Crossposted from SmokeyMonkey.org
One of the world's premier scientific journals, Nature, has published an editorial essentially endorsing Barack Obama.
This journal does not have a vote, and does not claim any particular standing from which to instruct those who do. But if it did, it would cast its vote for Barack Obama.
To my knowledge, this is the only time such a journal has ever endorsed any candidate. This, coupled with the 76 endorsements by Nobel-prize winning scientists (h/t melvin), would seem to suggest that a significant part of the scientific community sees Barack Obama as the best next President of the United States of America. I'll explore why below.
The republican party has long been trending toward an anti-scientific viewpoint. There are many reasons for this, but they are all, at root, ideological. That is, the republican platform is often at odds with the prevailing scientific evidence. We have seen such failures of their paradigm in many ways. I'd like to explore those examples further, but I'll save that for another article. One example, though, would be the religiously-formed, scientificially-uninformed idea that life (and therefore civil rights) begins at conception. This philosophical debate, when mutated into public policy, creates a dangerous anti-abortion movement. What other medical procedure receives such vehement, and often violent, opposition? This is only one example from a list that includes: interfering with education, supporting continued pollution, and violating long-held constitutional principles.
I won't judge whether this anti-science trend in the republican party's platform is intentional or coincidental with the religious takeover of the party. I will let the Nature editorial explain why the party's current nominee is unfit to lead the wealthiest and most technologically innovative country in the world:
But all the signs are that [John McCain] seeks a narrower range of advice. Equally worrying is that he fails to educate himself on crucial matters...
This speaks eloquently to the epistemic nature of the debate between the progressive and conservative ideologies. Progressives seek to open the spectrum of communication so that more ideas may be heard and so that diversity may express itself. Conservatives seek to limit sources of information so that ideas may be controlled and so that their ideas will be heard the loudest or in a vacuum. This is the nature of the propaganda race on our cable news networks. It is when the propaganda fails to convince over the proponderance of evidence that the ideology fails. So it is with the conservative ideology and the republican party that supports it this election year.
The Nature editorial also explains why Barack Obama so appeals to the scientific community.
[A] commitment to seeking good advice and taking seriously the findings of disinterested enquiry seems an attractive attribute for a chief executive. It certainly matters more than any specific pledge to fund some particular agency or initiative at a certain level ...
Again, they are endorsing the progressive paradigm and specifically rejecting the conservative paradigm with this editorial. When such an enormous distinction presents itself, thinking people should feel obligated to stand up and represent their opinions. It is, for me, the opinions of the wisest that matter most. Is it not so for the republicans anymore?
Bonus material
The editorial also includes a great functional definition of science:
[S]cience is bound by, and committed to, a set of normative values — values that have application to political questions. Placing a disinterested view of the world as it is ahead of our views of how it should be; recognizing that ideas should be tested in as systematic a way as possible; appreciating that there are experts whose views and criticisms need to be taken seriously: these are all attributes of good science that can be usefully applied when making decisions about the world of which science is but a part. Writ larger, the core values of science are those of open debate within a free society that have come down to us from the Enlightenment in many forms, not the least of which is the constitution of the United States.