Campaign ' 88

When U.S. presidential candidates take to the stump, science and technology policy is not among the principal topics they address. Press them about specific proposals-whether they would reinstitute the President's Science Advisory Committee, for example, or how they would pay for a space station or for sequencing the human genome-and many veer off into abstractions.

While they may be more comfortable talking about jobs, education, national security and foreign relations, it's nevertheless clear that the contenders for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations have differing visions of issues that touch on science policy. Some favor shifting more federal support to civilian R&D others believe that government research efforts should be focused on military programs. Nearly all of them support the federal R&D tax credit, but while some would like to see it phased out eventually, others hope that...