MS: America is really fortunate in that it has such a huge reserve of scientific intellectual capital that the idiotic policies of a single president are unlikely to destroy it entirely. But that does not mean the US should be too sanguine. Even very wealthy people can go bankrupt if they make bad financial decisions on a sustained basis, and so one should avoid repeatedly putting into power people who for whom everything is subordinate to religious and other non-scientific agendas. It is natural for politicians to think politically but this administration seems to think only politically and that attitude can do serious damage over the long term.
 
If I were president, I would try to increase the role of peer review in setting science priorities. I do not think that scientists alone should make the decisions, though. As I said earlier, I am a believer in democracy and think that regular people should also have a say in what is done in their name. So I would try and ensure that philosophers, ethicists, and the general public had the means to provide input into the decision making process, by having various layered levels of discussion.
 
MLU: You have my vote! Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, American evangelists were up in arms, pulling the "god card." They said that (our) god was with us during the tragedy, and that he would soon help us avenge the perpetrators of this horrible crime brought against our citizens. How they actually knew this to be true is beyond me, but on another level such talk struck me as absurd -- for it was precisely the kind of zealous religious thinking that motivated those who attacked us in the first place. What is it about religion that takes believers to such extremes?
 
MS: I think this is where Sam Harris's point discussed earlier (also made by Richard Dawkins) has particular relevance. Once you concede the idea of a god, you have ceased to think rationally in that area of your life, and are prey to those who preach extreme forms of religion. Of course, most people do not go so far, but that is because most people are not really that religious, though they say and act like they are. In the TV show House, someone asks the title character whether he is an atheist and he replies "Only on Christmas and Easter. The rest of the time it doesn't seem to matter." I think he is right. Most people are just nominally religious and unlikely to go off the deep end. It is the deeply religious who can be persuaded to do appalling things in the name of god because it is only they who will let their humane and ethical and common senses be overridden by the idea that god wants them to commit specific acts.
 
MLU: Judging by your writings you appear to be a pacifist, promoting peaceful dialogue and condemning war wherever it occurs. The recent Ken Burns television documentary on World War II highlighted the allied fight against Nazi Germany and Imperialist Japan in the early 1940's, which many feel was both inevitable and necessary. Do you believe there is ever a just cause for war?
 
MS: I think war is a terrible thing but I don't know that I am truly a pacifist. I can see a case being made to go to war but the bar has to be a lot higher that it currently is. I can see only one truly defensible reason for going to war: self-defense because of an actual attack on one's territorial integrity. Another reason for war might be in defense of helpless victims because of the occurrence of an ongoing genocidal or otherwise clear and imminent catastrophe. But this latter kind of war should only be executed with very wide international agreement, so that the case for intervention is clear and unambiguous, and is not the hidden agenda of a few interested parties or nations.