Science and Politics

Physicist Bill Foster has been running against dairy magnate and perpetual candidate Jim Oberweis in a special election in Illinois to replace retiring Republican representative Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the House. The election was today, and with 96% of precincts reporting, it’s been called for Foster, 52% to 48%. This is great news for scientists and for Democrats, and awesome news for those of us who are both. Oberweis’s signature issue is anti-immigrant xenophobia, and a Democratic victory in this reliably Republican district bodes very well for the national picture this fall.

We’ve mentioned Bill’s campaign here before, and think he will be a great Representative. He is not just any old particle physicist, but quite an accomplished one, having been a co-inventor of Fermilab’s antiproton Recycler Ring. Once you’ve mastered antiprotons, the Washington political process should be child’s play. Congratulations!

The bad news is: because this was a special election to replace Hastert, they will have to do the whole thing over again in November. Here’s hoping that Foster can repeat his great showing.

Never let it be said that we ignore the Republicans! Seeking to further highlight distinctions between the parties, presumptive nominee John McCain has been on something of an anti-science tear lately. First, he dined and spoke with the Discovery Institute in Seattle — not a huge red flag by itself (there were many co-presenters, and one can’t always choose one’s lunch companions), but telling in light of his many flip-flops on teaching intelligent design in schools. (Like any good postmodern conservative, he has staked out firm positions on both sides of a wide variety of issues.)

But the latest news is much worse, as McCain panders to crackpots who believe that vaccination causes autism.

At a town hall meeting Friday in Texas, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., declared that “there’s strong evidence” that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that was once in many childhood vaccines, is responsible for the increased diagnoses of autism in the U.S. — a position in stark contrast with the view of the medical establishment.

The main problem with such a claim is not that just it’s untrue — it’s complete rubbish, of course, but politicians say untrue things all the time. The problem is that, unlike unfortunate choices about NASA spending priorities, in this case the stupidity can cause people to die. Hilzoy quotes the CDC on measles, which these vaccinations protect against:

Measles itself is unpleasant, but the complications are dangerous. Six to 20 percent of the people who get the disease will get an ear infection, diarrhea, or even pneumonia. One out of 1000 people with measles will develop inflammation of the brain, and about one out of 1000 will die.

Of course, McCain himself will be perfectly safe. He is arguably the most superstitious Presidential candidate of recent times, relying on a defense-in-depth strategy when it comes to lucky charms.

“I’m wearing my lucky shoes from today till Sunday,” McCain says from his bus on Wednesday. At the moment, his pockets contain the compass, feather (from a tribal leader) and penny (flattened, in his wallet). When McCain once misplaced his feather, there was momentary panic in the campaign, until his wife found it in one of his suits. When the compass went missing once, McCain assigned his political director to hunt it down. Weaver found it, and it remains safe, knock wood.

Primary day requires additional rituals. By the time you read this, Steve Dart, McCain’s lucky friend, should have arrived in South Carolina from California. He has been present with McCain for every Election Day since McCain first won a seat in Congress. McCain must sleep on a certain side of the bed, particularly before an election (and he never puts a hat on a bed–bad luck). Rain is good for Election Day, as are motion pictures. McCain requires himself to view a movie before the vote is counted. He fell asleep in his hotel room in New Hampshire before he watched a movie on primary day, but his staff didn’t panic. “We have superstition fire walls,” says Todd Harris, a spokesman.

I presume that one of his first initiatives as President will be to provide lucky compasses, feathers, and pennies to young children throughout this great land, which will keep them safe from those nasty viruses. Ready to lead on day one.

NASA Watch quotes from a TV interview with Barack Obama:

“I’ve got a strong belief in NASA and the process of space exploration. I do think that our program has been stuck for a while – that the space shuttle mission did not inspire the imagination of the public – that much of the experimentation that was done could have been conducted not necessarily with manned flights. I think that broadening our horizons – and looking at a combination of both unmanned satellites of the sort that we saw with the Jupiter launch – but also looking at where we can start planning for potential manned flights. I think that is something that I’m excited about and could be part of a broader strategy for science and technology investment … The only thing I want to say is that I want to do a thorough review because some of these programs may not be moving in the right direction and I want to make sure that NASA spending is a little more coherent than it has been over the last several years.”

It would be good to have a President who understood the difference in science payoff between manned and unmanned spaceflight. The former is exciting and inspirational, the latter gets enormously greater results per dollar. The Bush administration, with their magical ability to screw up everything they touch, has been killing off science at NASA in favor of a misguided Moon/Mars initiative (despite public apathy). But the situation is not hopeless. The way we fund science in this country is completely irrational, starting up a ten-year project one year and canceling it (leaving international partners high and dry) the next. The good news is that we can use such capriciousness to our advantage, pulling the plug from expensive boondoggles that were initiated for political reasons rather than scientific ones. I would rather have a thoughtful system of setting research priorities and a track record of commitment to long-term projects, but you go to war with the army you have.

Arts & Letters Daily is a useful website, sort of a proto-blog, that brings together links to all sorts of interesting articles about, you know, arts and letters. If you follow it just a little bit, a decided political bent becomes clear, as you read headlines like “Do professors indoctrinate students by expressing a political ideology in the classroom?” and “Ask any soul-baring 40-year-old single woman what she most longs for, and she likely won’t tell you it’s a better career or a smaller waist: she wants a man and a baby…” The site’s impresario, Denis Dutton, is a right-tilting philosopher and entrepreneur, who occasionally enjoys ranting against the postmodern obscurantism of the left-tilting academy.

But Prof. Dutton has apparently discovered that a touch of relativist anything-goes-ism can be useful in certain circumstances: in particular, when science is telling you something you don’t want to hear. These days, science is telling us that we are bollixing up the planet by dumping tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The very idea that the unchecked engines of capitalism could somehow lead to something bad, rather than all-pervading and unalloyed good, offends Prof. Dutton’s free-market sensibilities. So he has launched Climate Debate Daily, where both “Calls to Action” and “Dissenting Voices” are given equal time in a different free market, this one of ideas.

Some scientists might object that giving equal credence to all possibilities is not always appropriate in a scientific context; that one position may be “right,” and one might be “wrong,” and a preponderance of evidence may convince us which is which and allow us to act accordingly. But this sort of old-fashioned objective-reality based thinking has been left behind by such advanced intellects as Prof. Dutton, who delight in overturning hierarchies, casting suspicion on metanarratives, and problematizing binary oppositions all over the place.

At least, sometimes.

A couple of simple ways you can make the world a better place without leaving the comfort of your keyboard.

First, the American Physical Society has set up a convenient web page from which you can write to your representatives in Congress to voice your displeasure concerning the unexpected budget cuts that have decimated U.S. physics, particle physics and fusion research especially. As APS President Arthur Bienenstock writes:

Congress wrapped up the Fiscal Year 2008 (FY08) budget just before adjourning for the year. The budget, which wipes out $1 billion in increases approved last summer for the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy’s Office of Science (DOE Science) and the NIST laboratories, does irreparable damage to science and abandons the Innovation/Competitiveness initiatives of Congress and the Administration.

While DOE Science programs received a 2.5 percent increase overall (exclusive of earmarks), they will decline by about one percent after inflation. High-energy physics and fusion will feel the greatest pain. High energy physics will likely have to eliminate hundreds of jobs, halt work on both the NOvA, the next step in neutrino physics at FermiLab and partially furlough many remaining employees. The Omnibus bill for FY08 also stopped R&D on the International Linear Collider project, an international high-precision step beyond the Large Hadron Collider, and zeroed out the U.S. contribution to the international ITER project, designed to demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion energy. These actions are severely damaging to the U.S. standing in the international scientific community.

Second, Steinn has come up with the clever idea of making our own Presidential Science Debate (just in case the official one doesn’t come to pass, or at least while we’re waiting). There are a pair of upcoming primary debates January 30/31, one for each party, and the Politico is soliciting questions to be asked of the candidates. So let’s flood their inbox with sensible questions! Nothing about boxers v. briefs or whether they believe in the literal reality of transubstatiation — let’s ask about their commitment to basic research, their views on manned vs. robotic exploration of space, the promise of alternative energy sources, what have you.

Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum of The Intersection have joined forces with Matthew Chapman have put together a call to have a 2008 Presidential debate devoted to science.

Here is their statement:

Given the many urgent scientific and technological challenges facing America and the rest of the world, the increasing need for accurate scientific information in political decision making, and the vital role scientific innovation plays in spurring economic growth and competitiveness, we call for a public debate in which the U.S. presidential candidates share their views on the issues of The Environment, Health and Medicine, and Science and Technology Policy.

Just click here to get involved. The only downside I can see is that the Republican candidate will express skepticism about evolution, global warming, and heliocentrism, and the world’s image of the U.S. will plummet even further.