Michael Eisen in 2018 CA Senate race

On Homeland Security: No need for more military, stop taking from what we do need

On Budget & Economy: We need to fight together in unison against all budget cuts

Eisen: Scientists, don't just complain about NIH, NSF and other budget science cuts. The whole budget is a travesty and must be fought in unison.

Q: On a practical level, to do that, don't we need to point out the biggest problems with it?

Eisen: It's a strategy to pit groups against each other--it's the premise that we need budget cuts that's the problem.

On Budget & Economy: We need to fight together in unison against all budget cuts

Twitter Question: I agree, tho on a practical level, to do that, don't we need to point out the biggest probs w/ it? Yes, many besides sci cuts.

Eisen: It's a strategy to pit groups against each other--it's the premise that we need budget cuts that's the problem.

On Civil Rights: Study gender bias in scientific publications

• The number of female authors falls off as you go down the list of authors of a paper, with fewer than 30% of senior authors female.
• Contrary to my expectation, there doesn't seem to be a bias to put the male author first when there are male-female co-first author pairs.
• There are, however, far fewer male-female co-first author pairs than there should be based on the number of male and female first and second authors.
• The same thing holds true more generally for first-second author pairs. There is a deficit of cross gender pairs and a surplus of same gender pairs.

On Energy & Oil: Base climate change policy on science, not politics

Eisen: There has been a growing sense of frustration among scientists about the way decisions are made in politics--in particular, the way science is integrated into decision-making. I mean "science" in the grand sense--the process of making observations, characterizing reality and then using that characterization to make judgments about the best course of action. Politics should function similar to science. We should try to figure out what's going on in the world and then debate the best way to do it, to make the world better.

Q: Why the US Senate?

Eisen: The immediate motivation was watching a Senate hearing where they were discussing a scientific issue, like climate change. I thought: "It would be really nice to have scientists ask the questions of the Cabinet appointees, because the senators don't seem to understand the issue and aren't asking the right questions."

On Environment: EPA needs to be more transparent and avoid using hidden data

On Environment: EPA needs to be more transparent and avoid using hidden data

On Gun Control: Why are politicians reluctant to regulate guns?

On Gun Control: Shine light on politician's reluctance to regulate guns

On Health Care: Gutting Obamacare leaves those in need without healthcare

Eisen's response: Until her daughter gets diabetes. Then the fact that you gutted Obamacare, leaving Cindy and her daughter without health insurance, forces her to sell her kidney to buy insulin.

On Health Care: Gutting ObamaCare leaves people without health insurance

Eisen's response: Until her daughter gets diabetes. Then the fact that you gutted ObamaCare, leaving Cindy and her daughter without health insurance, forces her to sell her kidney to buy insulin.

On Homeland Security: No need for more military nor a border wall

On Immigration: Differentiate dangerous immigrants from those who integrate

Eisen: My goal here is not a narrow defense of science. I am not about "Get more funding for science!" Rather, it is about a worldview--a way of approaching problem-solving and thinking about challenges. People do it every day in their real lives, but yet for some reason it has ceased to drive our political decision-making. For instance: How can we best grow food that is good for us, and how should agriculture be structured? What kinds of immigrants integrate well and who is dangerous? There are answers to these questions, based on data and analysis. I have a hypothesis: Having more scientists involved in politics and the public sphere would improve the way we make decisions, the way we characterize our world and how we figure out what we do about it. I felt it was necessary to test that hypothesis.

On Principles & Values: Ran and lost for Student Council and Genetics Board

A: My motivation was simple. I'm worried that the basic and critical role of science in policymaking is under a bigger threat than at any point in my lifetime. We have a new administration and portions of Congress that don't just reject science in a narrow sense, but they reject the fundamental idea that undergirds science: That we need to make observations about the world and make our decisions based on reality, not on what we want it to be. For years science has been under political threat, but this is the first time that the whole notion that science is important for our politics and our country has been under such an obvious threat.

Q: Have you ever run for anything?

A: Student council in high school.

Q: Did you win?

A: No. I also ran for a spot on the board of the Genetics Society of America, which I also did not win. I've had a long and testy relationship with the scientific establishment.

On Technology: Patents are destroying the soul of academic science

The academic quest for patents is no longer the side story. Where once technology licensing staff rushed to secure intellectual property before scientists blab about their work, patents now, in many quarters, dominate the game. Experiments are done to stake out claims, new discoveries are held in secrecy and talks and publication are delayed. But the most worrying trend has been the willingness of some researchers & research institutions to distort history, demean their colleagues and misrepresent the scientific process to support these efforts.

On Technology: Government should be a partner, not just a funding source

Eisen says that he's one of a growing number of scientists who, in response to the election of President Donald Trump, have decided that their political activism has to rise above simply lobbying for more funding. "Too much of the scientific establishment looks at the government as a bank--that the primary thing we should worry about is can we get the right amount of money out of Congress," he says. "Too few people focus on the fact that science needs to be a partnership with the public for it to thrive."