A Presidential Science Adviser?

Sorry to tease you with that headline. We all know that no such animal as a presidential science adviser exists in the US, a sad fact that David Baltimore and Ahmed Zewail mentioned prominently in their April 17, 2008, Wall Street Journal editorial, “We Need a Science White House.” The words of woe and warning were aimed at policymakers and presidential candidates who seem strangely silent on what Baltimore lists as the trinity of benefits attributable to science: health, security and prosperity. Also mentioned was the American Competitiveness Initiative, which, if you recall, was a pet project of an early Science Café interviewee, Ken Dill. Here’s Baltimore’s Wall Street Journal summation of what happened. “Last year things seemed hopeful, at least for the physical sciences. The National Academy of Sciences issued a report, ‘Rising Above the Gathering Storm,’ that helped drive Congress to pass legislation — the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) — aimed at bolstering the sciences. It was supposed to beef up the study of science in high school. In the end, no money was found to fund the initiative. It was a commitment made, but not kept.” No wonder cynicism flourishes. That assumes, of course, that you know enough to be cynical. An editorial entitled “Critical Journalism” in the March 27, 2008, issue of Nature details the decline of substantive science reporting in the US, based on the Pew Research Center’s State of the News Media 2008. True, as the editorial acknowledges, the Internet has filled some of the information gap created by the decline of science desks at print publications and television networks. But the operative word here is “substantive.” Online science reporting needs to shake off its news release-driven “me-tooism,” the editorial urges. Citing data that the public is indeed hungry for science news, the editorial concludes with a lament. No science reporters. No watchdogs. And no truth tellers. Keep the pressure on for Science Debate 2008. — Jeff Miller