Still working on an Who is Obama's Science Adviser?
Obama seems to have number of technology advisers:
Julius Genachowski, former FCC, on communications;
Alec Ross showed up at the science debate by proxy, but he is really a computing and networks guy,
Larry Lessig at Stanford and Daniel Weitzner at MIT are also apparently Obama tech advisers, but they're both, again computing/tech oriented.
So, who is giving Obama advise on climate change, stem cells, NIH funding, America Competes, NASA science and exploration, DoE funding, NSF baseline?
Should be someone getting into the campaign for actual science, as distinct from technology or computing/networks/communication.
Ought to be plenty of people able and willing - Obama has contacts at Columbia, Harvard and in Illinois (U of Chicago or UIUC we ask... ;-)
I'm sure there are some beltway contacts out there also - but who should he get on board?
Who do we want him to get on board?
Obama is smart, quite a wonk, but he is also a lawyer, and science issues are possibly likely to be somewhat important topic over the next term - and a number of foreign policy and economic issues will be very "science heavy".
I'm tempted to say Obama will need an old style physicist, who knows his-or-her nukes, but then I would, and bio and climate will also matter a lot.
Really need a proper science team in there, not just a single contact adviser.
(cf. Tom Kalil who was Hillary Clinton's science adviser).
Physics Today blog on Obama science policy
Politics
Comments
This goes beyond advisors.
I just looked at his list of "issues" on his website.
There is no science.
Supporting biosciences is within "Healthcare"
"Energy and environment" talks about some research funding
"Technology has a one paragraph bullet point: "Invest in the Sciences: Barack Obama supports doubling federal funding for basic research, ..."
Granted his basic ideas are good, but it's clear he hasn't written much about actual science policy except for a few big-ticket projects and generic talk about increasing funding and ending government interference.
I can't think of specific name, but the question is more than just who should be his science advisors, it who should be the next head of NIH and NSF. Those don't tend to change immediately with a new president, but chances are they will change at some point in the next 5 years.
Posted by: bsci | June 26, 2008 9:53 AM
One way to do this is to sign up to Obama's facebook like social networking site through his campaign website and start up a huge science group. That would be one way to agitate for more science policy/advisers at a 'grass roots level'. Also letters to the campaign and letters to the editor of various newspapers may force his (or McCain for that matter) hand. At some level both candidates make the talk of supporting science, but to ensure that it is on a new president's budget agenda, we as scientists should get the next president on our side, whatever their political affiliation.
It seems like the platform of SciBlog might be a way to generate instant numbers for these things.
Posted by: JohnD | June 26, 2008 11:33 AM
It's my impression that White House science advisors rarely show up as shadow appointments before an election. Science advisors and NSF and NIH directors tend to be plucked from the ranks of prominent big-science administrators who are not overtly political. Even Marburger, who has been more or less a flack for the Bush administration, didn't have that rep before he was appointed. I'm not saying that Obama shouldn't have a set of science advisors now, but that who's onboard now and who actually becomes science advisor later are separate and may be disjoint.
Posted by: Ben | June 26, 2008 5:39 PM
The other thing SEED and it's contributors might do, hopefully along with other science focused citizens - start up a blog on his campaign site.
I think obviously there should be some organizing on this. He as much as I like him is moving to the center and has worked on getting a big chunk of the Christian evangelical vote - over the environment, poverty and Darfur - there's a lot to discuss - and the input of practicing scientists is critical.
Discussions beyond 'the culture wars' are happening.
Posted by: CityzenJane | June 26, 2008 6:38 PM
The new President will pick agency heads and a Science Advisor/Adviser post-election (but hopefully pre-inauguration this time) through the usual committees and clearance procedure - likely to see some Usual Suspects and ex-Clintonites, I have some personal favourites I expect may pop up in DC next year.
But, during the campaign Obama ought to have a science adviser or three, not just computing and internet geeks - if nothing else they tend to have a mildly distorted view of actual science process and near-to-medium term capabilities.
A netroots science advisory collective is actually interesting, don't know if SciBlog would overtly go for it as an official process, but might work as a semi-unofficial spinoff.
But, an effective advisory process requires a single trusted contact with some high level access.
So, who?
McCain has been around long enough, and has enough mil and southwest tech connections that he is probably getting some advice.
Posted by: Steinn Sigurdsson | June 27, 2008 1:24 AM
Speaking of Science Advisors... I was puzzled to see that the current Science Advisor has published a paper showing how "A historical derivation of Heisenberg's uncertainty relation is flawed". (American Journal of Physics 76, 585-587; DOI: 10.1119/1.2870628). Is this a common thing to do for a Science Advisor?
Posted by: Stefan | June 28, 2008 7:03 AM
bsci: "doubling basic research" is "science".
I don't understand the surprise at finding biosciences under healthcare when it is mainly funded by NIH. The justification for huge increases in basic research in NIH has been motivated by curing cancer and HIV and other healthcare concerns, just as past big budgets in physics and space were driven by military and security considerations.
Personally, as much as increasing funding for basic research in each of the sciences matters to me, I know that exponential growth in any area of expenditure is unsustainable. We can't grow our way out of the glut of biosci post docs any more than LA can sprawl its way out of its transportation problem.
What struck me about yesterday's Unity speeches (I saw them both live and again on CSPAN) was the emphasis on a "we're all in this together" view (circa the 40s and 50s) rather than an "us against them" view that has dominated politics more recently. Sure, they had peanuts to toss to the peanut gallery, but I could hear it being tempered with knowledge of the real challenges that lie ahead. [See "Concord Coalition"] It was phrased differently, but big parts of Obama's speech were a challenge to do something for the country rather than expect the country to do it for you.
Posted by: CCPhysicist | June 28, 2008 11:58 AM
Richard Garwin would get my vote as advisor for energy and national security. He has a long list of patents to his name (he added miniature accelerometer to portable devices for protection - to shut down the hard drive in case it gets dropped - it is now in every laptop) he advised almost every administration since the president Lincoln, he is politically moderate, not afraid to make fun of warmongers ("The current SDI proposals fail to take in account the Earth curvature") and has a very even-headed views on nuclear energy and global warming. Oh and he designed Mike, the first thermonuclear big one.
Look up Garwin Archive
Posted by: milkshake | June 28, 2008 9:17 PM
"I was puzzled to see that the current Science Advisor has published a paper showing how "A historical derivation of Heisenberg's uncertainty relation is flawed". (American Journal of Physics 76, 585-587; DOI: 10.1119/1.2870628). Is this a common thing to do for a Science Advisor?"
It would be perhaps more fair to note that his article was published in American Journal Physics, and the abstract makes more sense: "Kennard's 1927 demonstration of the uncertainty relation, cited by Heisenberg as the earliest derivation using the formalism of quantum theory, invokes a trial function that severely limits the class of wave functions for which the uncertainty relation is shown to be valid."
Posted by: Carl Brannen | June 28, 2008 11:21 PM
Oh man that is a sole author AmJPhys paper by Marburger.
I gather he did not have a very busy summer of 2007.
http://scitation.aip.org/journals/doc/AJPIAS-ft/vol_76/iss_6/585_1.html
Richard Garwin has had an amazing career, but he is 80 years old.
It would not be an astute move politically to bring him into a near cabinet level position.
If I had to pick a name at this stage, I'd go with John Holdren.
Posted by: Steinn Sigurdsson | June 28, 2008 11:33 PM
Posted by: AGuy | June 29, 2008 1:16 PM
Heh.
If Obama keeps "moving to the center" at the rate he's been going, Lubos may well be tempted back by such an offer by september.
Posted by: Steinn Sigurdsson | July 1, 2008 12:13 AM
If Lubos Motl gets the bomb, we're all *doomed*.
Posted by: Ben | July 1, 2008 9:05 PM
Clearly the atomic bomb is too trivial for Lubos.
Thermonuclear devices, being a triumph of socialist science, he can figure from first principles.
Fortunately for the world, the rest, as they say, is engineering.
Posted by: Steinn Sigurdsson | July 1, 2008 10:48 PM