Fool Me Twice Fighting the Assault on Science in America

The increasing online communication among scientists and engineers around the globe is causing a phase-change in the scientific revolution, speeding up the process of scientific discovery and the convergence of knowledge across a variety of once-separate fields. Solutions to the largest problems the world facesclimate change, energy, biodiversity loss, ocean health, water supply, and bio-securityare scientific and technological, but politics is failing to keep up with them. Tremendous discoveries are being made in geo-engineering, genetics, synthetic life, and neuroscience that will impact all of us. Yet our social and political institutions are behind the times. Less than 2 percent of members of Congress have a professional background in science or the training to tell valid information from nonsense. Half the new members elected in 2010 deny climate change is happening. Shawn Lawrence Otto downloads some of the great minds of the science world and writes a behind-the scenes look at the top science questions facing the country now and in the near future. Saving Scienceexposes how the government, our politics, and the media prevent us from finding the real solutions we need to the catastrophes we may confrontand shows us how we can remedy the situation.

S H A W N  L A W R E N C E  O T T O  is the cofounder and CEO of Science Debate 2008, the largest political initiative in the history of science. He is also an award winning screenwriter best known for writing and coproducing the Academy Award–nominated House of Sand and Fog. He lives in Minnesota.