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NOBEL LAUREATES SUPPORT KERRY By Jill Zuckman Tribune national correspondent Forty-eight Nobel laureates denounced President Bush on Monday for "compromising our future" when it comes to scientific research and the environment, and said Sen. John Kerry "will restore science to its appropriate place in government and bring it back into the White House. The star-studded scientific endorsement for Kerry came on a day when the presumptive Democratic nominee stood in Civic Center Park and told several hundred rain-soaked voters that the way to build the economy is to invest in science, technology and higher education. "We need a president who will once again embrace our tradition of looking toward the future and new discoveries with hope based on scientific facts, not fear," said Kerry, vowing not to let "ideology and fear stand in the way." Many scientists have complained that the Bush administration has filled science advisory panels with conservative ideologues rather than individuals with sterling scientific credentials. In an open letter to the American public, Nobel Prize winners including Caltech President David Baltimore and cancer researcher Harold Varmus said "the Bush administration has ignored unbiased scientific advice in the policy-making that is so important to our collective welfare." Burton Richter, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1976 and helped organize the letter of support for Kerry, said laureates don't usually take such a public stand on non-scientific matters. "It's unusual, and I hope you take this as a sign of how seriously all of us think the errors of our present course are," said Richter. Among the others signing the letter were physicists James Cronin of the University of Chicago and Leon Lederman, former director of Fermilab. Kerry's focus on science, and his push for stem cell research, comes shortly after the death of former President Ronald Reagan (news - web sites), who had Alzheimer's disease (news - web sites). Stem cell research is seen by some as a way of spurring discoveries that could cure Alzheimer's and other diseases. And Kerry praised Nancy Reagan, noting that "her pleas for stem cell research joined the pleas of millions across this country and reinforces in all of us the need to tear down every wall today that keeps us from finding the cures of tomorrow." As it has for weeks, the Bush campaign accused Kerry of waging the politics of pessimism. "Only John Kerry would declare the country to be in scientific decline on a day when the country's first privately funded space trip is successfully completed," said Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt. "America is the world leader in patents, research and development and Nobel Prizes, and the president's budget raises federal research and development funding to $132 billion for 2005, a 44 percent increase since taking office." Kerry officials, however, accused Bush of taking an anti-science stance. They said he has proposed cutting most research and development in non-defense programs, and reducing funding for the National Science Foundation (news - web sites) and the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites)'s research budget. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn