3 Science Questions to Ask U.S. Presidential Candidates

[Ichingcarpenter]

I think they are decent questions and hope they answer. But I'd have a few more if they go a responce.

Be Free to add your own questions





1.

How important do you feel science and science related education is in young children and how would you affect change so that U.S. students are competitive with the rest of the western world in these key subjects?


2.

Explain why you think voters should care about your stance on evolution.




3.

Is global warming and climate change significantly and negatively affected by human industrial and fossil fuel consumption activity and if so what is our Government’s Role and Responsibility in mediating a solution?




link: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/05/23/3-science-questions-to-ask-u-s-presidential-candidates/

[onehandle]

1. 4. Is the universe more than 6000 years old? nt

[4th law of robotics]

2. Of course, but the earth isn't

The universe is 6000 years and one day old. God created the universe on a monday. The earth on tuesday.

[Ezlivin]

3. The combustion of methane (CH4) releases 891 kJ of energy.

The heat of formations of CO2 = -393 kJ/mol and H2O(l) = -286 kJ/mol.

What is the heat of formation of methane?

[11 Bravo]

8. Romney would reply with either an awkward fart joke, or say, "Methanes are people too, my friend".

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. I would like some vision on our role and expenditure in space

and can private enterprise satisfy man's scientific as far as the search for life in the universe or our origins as a specie.

Our of the three questions their our subtexts,

[1StrongBlackMan]

5. Likely responses of the candidates:

1.

How important do you feel science and science related education is in young children and how would you affect change so that U.S. students are competitive with the rest of the western world in these key subjects?

President Obama:

I believe that America should lead the world in science and science-related education. From the education comes innovation. That is why I propose to investment heavy in our young folks making science related education accessible and a priority

Candidate Romney:

I believe science and science-related education is only as important as the free-market says it is. That is why I will propose to out-source all education to private concerns. The markets will lead our way.

2.

Explain why you think voters should care about your stance on evolution.

President Obama:

My personal faith leads me to believe that evolution is perfectly compatible with the Christian faith. But that said, that is my personal faith; each person is free to interpret their own faith, to believe as they will.

Candidate Romney:

Evolution is an unprovable theory with plenty of gaps. Therefore, as leader of the free world, my belief should be the belief of all patriotic Americans. Shout out to the bible belt!

3.

Is global warming and climate change significantly and negatively affected by human industrial and fossil fuel consumption activity and if so what is our Government’s Role and Responsibility in mediating a solution?

President Obama:

The evidence suggests that global warming/climate change is real. That evidence also suggests that human activity significantly affects these challenges. If our activity is making the prolem worse, our activity can abett it. And the government has a significant role in finding a solution.

Candidate Romney:

Global warming is a myth. But if it can be somehow proven factual; it is the markets that should lead our way out of it.

[Ichingcarpenter]

6. Listen..

I know Obama is well ahead on Romney on any science questions but I would like to see more action, he cut NASA's budget by the way.... We need to do what Eisenhower did for our education system after the soviets out did us.

It doesn't cost much and it returns so much vs giving money to absence education and his fucking stupid drug war.

Romney is a homo erectus as compared to Obama who is at least a Homo sapien.

Romney is counting on America's ignorance, he will lose.

[GoneOffShore]

11. You sure about that "erectus" thing?

I couldn't resist.

[HopeHoops]

7. "What is the air-speed velocity of an unladened swallow?"

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

10. Are you suggesting that coconuts migrate?!?

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

9. Personally, I don't see why the evolution question is relevent.

Whether or not someone belives in evolution, creationism, or some sort of intelligent design/evolution... it has pretty much no bearing on the political leadership needed to rescue a country from recession. The same goes for religion - it doesn't matter if a president believes in one god, many gods, or zero gods.

[Posteritatis]

12. If a candidate for high office doesn't believe in an objectively true thing

then their competence on any other issues is also suspect.

A political candidate who refuses to believe in evolution is exactly the same as one who refuses to believe in plate tectonics, or the germ theory of disease, or gravity. If they're willing to ignore one thing right in front of their faces that simply cannot be denied by any intelligent person, then they're probably willing to ignore inconvenient realities on any number of other subjects.

[Posteritatis]

13. I'd be asking them questions that determine whether they understand the stuff

"Explain what evolution is."

"What are the main causes of climate change, and what sort of effects will it have?"

"What is 'pure' research, and why is it important?"

[NightWatcher]

14. Do you believe that gods and men who walked the earth came from distant planets?

Damn right I'm throwing another Mormon belief under the bus. I don't want someone who believes that goofy shit to be able to be let out in public, much less in powerful public office.

[hatrack]

15. Mr. President, conventional oil production peaked in the lower 48 states in 1970 . . . .

Even the addition of Alaska's Prudhoe Bay to production late that decade did not reverse the trend, and neither has deepwater Gulf exploration in the past decade. We have never surpassed the amount of conventional oil we pumped 42 years ago.

There are some bright spots in domestic production. North Dakota oil from shale now stood at about 522,000 barrels per day in March of this year. But by way of comparison, Saudi Arabia was producing about 9.8 million barrels per day at the same time.

What steps are you prepared to take as president to prepare this nation to deal with permanently expensive and increasingly scarce oil in the long run? And what are you prepared to tell the American people about the finite nature of oil, of fossil fuel reserves and the finite capacity of Earth to absorb our wastes?

[hfojvt]

16. I notice that the first two are not even science questions

But rather are questions about "the importance of science" in a philosophical system.

So as for my own answers

1. I think that science is often over-rated by pundits who have not studied very much science. I think that a certain scientific skepticism and philosophy of inquiry, always asking questions, always looking for facts, and also for pre-suppositions behind the facts, is very important to critical and logical thinking, but actual scientific theories like Newton's second law of motion, the second law of thermodynamics, or the holy grail of evolution are less important.

I would quote EF Schumacher from 1973

"At present, there can be little doubt that the whole of mankind is in mortal danger, not because we are short of scientific and technical know-how, but because we tend to use it destructively, without wisdom. More education can help us ony if it produces more wisdom."

and Martin Luther King

"Everybody can be great. Because everybody can serve.

You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve.

You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."

Our society needs more wisdom and more love than it needs more science.

As for US students being competetive, it seems to me like we "are already there" http://4brevard.com/choice/international-test-scores.htm In science, US 4th graders finished 3rd. Is that somehow "not competetive"? Even in math, the US beat Israel, Canada, England. As for higher grades, nations like Germany do tracking, so their population of 12th graders is not the same as America's. Nor do the test scores account for poverty. Wealthy or middle class Americans tend to do better on the PISA.


2. I don['t think voters should care. The President is not generally proposing policies that have anything to do with evolution.

3. I believe it is, but it is clear that that belief is not widely shared by my fellow Americans. If policy gets ahead of the will of the people or the knowledge of the people, there is likely to be a political backlash. At this point, the Government should probably be funding research into causes and solutions as a way to change or affect the beliefs of the people. But since the Government should not be "manufacturing consent" this is more of a duty of a candidate and private media.

[xfundy]

17. Question for Rmoney

When, inevitably, you rule over your own planet, will you support industries that will screw it up as surely as Earth has been screwed by those same industries?