New Scientist asked both US presidential campaigns for an article putting forward their position on science. Mitt Romney's campaign declined – here, Democratic campaign adviser Andy Feinberg argues why Americans who care about science and its wider benefits should back Barack Obama for a second term

Getting into the spirit of science (Image: Rex Features)

I grew up in Pennsylvania during the breathtaking years of the space race. I graduated from high school in the summer Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. All the boys and girls, farmers and teachers, Democrats and Republicans felt that a career in science and discovery was the best that anyone could pursue.

That is why I became a scientist and a doctor and dedicated my career to uncovering what causes disease, eventually helping pioneer the field of epigenetics. I have made many discoveries, but only because I worked hard, had great teachers and students, and lived in a society that supported and believed in what I was doing. The US is full of people like me – that’s why we have the greatest scientific enterprise in the world.

Science matters for everything and everyone. Scientific research and innovation have made and continue to make huge improvements in the food we eat, the air we breathe, the energy we use, the medicines that prolong and improve the quality of our lives and, especially, in how we communicate.


But I am deeply concerned that without leadership and continued commitment to scientific research, the next generation of Americans will not make discoveries and benefit from them. That is why I am voting for Barack Obama.

Innovation must flourish

President Obama knows that in order to be globally competitive and to create an economy that is built to last, we must create an environment where invention and innovation can flourish. As 68 Nobel prizewinners in science or medicine noted in an open letter last month, he “understands the key role science has played in building a prosperous America and in the last four years, has delivered on his promise to renew our faith in science-based decision making and has championed investment in science and technology research, which is the engine of our economy”.

Every dollar invested in research today improves productivity and growth in the future. That is why President Obama called for the US to invest more than 3 per cent of our economy in public and private research and development – more than ever before – and is doubling investments for key basic research agencies, such as the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

To prepare our children for the future and to support science and mathematics, the President set the goal of training 100,000 new science and maths teachers over the next decade, noting: “These teachers will meet the urgent need to train one million additional science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) graduates over the next decade… bringing together leading businesses, foundations, non-profits, and professional societies to improve STEM teaching and learning.”

Eco-friendly president

President Obama acknowledges and is acting on climate change. In the absence of a cooperative Congress, he set fuel economy standards for vehicles that will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 6 billion tonnes between now and 2025 – the equivalent of taking every car in the world off the road for a year. He set carbon pollution standards for new fossil-fuel-fired power plants, helped negotiate international climate agreements and has demonstrated an untiring dedication to building a clean-energy economy.

Our ability to discover and innovate is what our country does best, but we risk losing that ability. Many politicians and pundits question whether we should keep investing in it. We need to stand up to them with a clear voice.

The US was founded by inventors and engineers with names like Jefferson and Franklin. But for much of the past decade, government stopped listening to scientists’ objective reports and tried to “edit” them politically in areas ranging from global warming to evolution. It was a chilling period.

And now a vocal segment of politicians – led by Mitt Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan, architect of the extreme Republican budget – and their supporters are demanding we gut government investment, saying industry will pick up the slack. This Romney-Ryan budget could devastate a long tradition of support for public research and investment in science at a time when this country’s future depends, as never before, on innovation. If cuts are made across the board, this budget would gut funding for the National Institutes of Health by 20 per cent. That means the number of new NIH research grants, which support discoveries from disease mechanisms to the most fundamental workings of cells, would shrink by over 1600 in 2014 and by over 16,000 over a decade. Sparing the NIH from this would force even deeper cuts in education, or for the National Science Foundation.

Staying competitive

And this is on top of a record that undermines science across the board. Romney would roll back health reforms, and prefers ideology over clear scientific evidence on climate change.

While we ponder cutting research investments by a fifth, the rest of the world is making new investments. This is a matter of global competitiveness.

Support for science and research should not be a matter of debate, or of politics. Scientists are driven by facts, and we must have the courage to follow the facts wherever they lead. Here, the facts are clear. If we cannot come together and maintain these investments, I fear for our economic future, and for the discoveries we will never make. Where we go from here – whether we move forward and keep innovating and discovering – is up to the American people.

Profile Andy Feinberg is a Gilman Scholar and professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. The views stated here are on behalf of the Obama campaign and do not express the position or views of the university