Science in Politics

With the upcoming election drawing nearer every day, those in the scientific community, like those in most other communities, are asking the question, "How would the candidate benefit me?" Rarely do people any more really care about how the president might help anyone else. If you are in the middle-case and having trouble getting by, you're probably pointing your finger at the upper class, and staunchly demanding that they're a bunch of money suckers causing the middle-class decline. You, as the middle-classer, want things to be better for you and your family, and frankly you don't care about the upper class. If you are in the upper class and have probably lost a huge chunk of cash in the market, you're probably pointing your finger at the barons on Wall St who were able to get out of this mess only richer, you want them behind bars, and you want your money back goddangit. If you are on Wall St, you probably don't care about anyone but yourself. If you are in the lower to no-er class, you want the candidate who is going to put a roof over your head, though with recent credit issues in the market, you'll probably have to get a job and start saving some money first. So, what if you are a scientist?

A forum related to exactly this issue has been up and running: Science Debate 2008. In this site, each candidate has addressed a series of questions, mostly related to the importance of funding science. So who reigns all powerful realm of science? Quite frankly, neither. Each gives a very cookie cutter answer along the likes of "Nurturing technology and innovation is essential for solving the critical problems facing our country: developing alternative fuels, addressing climate change, encouraging commercialization of new technologies, deploying technology to manage cost and enable new jobs, stopping the spiraling expense of health care, and better educating our children and our workforce." Well, yeah! This shouldn't even be a political debate. The problem with the "Science Debate 2008" is that candidate get to put nice looking answers down on paper, without regards to remotely considering following through with them. And moreover, with recent economic-related hurlings, issues in hard core science take a far-back seat.

Scientists spend most of their lives trying to convince people their work is actually making a big difference in the grand scheme of things. And when you look at the big picture, each little piece of the puzzle is necessary. The real issue? The horrible f-word: Funding. Without money, scientists drown in ideas and their inability to make things happen, and things just really never happen. Evidential piece #1 that gross amounts of funding can really get something accomplished: In the 1960s, NASA's annual budget was $6 billion, equivalent to ~$38 billion in todays dollars. That is the kind of money it took to put a man on the moon, but hey, with some really friggin smart guys, and a lot of dough, we did it. If you were to put $38 billion into one branch of research, say, cancer, I guarantee you'll start seeing some amazing results in 10 years (not that there are not currently amazing results). It would be soon be found in the archives just upstream from polio. Seriously. Good experiments and good science require two things: good people and good amounts of money (the former, itself, requires good money, too). We can't just run net-and-lepidopteran experiments and hope to erradicate disease. Not gonna happen.

So who is the best candidate for science? One big Minus that McCain carries (science-wise) is his pledge to freeze domestic discretionary spending for a year. Due to lack of annual agreement-type funding, this extra cash approach, like many other fields, is where science research gets a good chunk of change. It would be safe to assume that the bare minimum amounts of money allocated for science related research would be the most that science would see, government-wise. You would be correct in saying that this type of freeze would help the economy, but scientists aren't economists, so rarely do they try to forcefully proclaim what is good for the economy, just like economists aren't in the lab running DNA-screens. Scientists, like everyone else, care about themselves, too. They want funding, and they want it at the expense of everyone's tax paying dollars, myself included. Believe me, money helps. Check out the Science Debate 2008 website, its as close as you'll get to answer from both sides.