Obama: Science and Facts are Valued

I don't know much about Steven Chu yet, but I am pleased that Barack Obama has selected a real scientist for his cabinet.

I heard the following quote from Obama twice on my home from work yesterday and again this morning:

"His appointment should send a signal to all that my administration will value science, we will make decisions based on the facts..."

I cheered out loud! The full text of Obama's announcement can be found here. (Photo from Change.gov)

I voted for Obama this morning

I like to vote on Election Day, and I sucessfully resisted the considerable urge for Early Voting this year. Since I was anticipating a wait at the polls, I got up a bit early this morning. I arrived with my 11-year old son, Evan, at the polling place for Coralville 6 (Wickham Elementary, his school) at ~7:40am. Evan went over to the Kid's Voting booth and voted while I initially got in the wrong line (no coffee yet)... After waiting in line for a few minutes, I realized that I needed to sign-in. So I did that and returned to the line to pick up my ballot. The line was ~20 people long and was moving briskly. There were ~15 voting carrels on one side of the gymnasium (the same gym that was jam-packed with Democrats on Caucus night).

The ballot was a two-sided legal-sized document with bubbles to fill in. As it turns out, I could have just bubbled-in the Democratic strait ticket. But it was a lot more fun to fill in the bubbles separately for Obama/Biden, Harkin, Loebsack and few others. I showed Evan my vote for Obama and he approved. We then together fed the ballot into the reader and each picked up "I VOTED" pins. All together it took about 15 minutes.

I am looking forward to a new start for this country!

Dodos: Free in Iowa City!

Tomorrow (Monday, Sept. 22) in Iowa City I will be co-hosting a free public screening of "A Flock of Dodos" in Biology Building East (BBE) 101 at 7:00pm. This event is part of Scienceblogs 10^6 comment festival, via our two Iowa City-based ScienceBlog-ers, Tara Smith (Aetiology) and Evil Monkey (Neurotopia). It is also associated with the Evolution undergraduate course (Biology, 002:131) that I teach with Bryant McAllister (can you say "extra credit"?)

According to Wikipedia:

"The film attempts to determine who the real "dodos" are in a constantly evolving world: the scientists who are failing to promote evolution as a scientifically accepted fact, the intelligent design advocates, or the American public who get fooled by the "salesmanship" of evolution critics. While Randy Olson ultimately sides with the scientists who accept evolution, he gives equal air time to both sides of the argument..."

Thanks to the filmaker Randy Olson for allowing us to screen this film for the public! I'm looking forward to it, since I have not seen it yet.

Wired: Huckabee Denies Evolution

Wired Science has a good article on Mike Huckabee's denial of evolution. They feature the video that I have also placed here. This is a good opportunity to point folks to a great piece from Leonard Steinhorn and Charles Steinhorn where they consider "belief" in evolution: "Is the Theory of Evolution Really a Matter of Faith?".

Tom Vilsack: Talking to Americans

In all fairness, Gov. Vilsack got hit too. These are so funny. We really enjoyed them when we were "Americans" living in Canada.

Mike Huckabee: Canadian National Igloo

Iowa Boy Goes to the Caucus

Last night I caucused for Joe Biden. Up until the last day, I was trying to choose between Joe and Bill Richardson. On the day before, I went to see both John Edwards and Joe Biden. Edwards was good (and a bit angry!) but Joe really sold me.

Biden's speech in Coralville was the best I had heard this year. He's really a smart, articulate guy. He's also a seriously-credentialed Democrat. And even though I don't agree with him on all the issues, I decided that he deserved a chance and my support. I truly thought he'd pull a decent fourth place that would launch him into the next contests. But that wasn't going to happen. At the end, only the big three (Obama, Edwards, Clinton) were left standing.

At 6:30 pm I arrived at Coralville #6 with my wife, Debbie, who was supporting Obama. The line was literally out of the door of our local elementary school. There was clearly something happening. After a few minutes in line, I got interviewed by the Press-Citizen (our local paper). I said that I'm supporting Biden since he is ready to be President tomorrow (admittedly, parroting his speech from the day before) AND that he can clearly beat the Republicans. Curiously, neither of these are reasons why I supported Kucinich in 2004, but I really don't want to see a repeat of the Kerry-2004 debacle...

In the end, 763 people showed up to caucus as Democrats in our fairly well-to-do upper middle class (and very white) precinct! This was almost twice the turnout of 2004. The results of our caucus were summarized by the Press-Citizen. But here's the inside view from my perspective.

First of all, the Clinton group was largely older people (50+), with a high fraction of women. Interestingly, they had a huge spread of food that was tempting me since I had not eaten... The massive Obama group was quite young, but included many middle-aged (35-50) people and some older. The Edwards group was largely middle-aged to older. The big three ruled Coralville #6.

Biden and Richardson were about equal in support and were largely comprised by middle-aged to slightly older people. At 42, I was among the younger of the Biden group. Dodd's group apparently shared a similar demographic to Biden's (no surprise).

The initial vote for viability indicated that the Big Three were all OK, but that neither Biden, Richardson, nor Dodd were viable. However, if these three could join up, we could generate a viable group (together, we had more than the required 15%). I was happy with this possibility since I was torn between Richardson and Biden until the end anyway. So I encouraged our Biden precinct captain to negotiate with the Richardson camp. The idea was to field an "uncommitted" delegate that would represent whichever of the three candidates were still standing by the time of the county convention. But the precinct captain for Richardson wanted to stick with him, so most of the Biden supporters left for the big three.

There was just not enough time (30 minutes) to convince most of the 129 (57+53+19) people that "uncommitted" was a viable option that would yield a delegate. Too bad. As it turned out, both Biden and Dodd dropped out last night, but we we couldn't know that... At one point, the Edwards captain was trying to get all of the Biden supporters to join in, including offering a possible county delegate slot in exchange. But there wasn't enough time...

Literally at the last minute in the second round of voting, I cast my lot with John Edwards. I still think that he is best Democrat of the Big Three. I had already decided that I he would be my #2. I'm glad that he got second place in Iowa. I hope that it will give him legs for the rest of the month. He's the real deal for populist Democrats. His message needs some more positives, but he's the only one telling it like it is for working people. I hope that this message will resonate.

I'm also really pleased for Barack Obama. Iowa showed its true colors last night even though we are not very racially diverse. I really think that most Iowans are color-blind and this result consistent with that assertion. I remain a bit uneasy about Obama as the nominee, especially against the Republican Nasties, but I'm optimistic for his chances.

The 2008 political banquet is now out of Iowa's hands. I hope that we set the table well..

Caucus Conundrum: Considering Compelling Candidates

For those of you still tuned in, thanks. I hope to have some more science content to share in the coming year...

In the meantime, the Iowa Caucus is weighing heavily on me—at least for the next three days. I'm uncommitted so-far, and that is weird for me. I'm usually a man of strong opinion and steady conviction... But none of the candidates (Democrats, of course) are floating my boat this time around. Perhaps it's because I'd vote and probably even campaign for any of them in November. I just don't see huge differences among them.

Politically, Dennis Kucinich is closest to my convictions as was re-iterated by my third assessment by this poll. But I have a hard time supporting Dennis this time around, even though I caucused for him in 2004 (when he & Dean were the only anti-war candidates). That's not to mention that Kucinch has all but forgotten Iowa this year (too bad for us).

The other choices are really pretty good. Last week I was leaning toward Joe Biden, who I blogged about earlier this fall. The recent debacles in Pakistan have certainly made me think even harder about international diplomacy (per se, not just foreign policy in general) as a key issue. I have always liked Joe's frank style, even if it gets him in trouble sometimes.

A few weeks ago, I went with my family to see Barack Obama (and Oprah) and it was made clear to me why people are excited about him. I like Obama, but there seems to be something substantive that's missing. My wife and many of our friends are Obama supporters, but I'm not sure what it is that's keeping me from jumping on the train. I think that Barack will be the nominee.

Which brings me to yesterday. Although I had not paid much attention to Bill Richardson so far, I saw that he was in town giving a speech and attending a few house-parties. So I decided to go and see for myself. I was impressed. I asked him about education and he was right on the mark. He knows that we are in dire straights for science and math teachers. When I asked Bill to guess how many of this year's ~60 student class that I teach (mostly junior/senior biology majors) were planning to be teachers, he correctly stated "zero" (usually 2-4 in previous years). This is scary—where will the next generation of teachers come from?? Richardson's plan includes a national minimum salary for teachers ($40K), which is a great start. Bill has a national service plan that would pay college tuition in exchange for voluntary national service. He's not just talking military here, either. His credentials in the international diplomacy arena (where we have lots of catching up to do) are really amazing. When I asked him about Science Debate 2008, he was interested and asked me to forward some info to the campaign (which I did).

How about today? Only three more days to go! I spent an hour this morning reading the Des Moines Register special Caucus section after watching some of the Sunday political talk. Hillary Clinton is giving a speech on Tuesday in Iowa City that I will probably attend. John Edwards and Chris Dodd are also in town in the next day or two. I hope that I'll be able to decide by Wednesday.

Science Debate

"Given the many urgent scientific and technological challenges facing America and the rest of the world, the increasing need for accurate scientific information in political decision making, and the vital role scientific innovation plays in spurring economic growth and competitiveness, we, the undersigned, call for a public debate in which the U.S. presidential candidates share their views on the issues of The Environment, Medicine and Health, and Science and Technology Policy."

Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum over at The Intersection have assembled a crack list of scientists and science bloggers to launch the the ScienceDebate2008 website. If you are so inclined, go over and pledge your support. They have also set up rapidly-growing groups over at facebook and myspace.

Judgment Day

It's been a busy term... So much that I missed the original airing of the NOVA program "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" last week. Luckily for me, the entire episode is now available for viewing online, which I took advantage of tonight. If you haven't seen the show, you should. It's very well done from both scientific and journalistic points of view. It will soon be required viewing for my undergraduate Evolution course.

Joe Biden on Science Funding

Iowa is a great place to be if you are at all interested in national politics. Case in point: last Thursday I found myself in the same place as presidential hopeful Joe Biden. He was at the University Bookstore signing copies of his book, "Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics". The line wasn't very long, and I consider Joe to be one of my top three candidates this year. So I ponied up the $27 to buy a copy so that I could get him to sign it and throw a few questions at him.

I introduced myself as a Biology Professor and asked him about his thoughts on basic science funding. Without hesitation, he said that he would support a doubling of the NIH and NSF budgets. When I asked if I could post that comment on my blog, Biden agreed. He also was keenly aware that the although funding for both has increased in recent years under the current administration, it has not been effective at increasing basic science. I don't know how much of that was just telling me what I wanted to hear, but I was pleased.

He signed my book "Keep the faith. Keep on teaching" I don't know about the former....

On a related topic, check out the following link that matches your views to those of the current presidential candidates.