ScienceDebate2008 — It’s about time.
By: BJ Lawson
Our founders knew the greatest enemies of our Constitutional republic are ignorance and apathy. As more Americans are questioning the trajectory of our nation heading into the next election cycle, it’s never been more critical to move beyond 30-second sound bites and into frank discussions of our challenges and opportunities.
Nowhere is this need more apparent than within the discipline of science. A movement is afoot to organize a presidential debate centered around science and technology, and as a medical doctor, engineer, and software entrepreneur, I couldn’t agree more with the importance of this debate.
The importance of a presidential Science Debate is not to play Trivial Pursuit or slog through dogmatic quagmires of creationism versus evolution, but rather to gain some insight into how our leaders view problem solving in general, and how they view the intersection among science, research, ethics, public policy, and public financing.
As an engineer and physician, I spent years studying and optimizing systems. From electric circuits to human physiology and even monetary policy, our world is filled with examples of open systems, closed systems, feedback loops, dependent and independent variables, and other scientific principles with extremely broad applications.
What would happen if we had leaders in government capable thinking in terms of cause and effect, as opposed to legislative and judicial precedent? What if our leaders were willing to address the cognitive dissonance when reported “data” don’t agree with their observations of reality? Is honest scientific inquiry in politics even possible, when science itself can become so highly politicized?
A Science Debate could address these questions, and potentially reveal which candidates are mere talking heads for well-researched soundbites, and which ones are capable of analytical thought and deductive reasoning.
Visit Sciencedebate2008.com and join the Facebook group Call for a Science Debate to show your support.