How the Republican ticket incorrectly referred to science on the campaign trail

Scientific American Magazine - January 5, 2009

How the Republican ticket incorrectly referred to science on the campaign trail

By Steve Mirsky

You’re not supposed to kick a guy when he’s down.

Of course, in reality, when he’s down is the perfect time to kick him. He’s closer to your feet, for one thing. But the particular kicking I have in mind should be thought of as tough love. These kicks at the freshly defeated McCain-Palin ticket, as I write in early November, are an attempt to knock some sense back into the group of my fellow Americans who seem determined to ignore or even denigrate valuable scientific research because it’s something outside the realm of Joe the Plumber’s daily activities.

So let’s review. During the presidential campaign, Senator John McCain repeatedly attacked a specific bit of federal funding to study bear DNA. “You know, we spent $3 million to study the DNA of bears in Montana. I don’t know if that was a criminal issue or a paternal issue,” he said in his first debate with Senator Barack Obama. (That attempt at humor went over like an iridium balloon, which is denser than a lead balloon.) As an article published in February on the Scientific American Web site showed, the money (actually closer to $5 million since 2003) is paying for an accurate population count of grizzlies living on the eight million acres of the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem.

Says biologist Richard Mace of Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, “We have a federal law called the Endangered Species Act, and the federal government is supposed to help identify and conserve threatened species.” The first step to protect endangered grizzlies is to know how many there are. A reliable—and safe—way to do that is to set up barbed wire stations that grab fur as a grizzly wanders by. The researchers retrieve the fur and analyze the DNA to count individuals. Some bear haters, such as comic commentator Stephen Colbert, may question the need to save the grizzlies in the first place. But unless the Endangered Species Act is changed, federal law requires this expenditure. Strike one.

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