There are two great articles in Science this week about the potential new Presidents of the USA and their position on science issues.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/319/5859/22

This page has a bar on the side that has all the major candidates stated opinions. Looks like Hillary seems to be the one with the best advisor team set up. She is also reccommending a doubling of the NIH budget in 10 years.

Give it a a read it will directly affect you

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Here is a blog post from Steven Salzberg's "Genomics, Evolution, and Pseudoscience" where he summarizes the answer to the question of Where do the presidential candidates stand on science and research?


He also draws attention to the ScienceDebate2008 where they are calling 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.


I have also posted on this issue previously within Scientist Solutions. See
Should the Next US President be Scientifically Literate?

Here are the links to the Jan 4 Issue of Science concerning this year's US Presidential election...




Science and the Next U.S. President
Science 4 January 2008:
Vol. 319. no. 5859, p. 22
DOI: 10.1126/science.319.5859.22

How do the candidates view science? Sometimes it's hard to tell from the campaign trail, but they have offered opinions on topics from evolution to global warming

Many factors can make or break a U.S. presidential candidate in the 2008 race for his or her party's nomination. The ability to raise millions of dollars is key, as are positions on megaissues such as the Iraq war, immigration, and taxes. Voters also want to know if a candidate can be trusted to do the right thing in a crunch. Science and scientific issues? So far, with the exception of global warming, they are not getting much play....




DEMOCRAT: Hillary Clinton
Science 4 January 2008:
Vol. 319. no. 5859, p. 23
DOI: 10.1126/science.319.5859.23

... and here is the link to an editorial by Science Magazine's Editor-in-Chief Donald Kennedy



Science and God in the Election
Science 4 January 2008:
Vol. 319. no. 5859, p. 12
DOI: 10.1126/science.1154211

This is the first issue of the New Year, and guess what? It's an election year in the United States, and other nations are watching the developments with interest. So Science's News Focus section, beginning on p. 22, presents some of the major presidential candidates' views about science and science policy. We hope that these will give citizens of all countries a sense of how these aspirants would meet the essentially global challenges that rest on science and technology, including climate change, health policy, resource management, and energy conservation...

Obama's support of Research and Development: From his Book "The Audacity of Hope:"

In a 2006 conversation with Dr. Robert Langer, a Professor at MIT he says "If we want an innovation economy, one that generates more Googles each year, then we have to invest in our future innovators - by doubling federal funding of basic research over the next five years, training 100,000 more engineeres and scientists over the next four years and providing new research grants to the most outstanding early-career researchers in the country. The total price tag for maintaining our scientific and technological edge comes out to approximately $42 billion over 5 years - real money, to be sure, but just 15 percent of the most recent federal highway bill. In other words, we can afford to do what needs to be done. What's missing is not money, but a national sense of urgency."

From Barack Obama's website:

Invest in the Sciences: Barack Obama supports doubling federal funding for basic research, changing the posture of our federal government from being one of the most anti-science administrations in American history to one that embraces science and technology. This will foster home-grown innovation, help ensure the competitiveness of US technology-based businesses, and ensure that 21st century jobs can and will grow in America. As a share of the Gross Domestic Product, American federal investment in the physical sciences and engineering research has dropped by half since 1970. Yet, it often has been federally-supported basic research that has generated the innovation to create markets and drive economic growth. For example, one recent report demonstrated how federally supported research in fiber optics and lasers helped spur the telecommunications revolution.

Make the R&D Tax Credit Permanent: Barack Obama wants investments in a skilled research and development workforce and technology infrastructure to be supported here in America so that American workers and communities will benefit. Obama wants to make the Research and Development tax credit permanent so that firms can rely on it when making decisions to invest in domestic R&D over multi-year timeframes.