1. It is the fall 2020. the presidential campaign opens
It is the fall the presidential campaign opens. The ‘enlightened party'
has just made you its candidate for president. Debates with your rivals from the other parties loom. You have to be prepared to respond to these burning issues

2. Reuters reports:
He Jiankui of Southern University of Science and Technology of China said he had altered the DNA of twin girls born earlier this month to try to help them resist possible future infection with the AIDS virus
The university where he is based said it will hire experts to investigate, saying the work “seriously violated academic ethics and standards.”
Wait a moment: should the progress of science be confounded by such “ethical” considerations? Good grief, Charlie Brown, do we live in the middle ages?
Does your govt support this research? Do you believe it should be allowed for animals but not for humans?
How reliable are ethical concerns anyway?

3. An OpEd in the WSJ asked on Tuesday: Imagine what we could cure?
Imagine what we could learn today from big-data analysis of everyone’s health records: our conditions, treatments, outcomes?
Then throw in genetic data, information on local environmental conditions, exercise, and life style habits and end with the treasure troves accumulated Google and Facebook. The gains would be tremendous.
Authors: Pecs and Cockburn of the Hoover and Cato Institutes and serious scholars.
Surely the benefits to society and to individuals outweigh the disadvantages associated with some loss of privacy? Or?

4. To vaccinate or not to vaccinate??
An outbreak of influenza [or measles? Or polio, or whatever] is at hand.
Your ’science board’ assures you that vaccinations are safe and effective, and that if 95% are vaccinated even those who cannot, they too will be protected by the ‘herd’.
Many of your political supporters and well-meaning people reject vaccination as dangerous and as an offense against ‘freedom to choose’ what is best for their children?
Science and culture appear to be at odds with one another. What is your solution? Politically: Can you afford to offend your most progressive and energetic supporters?

5. Given our precarious fiscal situation and to promote the general welfare
Your government wants to fund new programs that will enhance the general welfare. Your staff want to double the amount of money allocated
to support scientific research, theoretical and applied? Or
to provide ‘free’ medical coverage for all? Or
put the money into primary and secondary education
What are the advantages of each? And [given the financial constraints] you cannot do all three.

6. Politically, you must hold other agencies ‘harmless’ financially, hence to cover the costs of this critical investment…
you will either have to
double taxes or
double worker / industrial productivity / growth
Attempt to cut or limit access to other popular government programs [Medicare? Benefits for vets? Military?]
or some combination of the three.
What is your strategy?
What does reason tell you will deliver the maximum advantage / benefit?
What do your moral/ ethical standards tell you?
What does your political sense tell you about the the countervailing forces. That is: Are there political costs associated with your strategy? And who will object?

7. The National Institute of Health tells you that population growth is unsustainable given the national and global resources. A new policy is required…
Some of your more enlightened and scholarly advisors want to:
Limit the number of female children to one per family
Others want
to raise the taxes on those who choose to have more than one child.
Still others want to:
Limit the number of Pampers / Huggies that can be sold
Require those whose GPA is below 3.5 to have a vasectomy or tubal ligation
Use advertising / persuasion to convince potential parents that their life style will suffer.
Other?

8. The CDC informs you…
With a simple screening test of both parents, we can insure that no child is born with genetically determined disabilities or deformities (congenital deafness, blindness, epilepsy, etc.)
What should be done with this ‘assessment of risk’?
Should the test be required of all those who wish to marry and / or have children?
And what should be done with those who wish to proceed anyway to have children? Should society cover their medical expenses?

9. Your ‘science advisory board’ anticipates that:
It will soon be possible to use therapeutic cloning to generate tissues and organs for transplant.
To do this the DNA would have to be extracted from each the person in the fetus stage and inserted into an enucleated egg.
Organs would be generated from the cloned human embryos.
What is your policy? Who will support this program? Who might object and why?

10. Your science advisors note that
A gene from a spider that helps the arachnid produce silk can be inserted into the DNA of an ordinary goat.
That exact process, your scientist inform you, can be used to breed goats that produce silk proteins in their goat milk.
The milk is can then be harvested and the silk protein is isolated to make a lightweight, ultra-strong silk with a wide range of industrial and medical uses.
Your issue? Can you authorize this kind of genetic manipulation?
And could the process be used on cows?
Or on humans?

11. Resources are disappearing; we need a new strategy to stop the ‘bleeding’. Your program for saving the planet involves: ?

12. Your ‘science advisory board’ informs you
That with a ‘simple restructuring’ of human DNA of each American we can insure that congenital diseases will be eliminated.
What is your policy recommendation to the voters?
Who will support such a program? And who will object?
What do you want to do with those who refuse the offer and indeed do produce handicapped children? Will you cover their medical expenses?

13. Some of the leading geneticists tell you that they can
produce a GMO strain of wheat that is resistant to drought and insecticides and has has a yield and nutritional value 50% greater than conventional wheat.
They assure you that there are no health concerns, and the need for this product in the fight against hunger is manifest.
Can you embrace and promote this product? For you country? Or for other countries that experience famine?

14. Bothun and Nicols believe and here reveal that…
Because our students are trained to be skeptical, rational [aka ‘beyond politics’] and enlightened ...
Because they are also apolitical and amoral, and
Because the average voter is uneducated, venal and un-enlightened
Our students should work with other members of the enlightened scientific ‘establishment’ when it comes to deciding the critical policy issues of the day. Do you agree?