Probably. Every four years, ScienceDebate.org comes along to suggest that the presidential candidates ought to have a debate about the science issues that confront us. It’s a good idea, I think.
I’d like it to happen. On the plus side, watching Republicans poop the bed over and over again would be vastly entertaining. Just recently, Rick Santorum said something stupid, for example (and who are we kidding? Santorum has like an all-automated electric stupidity generator permanently mounted in his mouth.)
For me, when you say the states have the right to define marriage, it’s like saying, well, the states have the right to redefine the chemical equation for water, it can be H3O instead of H2O. Well, the states can’t do that. Why? Because nature dictates what water is, nature dictates what marriage is, and the states don’t have the right to violate what nature has dictated.
Imagine a two hour show with those loonies babbling on the stage. Comedy gold!
Unfortunately, on the negative side, I can’t quite imagine either Clinton or Sanders putting in a solid performance. They’d probably be OK by just going with the consensus science view and avoiding controversy, but I don’t think they could demonstrate a deep knowledge of science. And who knows, maybe they have some weird ideas that would slip out and throw me into deeper despair. Maybe Clinton is a UFO fan, or Bernie Sanders thinks there might be something to homeopathy. I don’t know whether I really want to turn over that rock.
If nature dictates what marriage is then redefining marriage would be impossible. So what is it that Santorum and the like are complaining about?
From what I can tell, Bernie has some whacky alt-med and anti-GMO views. I would still vote for him, and cross my fingers that he would be inactive on those issues. Best case scenario is any successful candidate putting someone who is competent in charge of making those decisions.
So is Santorum implying that “marriage” is a physical property that can be detected by observation? We can conducting an experiment to test that— well, as long as Santorum can provide a coherent definition of what “marriage” is and how to look for it.
Nah, he’s just spewing yet another instance and variation of the defining belief of the religious right: “I have been taught to want it, therefore I want it, therefore God wants it, therefore ‘nature’ demands it.”
Okaaaaay. Um, if this is the case, how on earth did the concept of marriage change throughout the ages, and how did it manage to vary from culture to culture?
Jackson @2:
Maybe right about the alt-med, but, from Sanders’ website:
confusing marriage for procreation. Why same sex pairs can’t “naturally” produce offspring, need it be said that there is more to marriage than simple procreation? To most, procreation is an unwanted side-effect of physically expressing the love they share.
Marriage is for _love_, not only for procreation, nature is irrelevant to marriage.
Caine @4:
Over time, scientists conduct more research and learn more about phenomena, so their explanations gradually converge on the truth.
Similarly, different cultures have had different understandings of marriage but, through increased research and learning, all cultures are gradually converging on the true definition of marriage— it’s a relationship between one white masculine man who considers the existence of his penis to be a defining aspect of who he is as a person and one white feminine woman who considers the existence of her vagina to be the sole defining aspect of who she is as a person in which the latter is considered the legal property of the former like Jesus intended.
I would looovve to see the candidates discuss science. Pllleeeeasse make it happen. Pleeeasssee.
Btw, defining water as H3O is not an entirely inappropriate comparison to marriage b/c some water IS H3O! Or rather, an ionic form called H3O+. So like water being, well, a lot of H2O plus some other forms of water, marriage can be a lot of women married to men, plus some women married to each other and men married to each other. Whatever the folks want to do. Like water doing whatever it feels is right.
nature dictates what marriage is,
Just ask Rush Limbaugh, Donald Trump, Newt Gingrich, etc — they’ve been practicing getting married diligently for decades.
Rietpluim gets it right @#1, appropriately. The problem with appealing to the naturalistic fallacy is that you can be skewered brutally by the naturalistic fallacy.
Santorum’s question legitimately confuses me. We can call H3O/H2O whatever we want.
If we all decided that H3O is now “Water’ and H2O is “Vivec Juice”, we’ve broken no rules or anything.
A debate about science with those bozos would be amusing, for about a minute. The questions they should address aren’t specifically science questions. None of them know much about science, even those who are “doctors.” However, the value of science to human society…oh yeah. Science policy, yes. Science education, yes, yes, yes. Government’s role in promoting scientific research, yep. Government’s role in exposing pseudoscience, quacks, et al…probably. Issues we know about because of science (e.g. AGW) and can work on collectively, of course. And so on.
This is actually is pretty amusing as a perfect (if unintentional) example of how ideology works. Social convention is, from the perspective of someone in the society, just the way things are, giving it the force of natural law. Add in a weird dash of “it is that way, so it ought to be that way”, and you get Santorum’s argument.
If either Clinton or Sanders would take a position against untested alternative medicine, my vote would be theirs to lose after that.
Highly likely, considering even some very smart professional scientists cling tightly to some very non-scientific ideas, like Linus Pauling and the vitamin C/common cold connection or Francis Collins and his frozen waterfall “proof” of trinitarianism.
Hang on, doesn’t the presidential pony show also include vice presidents that are paraded around for the masses to see? If so, one might have each po … presidential candidate pick a couple of scientists they’d listen to during their reign in order to stay informed about science-related issues. Said scientists could hold the debate, which would probably be rather one-sided, regardless of who the opponents are.
As president they’d depend on advisors anyway so, given how US election campaigns go, why not show them off in advance so people can decide to vote for the candidate with the most competent support staff? More meatbags to impress the voters. Erudite meatbags who use long words, know what all those curly things in equations mean, and don’t need the quack’s fallback* to make themselves look smart.
*”Quantum”
@Caine #4:
It evolved!
Silly people, “nature” of course just means “the God that lives in my head”.
Now that’s really wacky! Imagine, preferring the rights of consumers over the profits of corporations!
@Nick Gotts #18
I actually disagree with you and Bernie here. I agree that everyone should have the right to eat whatever they want, but view mandatory labeling for GMOs the same way I view mandatory labeling for kosher or halal. I think anyone who wants to keep kosher or halal should be able to, but I don’t think we should mandate that all foods which aren’t kosher be labeled as “non-kosher.”
If Bernie gets the nomination, I’ll still vote for him, but hope that a national mandatory labeling system doesn’t materialize.
@19
I don’t really see the problem. Make a little green checkmark sticker that means “This product has GMO’s” and make that information available. It’ll cost nothing to add to packaging.
@Vivec #19
I certainly hope it’s not a big deal, but I’m not convinced that the cost will be negligible. You would need to double the infrastructure for grain storage and transport, add a bunch of logistical work that would need to track grain from farm to end product, as well as have what I imagine to be a costly program set up for enforcement.
If someone wants to avoid eating GMOs for any reason, they can do it right now with already existing voluntary labels, so I don’t see much of a point in setting up a mandatory labeling system to satisfy peoples ideological preferences.
Actually, it would be better to do the reverse. Have a third party certify no GMO is used in this product. This is done with food stuffs to certify kosher (often circle K) or neutral (often circle U) for observant Jews, where the certification is done by a council of Rabbis. It would allow the manufacturer to add a few cents to the price of their product.
@21
See, I’m in favor of labeling the ones that do have GMO’s, not the ones that are GMO free. If you think you have GMO’s on there, slap the label on it, and if you want to get rid of the sticker, prove you didn’t.
I don’t think average consumers care enough for most companies to bother checking if they don’t have GMO’s, and the ones that do go out of the way would have a market waiting for them.
@Vivec #23
What is the advantage of doing it as you proposed as compared to what is done currently? Is there any difference in the information conveyed by a default label telling consumers that there may or may not be ingredients derived from GMOs, and simply not having a label?
It seems that the information conveyed to the consumer is the same, but shifts the cost of the label from the person avoiding GMOs to the person who isn’t concerned if the food does or doesn’t.
@24
Well, for one, they know that there might be ingredients derived from GMOs, and that the company did not go out of its way to avoid them.
Regardless, I don’t really have any irons in this fire. I’m nominally pro labeling, but I don’t really care either way.
GMOs are not one simple thing. For example, many bread products are currently fortified with folic acid to prevent neural tube defects in fetuses. Suppose someone came up with a GMO wheat that produced its own folic acid and it became the standard wheat to use because it eliminates the need for manufacturers to add folic acid. In that case, a bread labeled “GMO free” would actually put pregnant women at greater risk for birth defects.
Dumping thousands of dollars into a small shiny rock and table settings is also governed by Nature.
The science debate might be fun for us, but I think it would justake legitimize every candidate’s bullshit notions of what is Science. “Sixteen presidential candidates just said that life begins at conception at a Science debate, so it must be Science!”
Address science issues and otherwise base policy-making on evidence after getting into office and learning something as well as hiring good science advisers.
@28: If the candidate can’t be bothered to hire good science advisers and learn about the issues before getting into office, what makes you think they’ll do so after getting elected?
Vivec @ 25:
To make this sort of labeling meaningful at all, it would pretty much require a near ground-up revamp of how many basic crops in the US are tracked and handled, and possibly (depending on how much trace of GMO product was allowed while still labeling something Non-GMO) separate systems for each type of product. As in, physically separate: two silos, two trucks, two conveyors and so forth. Not necessarily in every case, but it’s really not a simple solution.
That, in any case, is my (non-expert) understanding of the situation.