There are many important questions we need to ask presidential candidates. We expect each candidate to come up with plans to deal with the important issues we are facing.
We need to fix the economy. We need to reform healthcare. We need help with college costs and student loans. There is one area that we haven’t been asking our candidates about.
What do they think of recent scientific discoveries? What discoveries do they want to see?
We had a big meeting in Paris to sign climate change accords, but the candidates are not being asked about climate change.
Shawn Otto, a writer for ScienceDebate.org, said:
“We have encountered this problem over and over again. I think it’s because most of the political class and most of the political journalists had their last exposure to science in high school and they didn’t like it very much. They went into the humanities, they went into journalism or they went into law, and they haven’t had to deal with it since, and they’re very happy in that world. But that’s not the world we’re living in anymore.”
Otto put together a list of the top 20 science questions that the candidates should be able to answer.
They include things like:
- What policies will best ensure that America remains at the forefront of innovation?
- In the current climate of budgetary constraints, what are your science and engineering research priorities and how will you balance short-term versus long-term funding?
- What are your views on climate change, and how would your administration act on those views?
- What steps will you take to protect vulnerable infrastructure and institutions from cyber attack, and to provide for national security while protecting personal privacy on electronic devices and the internet?
- What will you do to reduce the human and economic costs of mental illness?
These issues need to be talked about, too.
Here is Bill Nye owning the candidates on abortion:
Here he is on CNN talking about the flooding in Louisiana and climate change:
https://youtu.be/iNI3EmMqa94
Featured image by The Kingsway School via Flickr, available under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
