Issue B) Science

[Rusty Edge]

I've been stumbling across convergences of science and politics, and thought I'd consolidate information on the subject in one thread. I'll start with an edited version  ( to remove candidates who have since dropped out of the race) of an article from February.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/02/science-campaign-trail-where-presidential-candidates-stand


Science on the campaign trail: Where the presidential candidates stand

By Puneet Kollipara  Feb. 1, 2016 , 4:30 PM


The 2016 presidential election season gets underway in earnest today as voters cast their first ballots at the Iowa caucuses. As usual, science-related issues aren’t getting much attention from the candidates, as the debate has been dominated by national security, immigration policy, and the economy. But science does sometimes creep into the conversation, and ScienceInsider has been keeping its ears perked.

Here’s an overview of where the candidates stand on some select science-related issues (keeping in mind that the candidates have yet to sound off on many topics of interest to researchers).

RESEARCH FUNDING, POLICY, AND EDUCATION

Democrats

Former Senator (D–NY) and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said she “would increase funding for scientific research at agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation.” Has called for “rapidly” ramping up NIH spending on Alzheimer’s disease to $2 billion per year (from about $600 million now), with the goal of making a “cure possible by 2025.” Would support greater funding for research into autism, and launch a “first-ever adult autism prevalence study” in order to provide better services to adults on the autism spectrum.

NASA

Clinton has said she is a strong backer of the space program, though specifics are lacking.

Donald [Sleezebag] said last year that space is “terrific” but that filling potholes may be more important, because “you know, we don't exactly have a lot of money." He expressed enthusiasm for private sector–led space flight.

CLIMATE CHANGE

The Democratic candidates all accept the idea that humans contribute to climate change, and they all agree that the government should take action to address it. They differ in some respects on solutions, including on how to boost or incentivize renewable energy production.

•Clinton has praised the economic benefits and lower carbon emissions of natural gas while calling for “smart” regulations on fossil fuels.

Many of the Republican candidates reject or doubt that climate change is occurring or that humans are contributing.

•[Sleezebag] has called climate change a “hoax" and a "money-making industry." He has said he believes in “weather,” as well as “clean … immaculate air,” but not climate change.

Where virtually all Republican candidates agree, however, is on their opposition to Obama’s climate policy agenda and their concerns about the economic impacts of government action. Here, the differences lie more in rhetoric than in policy proposals. Here are some of the more noteworthy remarks certain candidates have said:

•[Sleezebag] said on Instagram last year, “While the world is in turmoil and falling apart in so many different ways, especially with ISIS [the IS group], our President is worried about global warming. What a ridiculous situation.”

VACCINES

Clinton: A year ago, she tweeted that “#VaccinesWork,” attacking some Republicans for raising doubts about vaccines’ safety, likening their distrust to denying that Earth is round. But during her 2008 presidential run, in response to an autism advocacy group’s questions, she cited vaccines as one possible environmental cause of autism, despite widespread scientific agreement that vaccines don’t cause autism.

[Sleezebag] said last year he believes vaccines could cause autism.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/09/17/the-origins-of-donald-trumps-autismvaccine-theory-and-how-it-was-completely-debunked-eons-ago/

BIOTECH CROPS

Clinton has expressed support for genetically modified organisms (GMOs). “There is a big gap between what the facts are and what the perceptions are,” she said. But has opposed congressional efforts to block states from require GMO labeling.

[Sleezebag] sent out but then quickly deleted a tweet that suggested that Ben Carson was leading in Iowa because Monsanto’s corn “creates issues in the brain?”
-anti-gmo-retweet]http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/donald-[Sleezebag]-anti-gmo-retweet

[Rusty Edge]

A similar article, only more recent-
http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/american-presidential-candidates-stances-science-issues/

The 2016 presidential election season is well underway, with verbal barbs being slung left, right, and center. But where do the presidential candidates stand on issues of science policy?

Below we have compiled the candidates’ stands on issues of climate change, NASA funding, vaccinations, and GMOs.

Note that this is by no means a comprehensive overview of American politics, the presidential candidates, or the science they support. It is simply a glimpse into the candidates’ positions, which will hopefully spark further inquiry and discussion.

CLIMATE CHANGE
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Quote: "I won’t let anyone take us backward, deny our economy the benefits of harnessing a clean energy future, or force our children to endure the catastrophe that would result from unchecked climate change.”

Climate change is “an urgent threat” and the “defining challenge of our times.” As such, Hillary Clinton plans to slash carbon pollution via two bold national goals and the launch of the Clean Energy Challenge. This means the installation of more than half a billion solar panels by the end of her first term and the generation of enough renewable energy for every home in America within 10 years. The Clean Energy Challenge will incentivize scientific innovation through grants and competitions, provide awards for communities that achieve clean energy goals, and transform the energy grid of states, cities and rural communities.

Donald [Sleezebag]

Quote: “I think there’s a change in weather. I am not a great believer in man-made climate change.”

Simply put: He believes climate change is fake. The 97 percent of climate scientists that say warming trends are worrying are wrong. Instead, it is “just a very, very expensive form of tax. A lot of people are making a lot of money,” he said.

His website does not have a page devoted to this issue, therefore his position has been revealed through tweets and interviews.

In 2013, he tweeted: “Ice storm rolls from Texas to Tennessee – I'm in Los Angeles and it's freezing. Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax!

He has little else to say on the matter.

 

NASA FUNDING

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Quote: "I really, really do support the space program.”

One good reason for her support: asteroids and comets, specifically near-Earth objects (NEOs). With more than 13,000 NEOs detected in our Solar System that range in size from 1 meter (3 feet) to 32 kilometers (20 miles), hazardous NEO detection is something that NASA – and Hillary Clinton – take seriously.

She also believes the space program is a “good investment” as it promotes scientific and technological innovation, noting the economic and societal benefits it brings. Exactly how much funding NASA should receive, however, is not clear.

Donald [Sleezebag]

Quote: “You know, space is actually being taken over privately, which is great,” [Sleezebag] said. “It is being taken over by a lot of private companies going after space, and I like that maybe even better, but it’s very exciting.”

All the presidential candidates are a bit murky on exactly how much funding NASA should receive, but none more so than [Sleezebag], who tends to shrug off the question. However, he has said that he favors the idea of space privatization. He also seems to hint at decreasing NASA’s budget: “Right now we have bigger problems,” he said, with money better spent elsewhere.

 

VACCINATIONS

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Quote: “The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork. Let's protect all our kids.”

That pretty sums up Clinton’s position: vaccines save lives. Since 1993, Clinton has advocated for children to get vaccinated, with the Vaccines for Children program her first foray into the highly charged arena. For more than two decades, she has stood in support of vaccinations, and in 2007 proposed a legislative plan to back autism research and advocacy (note: she does not link the two issues together).

Donald [Sleezebag]

Quote: “I am being proven right about massive vaccinations – the doctors lied. Save our children & their future.”

[Sleezebag] believes in vaccinations – sort of – just in small, spread out doses over a longer period of time. He believes that vaccinations and autism are linked, with the quantity of vaccinations “pumped” into children as the main cause.

It should be noted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are explicit in their vaccination views: There is no link between vaccines and autism. Instead, a combination of factors, including genetics and brain abnormalities, are the primary contributors to the condition.

 

GMOs

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Quote: “I stand in favor of using seeds and products that have a proven track record.”

Hillary Clinton stands in favor of genetically modified foods (GMOs), believing science and agriculture can co-exist to reduce global hunger. She has also noted public perceptions of GMOs, stating that while “genetically modified” sounds “Frankensteinish,” when stated in other terms such as drought-resistant, the benefits are clear and the fear factor diminished. She specifically notes Africa, where drought-resistant seeds have fed hungry bellies and saved lives.

In regards to U.S. labeling laws for GM foods, she has said efforts should be made “to move toward labeling and to try to encourage companies to use technology like bar codes and other techniques online.”

Donald [Sleezebag]

Apart from a derogatory tweet about Iowa and Monsanto's GM corn, [Sleezebag] has said little on the matter.

[Rusty Edge]

This one is in the presidential contenders thread-

http://reason.com/reasontv/2016/07/15/are-republicans-or-democrats-more-anti-s

Are Republicans or Democrats More Anti-Science?

Reason TV talks with California progressives about what happens when science meets politics.

Zach Weissmueller, Justin Monticello & Joshua Swain | July 15, 2016

It's popular to portray the GOP as the anti-science party and Democrats as the sane, "party of science" alternative.  And only 6 percent of scientists identified as Republicans, according to a 2009 Pew Research poll, which seems to be the most recent one on the topic. But the truth is that when science and politics meet, the result often isn't pretty, regardless of partisan affiliation.

Reason TV asked locals in Venice, California about their thoughts on various scientific policy questions and compared their answers to public opinion poll data. We found that many people favored mandatory labeling of food that contains DNA, the stuff of life contained in just about every morsel of fruit, vegetable, grain, or meat humans consume. Yet a recent survey out of the University of Florida found that 80 percent of respondents favor mandatory DNA labeling, only slightly below the 85 percent that favor labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). While Republicans are divided evenly on the GMO question, Democrats rate them unsafe by a 26-point margin, despite almost 2,000 studies spanning a decade saying otherwise.

Republicans are more skeptical of the theory of evolution, though by a surprisingly slim margin with 39 percent of them rejecting it as compared to 30 percent of Democrats. When it comes to other scientific matters, the waters are even muddier. For instance, Democrats and Republicans believe in the false link between vaccines and autism at roughly equal levels.




And it's largely liberal Democratic politicians pushing anti-vaping laws, despite public health agencies estimating e-cigarettes to be around 95% safer than conventional tobacco cigarettes and early evidence they help smokers quit. And vaping products don't contain any tobacco or its resultant tar, yet the FDA still wants to treat them as tobacco products.

The big science policy issue of the day, though, seems to be global warming. Sixty-four percent of Democrats believe in man-made global warming, while only 22 percent of Republicans do. But when it comes to realistic solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Democrats still aren't always science-minded.

Only 45 percent of Democrats support expanding the use of nuclear energy, as compared to 62 percent of Republicans, despite the fact that except for Chernobyl, not a single person, including nuclear workers, has ever died due to a commercial nuclear reactor accident.

Burning natural gas extracted through fracking is cleaner than oil or gasoline, and far more economically viable than non-nuclear renewable sources. And it emits half as much carbon dioxide, less than one-third the nitrogen oxides, and 1 percent as much sulfur oxides as coal combustion.

The ongoing switch from coal to natural gas to generate electricity is a primary driver of the reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by half a billion tons over the last decade, according to the EPA, which also has found no systemic evidence that fracking contaminates water tables. The U.S. Geological Survey found that fracking can cause "extremely small earthquakes, but they are almost always too small to be a safety concern," though larger earthquakes can result when operations dispose of wastewater by injecting it deep into the ground.

So maybe it's not that Republicans are dumber than Democrats when it comes to science, or the other way around, but that both sides have blind spots when data-based evidence contradicts their political preferences.

[Rusty Edge]

http://reason.com/archives/2016/06/10/gary-johnson-on-science-policy


Gary Johnson On Science Policy

Libertarian Party presidential candidate scores pretty well.

Ronald Bailey | June 10, 2016

To be a good president, a candidate must be able to evaluate data. So early last year, I scored six likely Republican presidential candidates on their positions on seven science policy areas. The notion that the reality-TV star Donald [Sleezebag] would actually run for president seemed farfetched at that point, so I didn't get around to evaluating his views until more recently.

The seven policy topics were climate change, genetically modified crops, the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility, vaccination, fetal pain legislation, biological evolution, and a proposed ban on commercial travel from West African countries during the recent Ebola outbreak. I chose those topics because we have widely accepted data for each of them. Specifically: The trend toward higher global average temperature over the past 50 years is at least partially the result of human activity; genetically modified crops are safe; Yucca Mountain in Nevada can safely store nuclear waste for tens of thousands of years; vaccinations do not cause autism; fetuses do not feel pain before 24 weeks of gestation; biological evolution explains the diversity of life; and a major Ebola outbreak in the U.S. was unlikely and banning travel is counterproductive.

So how do Gary Johnson and William Weld—the Libertarian Party's candidates for president and vice president, respectively—score with regard to the science policy issues?




Gary Johnson:
Climate Change: At the Libertarian Party convention in May, Johnson said, "I'm not smart enough to say whether or not global warming is man made, certainly there is climate change." This is a change from his earlier views. In 2011, he told Rolling Stone: "I accept the fact that there is global warming and I accept the fact that it's man caused. That said, I am opposed to cap and trade. I'm a free market guy when it comes to the clean environment the number-one factor when it comes to the clean environment is a good economy." HALF POINT

Biotech Crops: In a debate of third-party presidential candidates aired on RT in 2012, Johnson stated that "genetically modified foods should be labeled as such." I could find no statements from him regarding the safety of biotech crops. It's worth noting that he also favors mandatory nutrition labeling. His stance on food labeling apparently stems from the fact that he suffers from celiac disease and he wants to know when foods contain gluten. PASS (but worrisome)

Yucca Mountain: Interviewed by Liberty Voice in 2012, Johnson said: "I really got to be well versed on high level radioactive waste, given that in New Mexico, Mescalero was looking to open a retrievable storage site, and I know about WIPP [Waste Isolation Pilot Plant], and what I've heard second-hand is that Yucca Mountain was politically driven and not scientifically based. Why not have monitored retrievable storage at every nuclear site instead of a repository like Yucca Mountain? These are just questions I have, I don't have the answers." Interestingly, when Johnson was governor of New Mexico he did not oppose the construction of the WIPP in his state to store relatively low-level radioactive waste. In fact, he supported efforts to use the facility for additional research. FAIL

Vaccination: I can find no statements from Johnson suggesting that he thinks that vaccination might cause autism. In 2015, Our America Initiative, a non-profit co-founded by Gary Johnson, announced that it supported a Mississippi advocacy group's effort to place "childhood vaccination decisions into the hands of parents and doctors." PASS

Fetal Pain: In 2011, Johnson refused to endorse the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. With regard to abortion, Johnson observed in an April interview: "Abortion is an unbelievably difficult decision that anyone should have to make. But only a woman should make it." PASS

Evolution: In 2012, On The Issues asked Johnson: "Do you support the theory of evolution?" He answered: "Yes." PASS

Ebola: In October 2014, Johnson said that marijuana has "efficacy in regard to treating Ebola." He later clarified that he meant additional research should be conducted to determine the potential curative effects of the drug for Ebola patients. I found no information suggesting that Johnson favored an Ebola travel ban. PASS

Total: a generous 5½ out of 7 possible points. Considering that none of the Republican candidates—including [Sleezebag]—scored higher than 3, Johnson is doing pretty well.

Finding out where Weld stands on these seven science policy issues has proved more challenging, probably because he was more or less out of public life for the last few years. The only one for which I could find information is climate change.

In 2008, during an interview on Fox News, Weld declared that "global warming and climate change is an issue that affects absolutely everybody." During that same interview he suggested that setting a price on carbon would be necessary for "a national, international cap and trade system, [and] climate change legislation" to work. Interviewed as job losses mounted during the onset of the Great Recession, Weld also suggested that $150 billion program to fund clean tech jobs could also usefully cut greenhouse gas emissions. Weld has apparently long favored government programs that would encourage energy efficiency. No score.

[Rusty Edge]

I will try to piece together information on Jill Stein to science issues.
https://www.isidewith.com/candidate-guide/jill-stein/science

Should the federal government require children to be vaccinated for preventable diseases?
Jill Stein’s answer: No, fund public ad campaigns about the risks and benefits instead  S
 
Should producers be required to label genetically engineered foods (GMOs)?
Jill Stein’s answer: Yes
 
Should the government fund space travel?
Jill Stein’s answer: Yes

http://heavy.com/news/2016/05/dr-jill-stein-5-fast-facts-you-need-to-know/

Stein, who prepared her own organic meals on the campaign trail in 2012, doubled down in a Treehugger interview:


Our campaign is not only for labeling but also a moratorium on GMOs until such a time as they are established as safe, for the environment, for our health—and there are many red flags out their now in the health literature that there may be substantial risks to GMOs. The public deserves to have these risks studied and understood, before we are all subjected like guinea pigs to the potential risks here. If a president wanted, she could instruct the EPA to actually take this into their purview, as part of protecting the health of the environment and public health.

Current scientific consensus posits that GMOs are safe and generally as nutritious as organic food.