Blue Science and Red Science

[Geee]

Reason Magazine:

According to Nobel Prize–winning economist Robert Solow, technological progress has been responsible for about half of U.S. economic growth since the end of World War II. Politicians of all stripes recognize the importance of science and technology to our future well-being. So what do the Democratic and Republican party platforms have to say about science and technology policy? Below are a few highlights.

 

Stem cells. President George W. Bush restricted federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to work done with cell lines derived before August 2001. In its 2008 platform, the Democratic Party promised to “lift the current Administration’s ban on using federal funding for embryonic stem cells.” The 2012 platform notes that Obama “issued an executive order repealing the restrictions on embryonic stem cell research” in March 2009.

 

The 2012 Republican platform calls for “expanded support for the stem-cell research that now offers the greatest hope for many afflictions—with adult stem cells, umbilical cord blood, and cells reprogrammed into pluripotent stem cells—without the destruction of embryonic human life.” The platform is silent on the question of privately funded research on embryonic stem cell research, but it does advocate a “ban on human cloning and on the creation of or experimentation on human embryos.”