Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Nature Endorses Obama for President

Nature has an editorial (America's choice : Article : Nature) on the US Presidential Election that is worth looking at. For those interested in the Cliff Notes Version they end the piece with
"This journal does not have a vote, and does not claim any particular standing from which to instruct those who do. But if it did, it would cast its vote for Barack Obama."
For more detail, I think the key point is here:
On a range of topics, science included, Obama has surrounded himself with a wider and more able cadre of advisers than McCain. This is not a panacea. Some of the policies Obama supports — continued subsidies for corn ethanol, for example — seem misguided. The advice of experts is all the more valuable when it is diverse: 'groupthink' is a problem in any job. Obama seems to understands this. He tends to seek a range of opinions and analyses to ensure that his own opinion, when reached, has been well considered and exposed to alternatives. He also exhibits pragmatism — for example in his proposals for health-care reform — that suggests a keen sense for the tests reality can bring to bear on policy.
They basically reiterate my concern for the McCain-Palin platform regarding science but they do not really go far enough. McCain and Palin have expressed decidedly anti-science positions recently (well, Palin has expressed them previously too). And thus it is not simply what advisors they surround themselves with but whether they would listen to any of them. Sadly the hints are that McCain and Palin will not listen to scientific advisors on many issues. Obama has made it clear that he will. Not that he puts science above all else (nor should he) But at least he will listen and make rational decisions that include science as a component. McCain and Palin seem dead set against "evidence" of any kind much of the time (note - McCain still exhibits occasional glimpses of the reasonable person he used to be on some issues like Global Warming - but these are few and far between).

Hat tip to Oliver M. for sending this around ...

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