The

1
The enlightened party'

• has just made you its candidate for president.
  Debates with your rivals from the other parties
  loom. You have to be prepared to respond to
  these burning issues

2
To promote the general welfare

• The government should double the amount of money
  allocated
• to support scientific research, theoretical and
  applied? Or
• to provide free medical coverage for all? Or
• put the money into primary and secondary
  education
• What are the advantages of each? And given the
  financial constraints you cannot do all three.

3
Politically you must hold other agencies
harmless financially, hence to cover the costs
of this critical investment

• you will either have to
• double taxes or
• double worker / industrial productivity
• Attempt to cut or limit access to other popular
  government programs
• or some combination of the three.
• What is your strategy?
• What does reason tell you will deliver the
  maximum advantage / benefit? What does your
  political sense tell you about the the
  countervailing forces.
• That is Are there costs associated with your
  strategy? And who will object?

4
Geneticists tell you that they can

• produce a cloned strain of wheat that is
  resistant to drought and insecticides and has has
  a yield and nutritional value 50 greater than
  conventional wheat.
• They assure you that there are no health
  concerns, and the need for this product in the
  fight against hunger is manifest.
• Can you embrace and promote this product? For you
  country? Or for other countries that experience
  famine?

5
The National Institute of Health tells you that
population growth is unsustainable given the
national and global resources. A new policy is
required

• Some of your more enlightened and scholarly
  advisors want to
• Limit the number of female children to one per
  family
• Others want
• to raise the taxes on those who choose to have
  more than one child.
• Still others want to
• Limit the number of Pampers / Huggies that can be
  sold
• Require those whose GPA is below 3.5 to have a
  vasectomy or tubal ligation
• Use advertising / persuasion to convince
  potential parents that their life style will
  suffer.
• Other?

6
The CDC informs you

• With a simple screening test of both parents, we
  can insure that no child is born with genetically
  determined disabilities or deformities
  (congenital deafness, blindness, epilepsy, etc.)
• What should be done with this assessment of
  risk?
• Should the test be required of all those who wish
  to marry and / or have children?
• And what should be done with those who wish to
  proceed anyway to have children? Should society
  cover their medical expenses?

7
Your science advisory board anticipates that

• It will soon be possible to use therapeutic
  cloning to generate tissues and organs for
  transplant.
• To do this the DNA would have to be extracted
  from each the person in the fetus stage and
  inserted into an enucleated egg.
• Organs would be generated from the cloned human
  embryos.
• What is your policy? Who will support this
  program? Who might object and why?

8
Your science advisory board informs you

• That with a simple restructuring of human DNA
  of each American we can insure that congenital
  diseases will be eliminated.
• Who will support such a program? And who will
  object?
• What is your policy recommendation to the voters?
  

9
To vaccinate or not to vaccinate??

• An outbreak of influenza or measles? Or polio,
  or whatever is at hand.
• Your science board assures you that
  vaccinations are safe and effective, and that if
  95 are vaccinated even those who cannot be will
  be protected by the herd.
• Many of your political supporters reject
  vaccination as dangerous and as an offense
  against freedom to choose what is best for
  their children.
• Science and culture appear to be at odds with one
  another. What is your solution? Politically Can
  you afford to offend your most progressive and
  energetic supporters?

10
Resources are disappearing we need a new
strategy to stop the bleeding. Your program
for saving the planet involves

• ?
• ?
• ?

11
Bothun and Nicols argue

• Because our scientists are trained to be
  skeptical and rational aka beyond politics
  and
• Because they are also apolitical and amoral, and
• Because the average voter is venal and
  un-enlightened
• we should put ourselves into the hands of the
  enlightened scientific establishment when it
  comes to deciding the critical policy issues of
  the day. Do you agree?