Welcome to the blogosphere - dissent not allowed

One of my favorite blogs has been intersection at scienceblogs.com. The primary writers are Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum. Both have solid credentials. Mooney is the author of two books on science and public policy: The Republican War on Science and Storm World. The former is good journalism and the latter is better. Kirshenbaum is a marine biologist who has worked on Science Policy for Sen Nelson (FL) and is currently working at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University.

Together, they helped establish the sciencedebate2008 effort. I agree with most of what they do, but in this latter effort, I part company with them. Sciencedebate2008 failed to get agreement to hold an actual debate. The best that they did was to put together a list of 14 questions on science, technology and public policy which they asked both the Obama and McCain campaigns to respond to. You can read the questions, the responses, and the public commentary on the responses at sciencedebate2008.com/vote/. It is well worth your time to read through this, and the commentary is telling. To the extent that the readership represents the "scientific community" then they pass Obama and fail McCain.

However, when I tried to post at scienceblogs.com that I preferred the policy set of Cynthia McKinney, it did not make it. While not totally unexpected, I am disappointed.