news reports and performance reviews from a fake company and then asked to guess the race of a set of CEOs, project leaders, and other employees described in the materials.

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Over at Mother Jones, Jonathan Stein has an interesting piece on the contrasting technological savvy of the presidential candidates. He outlines the sharp comparison between the 72-year-old McCain, a clear product of the pre-Internet era, and Obama, an Internet sensation who has revolutionized grassroots politics online. Stein’s point is powerful in its starkness: While Obama is shattering online donation records and recruiting Facebook co-founders to run his thriving new-media campaign, McCain professes to need help using a computer.

The focus on technology highlights not so much the need for a president who can write code and embed links like a pro, but rather one who is educated on the technology’s capabilities and its ability to serve crucial functions in fields from education to health care to climate change. Big tech decisions are looming on the near horizon, and we need a White House that can easily weigh the issues at hand.

As Stein points out, Obama has already embraced a more high-tech administration, pledging to appoint the first-ever chief technology officer, provide universal broadband, create electronic databases for medical records, and support net neutrality, among others.

But perhaps most revolutionary is his pledge to foster greater government transparency through the Internet, beefing up federal Web sites and offering live feeds from agency meetings, complete with reader participation.

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Today, Scientists and Engineers for America released the results of a poll intended to gauge whether (and how much) voters care about science, as part of a campaign by SEA and a coalition of scientific societies to highlight the issue in the 2008 election.

Of the sample of 1,005 adults, the vast majority agreed that science-based policy decisions on problems like health care and global warming were important, that candidates needed to focus on better science education, and that the respondents would be be more likely to vote for a candidate who is committed to meeting energy demands and addressing climate change through investments in science and technology.

Heartening results all, though the questions asked leave something to be desired as far as tackling the gap between support for scientific advances and the willingness to pay for them to happen.

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