Science and the white house

John Rigden’s article in the June 2007 issue of Physics Today (page 47 ), recapitulating the relationships between American presidents and the scientific community in the past 50 years, is particularly timely in relation to the current intense campaign for that office.

Rigden is unstinting in praising President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his affection for those he called “my scientists,” but more is involved in Eisenhower’s affection than accidents of personalities.

As a West Point graduate, Eisenhower had a science education that far surpassed that of any other recent American president. To his scientific record should be added his initiative for the Geneva conferences, beginning in 1955, on the peaceful uses of atomic energy.

Without visible evidence to the contrary, it seems no current candidate for the office, except perhaps John McCain, has even a smattering of science education. Most prominent by far in the current crop of presidential aspirants are lawyers. And what do lawyers know about science? I put the following question to a lawyer who is widely recognized as one of the brightest in the profession: What would happen to any law school that imposed a science requirement as a condition for admission? He answered, “It would soon close its doors for lack of applicants.”

It is encouraging to know that Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is a physicist. But that makes the current crop of American presidential candidates look particularly undereducated and therefore questionably qualified to lead history’s greatest world power in a scientific age.