“3. DEBATE: WOULD YOU SETTLE FOR A POP QUIZ?
Unable to arrange a face-to-face debate between Obama and McCain on
science issues, the dedicated team at Science Debate 2008 asked for
written responses to 14 questions. The 35 pages of staff-written
responses they got back served only to make it clear why a face-to-face
debate was needed – it would have had a time limit. I would wager the
candidates didn’t even have time to read their responses. Maybe it should
have been multiple-choice questions, or even true-false. We thank the
organizers for seeing it through, but the answers didn’t “restore science
and innovation to America’s political dialogue” as we all had hoped.”

I wrote last month about the presidential campaign differences on technology, and I’m not surprised McCain’s lacking in the STEM department either.

http://twistedphysics.typepad.com/cocktail_party_physics/2008/09/physics-politic.html

Those websites are how these candidates are presenting themselves to the public. And McCain barely mentions S&T at all, except in the areas of energy technologies. He and Obama are quite similar on those areas, apart from the issue of offshore drilling.

But they differ substantially on everything else, especially education. Obama’s Website has some of the most detailed, well-thought-out plans for education, S&T, energy, and so forth I’ve seen in recent memory, and he’s pushing for breaking up the media monopolies (four companies essentially control all the mainstream media and dictate their programming accordingly) and for making the government more transparent. It’s clear that the Obama campaign has been LISTENING to the electorate and have designed their platform accordingly. That’s why the answers to Science Debate 2008 were so good.

McCain? His Website has the fingerprints of the religious right all over it. I nominate him the candidate most likely to balatantly lie about his S&T stance if/when his campaign responds.

When it comes to S&T, there really should not be any debate at this point. Obama wins on the issues, hands down.

I liked what one reader commented:

Wow! Can I vote for the person who actually composed Obama’s answers?

Um, why? Is there any suggestion that the answers given aren’t Obama’s policies? As an outsider watching the political process in the US, it seems amazing that there’s even a discussion over which candidate is better science-wise. The fact that some Republican supporters support some science funding doesn’t change the fact that they rely on a decidedly anti-science and anti-intellectual voting block to get elected, and dare not endanger that. It’s why Sarah Palin was nominated.

The Bush admin has been the most anti-scince ever. You even get idiocy like this. Given the weakness of McCain’s position (he couldn’t even pick his own VP nominee because Lieberman is pro-choice), there’s no reason to think that he’ll be able to stand up to the anti-science crowd if he gets into office, especially with a rabid anti-science VP.