Obama for President

In case it isn't obvious, I might as well make it explicity: I support Barack Obama for President. In the scientific community, support for Obama is very strong, so I'm joining with my colleagues on this one. Recently, a group of 63 Nobel Laureates announced their endorsement of Obama, in an open letter you can find here. (Of course I don't consider myself a part of this group - by "colleagues" I mean the broad scientific community.)

It's a short letter, but I'll quote just one sentence: "we support the measures he plans to take – through new initiatives in education and training, expanded research funding, an unbiased process for obtaining scientific advice, and an appropriate balance of basic and applied research – to meet the nation's and the world's most urgent needs." Francis Collins, formerly the Director of NHGRI, also endorsed Obama recently, and although he focused primarily on positive aspects of Obama's plans, he also wrote: "As I have examined the positions taken by the current Presidential candidates on these critical issues, I regret to say that I have found little comfort in Sen. John McCain's plan."

There are many non-scientific reasons to support a candidate, but this is a science-focused blog, so I'll stick with these. On scientific issues, Obama has a far better agenda than McCain.