Geneticist Michael Eisen Launches Bid for US Senate
nature.com
nature.com
I hope this resonates deeply with the public.
Basic honesty has never been lower in politics, and it's teetering on scary levels.
A lot of us feel this, but out of interest, is there any evidence this is true, historically? We've always had lies and liars in politics, we just covered for them better.
William Randolph Hearst got the US involved in a war in Cuba through fake news reports that the Maine had been blown up by a mine. The public was lied to about Cleveland's operation, Wilson's stroke, FDR and Kennedy's health and affairs. Reagan or his administration lied about Iran-Contra. Hastert did a pretty good job of lying about himself for decades. Then there are all the small lies.
Maybe all Trump has done is brought the ugliness of politics out into the open and that makes us uncomfortable. Or is there really a reason to believe that political discourse is at a low in terms of honesty?
In regards to the article: if this means more use of actual science in politics, good! I hope this includes not only support for science but also a scientific approach for politics (which Eisen says as much) and also that science isn't used falsely as a justification for nonscientific positions. I know it's a soft science, but the Bush administration's adoption of Democratic Peace Theory as not just a theory but as policy is part of the reason we are in the mess we are now.
Be careful what you wish for. Eisen might have honest intentions, but as soon as politicians figure out you can win by supporting science, they'll invoke it as often as they do god now.
So, it's not so much that politics has changed, but rather, the expectations we have of it are higher because we know it can be better.
When it happens in software systems, it's generally seen as a quirk/unfortunate reality of the system itself. But as an org attempts to build systems around the original one, the tech debt becomes a glaring flaw that slows and complicates everything else. A refactoring is needed.
Our political system (US here, but broadly applicable) including all its written and unwritten rules (integrity, cooperation) has always had flaws. We've worked around them in order to get things done and move forward. It's only now that we've built up other, more engineered and integrated, systems that the technical debt is visibly holding us back. Invisible/ignored tech debt is never addressed; obvious debt is dealt with one way or another.
Without understanding science, one may mix up predicting the weather and forecasting global warming.
You need science to have an appreciation for the complexity of the world's ecosystems & have a respect for what is important to preserve.
You need science to understand economies.
You need math to understand population growth.
And you need some ability to reason to see what a massive effect AI & robotics will have on our economy.
Then, she could quit and cut a deal for who would succeed her: if she quits right after the election, Brown would appoint a two-year replacement; if she quit after the new governor is seated, s/he would make that appointment.
Were she younger, I think she'd run for Governor; if she won, she would make that replacement appointment herself.
God speed!
> Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 "to coordinate and plan the increasing use of the metric system in the United States". Voluntary conversion was initiated, and the United States Metric Board (USMB) was established for planning, coordination, and public education. The public education component led to public awareness of the metric system, but the public response included resistance, apathy, and sometimes ridicule.[8] In 1981, the USMB reported to Congress that it lacked the clear Congressional mandate necessary to bring about national conversion. Because of this ineffectiveness and an effort of the Reagan administration — particularly from Lyn Nofziger's efforts[9] as a White House advisor to the Reagan administration, to reduce federal spending — the USMB was disbanded in the autumn of 1982.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_Stat...
One striking recent example: in "Sherlock", the warning message outside Eurus' cell said to "Stay back 3 feet" (as opposed to "1 Meter"). In everyday conversation, people seem to refer to bodyweight most frequently in stone. Etc.
He's not running for an executive office, so it's more important that he be a good representative than a good leader.
It is quite possible that a 'career academic' like Dr. Eisen could succeed at the job since the role of most PIs in a top lab is bureaucratic paperwork and academic politics, but in most cases when you throw unqualified outsiders into these sort of political positions what you end up with is a government run by the unelected senior staff of the political figureheads that people are voting for.
Anyway, if the most recent election proved anything, it's that the people are willing to vote for "outsiders", so Eisen may just have a shot. What would happen if he's elected is, of course, hard to predict.
More broadly, though, science as practiced today consists of significant amounts of synthesizing diverse data of varying qualities and advocating for projects in the face of hostile audiences. Mike has been hugely successful in a cutthroat field, all while sticking to core principles of data access that others have argued would torpedo his tenure, his grants, and the careers of his trainees (none of which have been demonstrably true). Those sound like extremely valuable skills for a public servant.
conflict statement: I did my PhD in the Eisen Lab and graduated in 2015. You can bet your butt I'll be voting for him in 2018.