Science Debate 2012: Submit Questions for the Candidates

I am happy to announce that Science Debate 2012 is now accepting your submissions for questions to ask the candidates in the 2012 U.S. presidential elections.  Recall the list of questions from Science Debate in the 2008 election cycle, and you’ll get a pretty good idea of how this entire thing works.  Basically, it is to put questions of scientific, engineering, and technological importance into the political debate; considering as how important these issues are and will be in the 21st-century, I think it is more than appropriate to hold our political candidates accountable on such matters.  I also like how Shawn Otto and the Science Debate team put it:

Why is this important?

In 2008, the ScienceDebate initiative successfully elevated science and engineering topics in the public dialogue that simply would not have been priorities without our efforts.

To give you an example, when we started, of the 2,975 questions asked the then-candidates for president, just six mentioned “climate change” or “global warming” which, no matter your opinion, is among the top science policy debates.  None of the candidates wanted to talk about science at all.  The topic wasn’t even on Barack Obama’s radar.

By the time we were done, the candidates for president had answered the top 14 science questions facing America.  Those answers made more than 850 million media impressions, reframing science as a national priority.  President Obama’s answers formed the early basis of his science policy.  For the first time, a president went into office with a science policy and a clear idea of how science fit into a larger strategic agenda.  He drew his top science appointments from among our most visible early supporters – including John Holdren, Jane Lubchenco, Steven Chu, Harold Varmus, and Marcia McNutt – and mentioned our mission statement – restoring science to its rightful place – in his inaugural address.

In many ways, the ScienceDebate effort helped bring focus and voice to the value of science in America, and made it a more common topic in the general public’s dialogue.  With this step-by-step, incremental advance, the ScienceDebate initiative had large influence and produced benefits for all Americans.

Today, anti-science forces are more vocal than ever, and ScienceDebate is even more important than it was in 2008.  Our efforts present critical science policy questions in the way American adults are used to taking in complex information: the context of the national policy dialogue.  With so many national issues revolving around science and engineering, your support of ScienceDebate is more important than ever.

If you value public policy based on knowledge instead of ideology, we need your financial support.  Please give now, and join our conversation.

Best,

-Shawn Otto and the team at ScienceDebate.Org