Sir

Your Editorial 'Nobels in dubious causes' (Nature 447, 354; 2007) urges scientists and Nobel laureates to “campaign only where they can truly make a difference”. I think you mean that we should use our fleeting fame only in causes that we know something about. Or, as Pliny the Elder put it: “Shoemaker, stick to your last”.

A few laureates may sign too many things. However, as a founder and board member of Scientists and Engineers for America, I use my Nobel prize to discuss something I know a good deal about.

Our aim is to make available to society at large the evidence-based science relating to critical issues facing us all. There is a lot of shouting out there and it is hard for the layperson to find reality. Political affiliation does not matter to us. Both Republican and Democratic presidential candidates endorse corn-based ethanol as an energy source. Both are wrong; it is our job to call it mainly a farm subsidy and explain why it is that rather than what it is claimed to be. It is up to the public to decide how much to support it.

We are also educating scientists on how to run for school boards. We hope many of them will win, and in this way improve the poor state of science education in our schools and keep it focused on the real world.

We intend to inform the electorate of the science-based issues that their elected officials have to face, and of what actions these officials have taken. We also intend to summarize the science behind the issues, including what we know and what we don't know. We hope both to draw attention to under-appreciated science issues and provide the advocacy necessary to get things done — not along party-political lines, but scientifically.