Illustration by Adam Billyeald
During the past seven years of the Bush administration, America has been subject to what can only be called antiscientific governance. Scientists have been ignored, threatened, suppressed, and censored across agencies, across areas of expertise, and across issues. Policies have gone forward repeatedly without adequate scientific input and sometimes in spite of it, and have subsequently backfired.
The picture couldn't have been any more stark this past summer, when former US Surgeon General Richard Carmona testified before Congress that he'd been blocked by the Bush administration from offering his expertise on issues ranging from embryonic stem cell research to mental-health problems emerging in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. To hear Carmona relate his experiences not only stirred outrage; his testimony further inspired an already powerful demand for change. Under George W. Bush—the man who pronounced climate science "incomplete," who misled the nation in his first major address about the availability of embryonic stem cells for research, who claimed that Iraq was collaborating with Al Qaida—America's relationship with reality itself has reached a nadir.
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At the same time—and perhaps not coincidentally—the fortunes of the nation have suffered and the prospects of many Americans, of the American Dream itself, have diminished. From bridge collapses to the failure to protect New Orleans (both before and after Katrina), these days the country can't even seem to deliver upon the most basic of promises to its citizens—to ensure their safety. Along with the neglect of science has come a broader neglect of expertise, competence, and even functional government. These are, perhaps, matters not so disparate. For science doesn't merely provide a way of expanding knowledge of the world. It doesn't just provide answers to pressing questions; it changes the conversation itself. Science—and the broader way of thinking that comes with it—trains its adherents and practitioners to relish the very act of questioning for its own sake, of figuring out what's true and false, of determining what works and what fails. Science can detect dark matter and dark energy; it can also build you dependable levees. By awakening to the full political implications of science and scientific thinking, the current crop of presidential candidates will stand a far better chance of being able to steer America back along the right course. The political currents are in place for a true scientific revival in this country, and Americans have the unique chance to host an election process that adds, rather than detracts from the public's general understanding of all things scientific. Tired of Bush, Americans now have the opportunity to elect a new leader who is his antithesis—a president who understands how science works, and who surrounds him- or herself with trusted science experts so as to remain continually informed; one who grasps that scientific uncertainty is a fundamental facet of reality to be embraced, rather than to be exploited as an excuse for political inaction.
Indeed, voters should empower a president, Democrat or Republican, who uses the office to reverse the current administration's disturbing legacy and introduce the spirit of science into politics. The unrivaled platform enjoyed by a US president today confers the unique ability, upon a single individual, to achieve such a transformation and to alter the very zeitgeist of the nation, and even that of the world.