The Quantum Pontiff

Will the Presidential Candidates Debate Science?

Posted by Dave Bacon on February 11, 2008
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The U.S. presidential candidates been invited to a debate on science. Will they come? I don’t know, but the thought of Mike Huckabee using biblical references in discussing science could lead to some very fun sentences. For example, if he wanted to get apocrypha-l, when talking about the bioethics of artificial wombs, he could bring up the Gospel of Thomas 15:

Jesus said, “When you see one who was not born of woman, fall on your faces and worship. That one is your Father.”

Of course, Mike Huckabee didn’t major in math, so I worry that he won’t attend for fear that the debate might test his calculating abilities (math phobia burns wide and deep.)

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Comments

  1. #1 Blake Stacey
    February 11, 2008

    Huckabee would never cite the Gospel of Thomas. If it’s not in the King James Version, Jesus didn’t say it.

    But with regard to that particular verse, I always wondered: is the Father then qualified to kill Macbeth?

  2. #2 mick
    February 11, 2008

    Short answer: No.

    Horse races are much more interesting.

  3. #3 RobJ
    February 12, 2008

    You support an organization which excluded Ron Paul from speaking. This in itself is against science at it’s core.
    Science is the search for truth. All science must include all circumstance. No ommission or fact or possible fact.
    If by your own action you create an outcome then your science is flawed.
    You know this!!!!!
    So don’t complain. You brought it on yourself. Let Dr. and I repeat DOCTOR Ron Paul speak. You may not agree with him, but science seeks truth and required all the facts to make a decision. Otherwise you live in belief and religion and not fact.
    Look to your own for the problem and see your error of observation. You call yourself a scientist? hmmmmmmmmm
    “..it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority to set brush fires in people’s minds.”
    — Samuel Adams
    “With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.” — Abraham Lincoln
    “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” — George Orwell
    “The state can’t give you free speech, and the state can’t take it away. You’re born with it, like your eyes, like your ears. Freedom is something you assume, then you wait for someone to try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free…”
    — Utah Phillips

  4. #4 Dave Bacon
    February 12, 2008

    Yes being a DOCTOR in all caps is very impressive. Aiding racists groups in your newsletter….less so.

  5. #5 Kathryn
    February 24, 2008

    I am a postdoc at Johns Hopkins and I think “Science Debate 2008″ is a great idea. It is really unfortunate that they have decided to exclude one of the five remaining major-party candidates due to their arbitrary definition of “viability”: Ron Paul. Maybe with the news that Ralph Nader is running, they should extend invitations to both Ron Paul and Ralph Nader.