The case for a candidate's debate on science.
I don't know who Matthew Chapman is, but this is a brilliant proposal
http://richarddawkins.net/article,1703,n,nA New Debate
by Matthew Chapman
I am advocating for a Presidential Debate solely on the subject of science, and I hope you will join me in trying to bring this about. Had such a thing occurred during the election in 2000, perhaps we would have discovered that George W. Bush believed "the jury is still out on evolution." In this election, we have been provided with an excellent reason to ask for a scientific debate by the fact that three Republican candidates for president, Brownback, Huckabee, and Tancredo indicated that they do not believe in evolution. For them the jury seems not to be out, but to have rendered a verdict against the theory.
A publication of the National Academy of Sciences states: "The evolution of all the organisms that live on earth today from ancestors that lived in the past is at the core of genetics, biochemistry, neurobiology, physiology, ecology, and other biological disciplines. It helps to explain the emergence of new infectious diseases, the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, the agricultural relationships among wild and domestic plants and animals, the composition of the earth's atmosphere, the molecular machinery of the cell, the similarities between human beings and other primates, and countless other features of the biological and physical world. As the great geneticist and evolutionist Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote in 1973, 'Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution.'"
Given the above, one is faced with two explanations of the three men's statements of disbelief. They are either honestly ignorant of the true scientific status of evolution, or are dishonestly pandering to the genuinely ignorant in order to get their votes. As a matter of politeness, one must accord them the benefit of the doubt and assume they are honest, which leaves only the first and more terrifying option, namely that they are genuinely and profoundly ignorant.
Is this level of ignorance shared by other Presidential candidates, both Republican and Democratic, in other scientific matters? If so, we have a right to know. We are, after all, in a completely new situation. To quote entomologist Edward O. Wilson, human beings are "the first species in the history of life to become a geophysical force." Through industrial pollution, the destruction of our rain forests, over-fishing, over-hunting and so on, we can destroy just about all life on earth. This is a problem that cannot be solved without an understanding of science, most specifically biology.
An American president who does not understand science - or worse, disdains it - is no longer just a fool, but potentially lethal.
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