"We built it; will they come?"

Why Clinton, McCain & Obama have a moral obligation to debate these issues

The case for the candidates at the Franklin Institute

March 14, 2008 

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Every Nobel laureate we've spoken to has said the same thing: the next four to eight years are critical and the next president has the potential to determine the future health of all life on earth.

On March 11, Bill Gates testified before Congress saying that on the economic front, America "is at a crossroads" and will almost certainly become a second-rate economy without massive attention to science & engineering in schools and changes in government policies toward innovation.

These are dire words from people who are normally cautious in language, and they are just two of the major questions that are getting virtually no discussion in our electoral process.

So on March 14, we held a high-powered press conference in Philadelphia, arguing that Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Barack Obama have a moral obligation to debate these issues.  It was attended by several TV and radio crews, print journalists, supporters and some terrific kids from a local science magnet high school.  After all, they're the ones that are going to have to live with our failed policies.

Presenters

Philip Hammer, Vice President, The Franklin Institute
Dennis Wint, President & CEO, The Franklin Institute
Shawn Lawrence Otto, CEO, Science Debate 2008; writer/co-producer, House of Sand and Fog

      Presenting by video
      John Podesta, former White House Chief of Staff; CEO, Center for American Progress
      John Porter, Chair, PBS; Chair, Research!America; former Congressman (R-IL)
      Peter Agre, Nobel laureate in Chemistry; co-founder, Scientists & Engineers for America
      Rosina Bierbaum, former Associate Director, White House Office of Science & Technology Policy
      John Holdren, Chair, American Association for the Advancement of Science
      Lawrence Krauss, Director, Center for Education & Research in Cosmology & Astrophysics, CRWU

James Jensen, Director of Government Relations, The National Academies
Martha Farah, Director, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania
Bill Bates, Vice President for Government Affairs, The Council on Competitiveness
Arnold Thackray, Chancellor and founding President of the Chemical Heritage Foundation,
Matthew Chapman, President, Science Debate 2008; writer, Runaway Jury; Charles Darwin's great-great grandson

      Present for Reporter Interviews
      Richard Gallagher, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, The Scientist magazine
      Brian Keech, Vice President of Government and Community Relations, Drexel University

Presenting by telephone:
Craig Barrett, Chairman, Intel
Walter Isaacson, President, Aspen Institute; author, Einstein and Benjamin Franklin (3/14 is Einstein's Birthday)
Peter Agre, Nobel laureate in Chemistry; founder, Scientists & Engineers for America
Lawrence Krauss, Astrophysicist, popular science author, Science Debate 2008 steering committee member