

Obama and Romney on Science - alecbibat
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=obama-romney-science-debate

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qwertzlcoatl
Here is a question-by-question breakdown:

Innovation and the Economy

Obama: I will throw money at research and set a goal of 100k STEM teachers.

Romney: I will fix immigration, privatize government training programs, lower
corporate taxes, reduce regulation, protect IP, free trade, offer k-12
educational "choice", and politically polarize government research spending.
Also, Obama politically polarized his research spending, so he sucks.

Climate Change

Obama: I agree that climate change is an issue, and I have proposed (and will
continue to propose) carbon pollution limits, reduced emissions, and reduced
dependency on oil.

Romney: Waffle, waffle: warming is occurring, and it's partly man-made, but
there's no "scientific consensus". Science doesn't dictate policy. Obama
sucks, it's called "global warming", not "america warming", so it's China's
fault. Cap and trade sucks, carbon tax sucks, let's do a "no regrets policy"
that will reduce emissions but not harm the economy. That means "clean coal"
and "safe nuclear", not hydro or solar power.

Research and the Future

Obama: I spent 90 billion on research into clean energy. I will also continue
investing in medical and security research. Also, permanent R&D tax credit.

Romney: Obama spent 90 billion dollars on a failed attempt to promote green
energy. I would have spread that out over 20 years. I will give money to
corporations for research rather than give the money to scientists. Also,
Obama sucks.

Pandemics and Biosecurity

Obama: We need to work internationally to help address communicable diseases.

Romney: We need to invest in public health monitoring systems. Also, Obama
stifles medical innovation. Did I mention he sucks?

Education

Obama: We need to focus on STEM, goal is 100k STEM teachers, announcing
federal program: STEM Master Teacher Corps.

Romney: Education sucks, A Nation at Risk, only American politics is suckier
than education. Spending on education sucks. Teacher unions suck. Strangely,
Obama doesn't appear to suck. I will privatize education with charter schools,
transfer public school funding to said private schools (I call this "enabling
choice"), penalize teachers whose students don't test well, and try to hire
"better" teachers.

Energy

Obama: "All of the above", increase fuel efficiency standards, reduce
dependence on foreign oil. Renewable energy.

Romney: Increase "domestic energy production" (he probably means oil), Obama
and green energy sucks, where's my Keystone XL Pipeline? Drill, baby, drill.

Food

Obama: Give the FDA the resources, authority, and tools to do their job.
Strengthen standards, support certified organic initiatives.

Romney: Preventative practices are best set by the people who produce the
food, not government. Only they know whether or not a particular requirement
will be profitable -- I mean feasible. I will have the FDA partner with
growers and producers to determine the correct standards to use. Obama....
doesn't suck this time?

Fresh Water

Obama: I support water conservation and waste water programs through grants,
and will work collaboratively with communities to ensure they have access to
fresh water.

Romney: Lawsuits against businesses for clean water suck. Unnecessary
constraints on business suck. I support market-based incentives to improve the
water in our nations lakes and rivers.

NOTE: Neither candidate addressed the issue of pollution.

The Internet

Obama: Free internet is important, but so is IP. Draconian anti-piracy
policies must not reduce freedom of expression or undermine the internet.
Also, we need cyber-security.

Romney: The government shouldn't manage the Internet. It's owned by private
companies, let them manage it. Obama sucks and is trying to take over the
Internet. Net Neutrality sucks, broadband providers should be free to
prioritize their traffic -- after all, they own the Internet. The UN sucks and
wants to take over the Internet.

Ocean Health

Obama: We are investing in restoration projects, and will continue to do so.
We will also support conservation efforts.

Romney: The economy is based on fishing. We need less regulation of fishing,
and I will protect the health of fisheries, because the economy is based on
fishing. NOTE: Once again, neither candidate addressed the issue of pollution.

Science in Public Policy

Obama: I support transparency and public participation, and I base my policies
on the best science available without distortion or manipulation. I will
continue this in my next administration. I do not support distorting science
to fit a political agenda, and make decisions based on facts, not ideology.

Romney: I will base my policies on the best available scientific and technical
information, and will avoid manipulating science for political gain. Obama
sucks and distorts science to fit his agenda. He will get rid of mercury
pollution by bankrupting the coal industry. Also mercury pollution is measured
in dollars. Finally, I will establish a "regulatory cap", forcing agencies to
spend as much time repealing and streamlining outdated regulations as they do
imposing new ones.

Space

Obama: We will continue to focus on sending humans to an asteroid by 2025 and
Mars by 2030. Space is exciting and inspirational work. Romney: Space is
crucial to spurring the economy, innovation, and national security. Also, it
shows how awesome we are to other countries. I will not give NASA more money,
I will clarify their priorities: practical missions, security/defense/military
use, and stuff that can be used by corporations for profit.

Critical National Resources

Obama: China sucks for not exporting more rare earth minerals, and we're suing
them for it. We need to be less reliant on other countries (like sucky China),
so I'm going to focus on research for electronics that don't rely on rare
earths.

Romney: The US used to produce rare earths self-sufficiently. But regulation
sucks, and that's why we don't do that anymore. Oil is a similar problem, and
I'm going to spend two paragraphs on how we need to drill, baby, drill.
Apparently rare earths are energy.

Vaccination and public health

Obama: Obamacare will help make vaccinations affordable and available.

Romney: We need to make vaccines, which means we need to strengthen the
economy so medical companies can profit from vaccines, giving them incentive
to make new ones.

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HarryHirsch
These are all words in the article, let's look at the actual track record,
after all in a politician past performance guarantees future performance

Under Obama the NSF and NIH budgets have been flat. As far as the actual
_practice_ of science goes, there is no difference between the candidates. We
didn't know that five years ago, when it was guaranteed that there was going
to be a Democratic president and Congress. Most every university started
building projects to expand their aging facilities, considering that
Democratic administrations had always been favorable to the sciences and that
under Bush II federal funding for the sciences had been flat. The increase in
funding didn't happen, and that is part of the reason that US universities are
in trouble.

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adaml_623
Obama on Education: "An excellent education remains the clearest, surest route
to the middle class."

This is a really weird quote to me. Is class in the US an aspirational thing?
What is the best route to the upper class? What is the upper class? I for one
am unsure about my new upper class overlords.

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jaredhansen
Class in the US is absolutely an aspirational thing, but he's referring not to
"class" in the literal sense of positional status within society, but more to
the material trappings of "middle class life": things like a house, one or two
cars, the ability to take occasional vacations, cable TV, an iPhone, etc.

Arguably many or most people want many or most of those things because of
perceived status advantages they provide, but that's another issue altogether.

