Sir

David Goldston appropriately demolishes the idea of a US presidential candidate debate on science, in his Column 'A debatable proposition' (Nature 451, 621; 2008). It's hard to imagine anything worse for the cause of science than to subject it to the sort of high-profile demagogic posturing now reserved for immigration, medical care, social security, the economic downturn and the war in Iraq. Science continues to enjoy a protected and privileged status in American politics, in no small part because of its absence from the national political stage — a fact that many science promoters stubbornly refuse to understand.