Wednesday, February 13, 2008

IT MATTERS WHAT CANDIDATES THINK

While I do care about candidate pandering and worse, stupidity, in denying that they don't "believe in evolution," there's even a bigger issue at stake. Quick sidenote, however; I'm aghast that we have thousands of scientists with possibly billions of data points that ALL AGREE that evolution is not only possible but perhaps the only rational explanation of how life has reached its current stage of development -- but they don't "believe" it?? WTF!? I take it that they are instead choosing to believe something that they heard from their parents when they were a child that some special book interpreted metaphorically suggests that maybe life evolved some other way -- without any concrete supporting data points.

So this type of non-thinking is much more informative of the type of thinking that we can expect from our leaders -- and this is the crucial point, from this article at Reason.com:
A larger question is whether a candidate's belief about the validity of evolutionary biology has anything to say about his or her ability to evaluate evidence. A January 4, 2008, editorial by Science editor Donald Kennedy correctly argues, "The candidates should be asked hard questions about science policy, including questions about how those positions reflect belief. What is your view about stem cell research, and does it relate to a view of the time at which human life begins? Have you examined the scientific evidence regarding the age of Earth? Can the process of organic evolution lead to the production of new species, and how? Are you able to look at data on past climates in search of inferences about the future of climate change?" Kennedy concludes, "I don't need them to describe their faith; that's their business and not mine. But I do care about their scientific knowledge and how it will inform their leadership." Since science and technology policy issues are only going to become more important as the 21st century unfolds, we should all care how scientific knowledge informs a president's leadership.