Space Makes It Onto The Election Science Questions List
The Top American Science Questions in 2012, Sciencedebate.org
“ScienceDebate.org invited thousands of scientists, engineers and concerned citizens to submit what they felt were the the most important science questions facing the nation that the candidates for president should be debating on the campaign trail …
12. Space. The United States is currently in a major discussion over our national goals in space. What should America’s space exploration and utilization goals be in the 21st century and what steps should the government take to help achieve them?”
Question 12 in a list of 14, with ‘climate change’ coming in at #2. You can tell the questions were formulated by ‘Institutional Science’, represented by the AAAS, the AGU and the rest of the establishment alphabet soup.
Surprising they didn’t they put the question “Do you think tenured faddish professors in academe should be paid more?” as Q1.
The list is about as representative of public curiousity about science and the future as the candidates. Bah! Pfui!
I have no problem with the order of the questions, if that was in fact priority order. In fact, compared to the other questions, space exploration has minor relevance to quality of life for Americans. (Well, unless climate change threatens our species, at which point escape from Earth probably gets a lot more important!)
I am pleased that science and technology education was highlighted here as an issue, as one might gather that we have very big problems with our understanding of science, to say nothing of respect for people who do it.
I think the list is an excellent list because its questions regard the role of science in important areas of public concern and policymaking. What more could be asked?
deleted, wrong post.
Keith: On Aug. 8 I asked OSTP (a Ms. Evans) if President Obama or OSTP have answered the Science Debate questions. She sent me this reply…
“President Obama has answered this questionnaire, and I am sure the organizations that facilitate it will be circulating the responses soon.”
Assuming that the order of the questions implies no sort of priority, i’m actually surprised that the list is as well chosen as it is. If the responses are legitimate answers and are made available to the public before election time, they could tell us a lot about both candidates that currently we’re only guessing about, based largely on little or no evidence. It would be a big improvement over the current situation.
Steve