I had to do a double-take when I read your headline. Is our first African-American president "down with" observation in 2009 or in 1979?

Unfortunately, Obama's top science advisor, John Holdren, has a record of extrapolating observations further than they can be supported. In 1980 he famously predicted that the world would run out of certain key metals; ten years later, those metals were cheaper and more abundant than before. He openly supports the work of Paul Ehrlich, a scientist whose predictions of mass starvation and population crash have been wrong for some 40 years. And now Holdren is dising Bjorn Lomborg on climate change -- another complex system which thus far has not been behaving as computer models have predicted.

Observation is great. But how you interpret those observations is at least as important, and Holdren's track record isn't good.

It will be nice to have an obsrvation and reality based science aadviser rather than a faith-based one. And I would not call Paul Ehrllich as scientist!

Here's an op-ed piece from the Washington Post by Duke University engineering professor Henry Petroski. [Full disclosure: I have a big fat geek-girl crush on Henry Petroski.]

It begins,

"'We will restore science to its rightful place,' President Obama declared in his inaugural address. That certainly sounds like a worthy goal. But frankly, it has me worried. If we want to 'harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories,' as Obama has decreed, we shouldn't look to science. What we need is engineering."

He goes on,

"Most people who aren't scientists or engineers seem to think that science and engineering are the same. They're not. Science seeks to understand the world as it is; only engineering can change it."

And,

"Some of our greatest energy challenges require engineering breakthroughs, not scientific discoveries. The principles that explain how a battery works, for example, are old news. But a lightweight and cost-effective battery pack with enough juice to power a car over long distances remains an elusive goal.

The same is true of fuel and solar cells. Scientists established long ago that natural processes involving chemicals and sunlight can produce electricity. We need engineers to make the cells lean enough to compete with coal and oil. Science alone is never enough."

And wraps up with,

'Obama should keep his promise to "restore science to its rightful place' -- and put engineering on at least an equal footing."