"We join this effort because we strongly believe that US science policy has been disastrous during the past several years, and that we need new and visionary leadership to ensure America’s dominant position in the sciences, and to maintain our nation’s competitiveness in the world." said Bob Horvitz (middle picture,) a MIT biologist who won a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2002.

*Photos left to right: Harold Varmus, by AP Photo/Doug Mills; H. Robert Horvitz, by AP Photo/Patrick Gardin; Peter Agre, by AP Photo/Gail Burton. *

A list of 61 Nobel Laureates issued an open letter to their fellow Americans Thursday urging them to vote for Barack Obama.

Asked about the basis of their support, a small sub-group of those scientists' answered: Because he's a safe bet, and because he would make science education and research funding a priority.

A trio of Nobel Laureates reached out to the media together with the Obama campaign Thursday to explain their support. They sounded haunted by the past eight years of the Bush Administration's unflagging record of fudging scientific evidence to suit political aims, and by its powerfully symbolic exile of its science advisers from the White House.

"We join this effort because we strongly believe that US science policy has been disastrous during the past several years, and that we need new and visionary leadership to ensure America’s dominant position in the sciences, and to maintain our nation’s competitiveness in the world." said Bob Horvitz, a MIT biologist who won a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2002.

The Nobel Laureates noted that federal funding has been important in helping them with their own achievements and discoveries.

The three scientists who held a conference call with reporters Thursday said that they couldn't trust John McCain's positions regarding science policy because of political pressure from religious conservatives. They were particularly concerned about McCain's position on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

McCain says he supports it, but his support isn't spelled out clearly enough to the scientists' liking.

McCain has a mixed record on the subject. He's previously opposed the funding of embryonic stem cell research, but changed his position in 2001 when he said he was "educated" about the subject. He's also joined with Kansas senator Sam Brownback to sponsor related legislation that scientists charge is based on a deliberate misinterpretation of scientific reality.

"While I think that Senator McCain has in the past ... had some reasonably progressive views, he's now in the difficult position of reconciling his views with that of the Republican platform," said Peter Agre, who won a Nobel Prize for his work in chemistry in 2003.

Harold Varmus, who is an Obama campaign science advisor, and who won a Nobel prize in 1989 for his work in medicine, said that there's general confusion in the scientific community over McCain's position.

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