Many elected to party in Times Square on election night. Photo: GrrlScientist
Late Tuesday night, when Barack Obama was pronounced the next president of the United States, ScienceBloggers were overwhelmingly celebratory and reflective: Josh Rosenau joined in the chants in a Las Vegas casino. GrrlScientist, who snapped photos in Times Square, “was mesmerized by the sheer outpouring of emotion.” DrugMonkey posted a video clip of Martin Luther King Jr.‘s “I Have a Dream” speech and wrote: “Thank you—all of you that fought and bled and died so that we could have this hour of this day.” Even Matt Springer, a staunch Republican, said that though he doesn’t agree with Obama’s politics, he’s “very proud of this country for reaching such a milestone.”
By Wednesday, hangovers raged, exhilaration waned, and the bloggers moved on to the obvious question: What now?
Their responses ranged from extremely optimistic Chris Mooney, who said, “It’s clearly a new day for science in Washington, and there are strong grounds for feeling optimistic” to the extremely cynical PZ: “The world is a somewhat more hopeful place today than it was yesterday, but let’s get real.”
A few provocative opinions about Obama’s road ahead: James Hrynyshyn said that, in order to address climate change, Obama will need to get rid of our growth-based financial system, significantly increase government regulations, and “wrest control of industrial society from the hands of the petroleum transnationals.”
Chad Orzel said that Obama’s major obstacle will be that “a sizable chunk of the population is just flat crazy.”
Orac barraged Obama’s rumored choice for head of the EPA, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., for his longheld opposition of vaccination. Orac warns Obama: “By appointing such a strident and die-hard advocate of pseudoscience, in one fell swoop, you would destroy any credibility as a booster of science.”
Originally published November 6, 2008
