Sci­ence Debate 2008 is a small group of peo­ple who, in 2007, began work­ing to “restore sci­ence and inno­va­tion to America’s polit­i­cal dialogue”.

Enlist­ing the help of over 38,000 peo­ple they gath­ered a total of 3,400 press­ing sci­ence ques­tions from nearly every major Amer­i­can sci­ence orga­ni­za­tion, dozens of Nobel lau­re­ates, elected offi­cials and busi­ness lead­ers, and the pres­i­dents of over 100 major Amer­i­can universities.

Nar­rowed down to just 14, the ques­tions were then fielded to the pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates and their answers com­piled as the top 14 sci­ence ques­tions fac­ing Amer­ica.