Atomic Motor - Cold Fusion of Energy & Culture: Bill Gates Surprises Energy Debate (Spoof )

Bill Gates Surprises Energy Debate (Spoof )

Sunday, August 10, 2008

'Raises Awareness' on Science, Research & Education

[Image (c) Microsoft, 2008] Guitar hero Gates tries raising a water bottle for non-believers

[Wash DC] The Fourteenth International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF-14) which gets underway this week had surprising last minute guests drop in Sunday morning for a kickoff debate, involving a member of the media in the DC area, Llewellyn King debating the newly retired Bill Gates.

Did I read that correctly? Bill Gates as a science debate panelist?

Gates opened the debate by saying : "Well, first, I want to clarify: I’m not a fake Steve Jobs, nor a real electrochemist". After briefly discussing cold fusion's past public perceptions and some promising areas for future research, King and Gates then had a lengthy discussions with other panelists about the current energy situation, solar and wind energy, fossil fuel dependence and America's growing shortage of skilled scientists and engineers. "In fields such as chemistry, physics, engineering and specialized software skills, government and industry will need well trained people for future job growth," he said.

"America has such broad capabilities to bring scientists together. I think software and the web can help do that in new ways."

"One thing I'd also like to see more in the future are technology conferences that mix things up, where scientists in one field meet and debate engineers and specialists in another. We don't see enough of that sort of interesting interaction that stimulates new ideas with the public. It would help tremendously to see each others' points of view in a number of technology areas, capture the public's imagination and stimulate cross disciplinary ideas and help investors like myself weigh decisions," Gates said.

Foreign visa concerns were also prominent during the almost two hour debate because of a controversy in the weeks before the conference with some visiting condensed matter scientists. King mentioned that five foreign researchers who would be presenting papers could not get visas to attend this years' cold fusion conference, which caused some last minute scheduling snafus.

"When I ran a run a multi-billion dollar corporation I couldn't get H1-B visa's for many visiting software developers, so do you seriously think that several foreign scientists visiting this conference could cut through all that red tape in time to attend?," said Gates. "It would be like me me trying to levitate this bottle of water with my hand," as he gestured to King.

Gates also impressed upon members of the media to give more attention to improving the teaching of math and science. "This knowledge is essential to many of tomorrow's jobs", he said. "This is a hot issue and the media should help embrace it. The Britney route to inspiring tomorrows youth should sprinkle in a bit of science and math with all that partying we hear about. My fatherly advice is do some studying and set a good example," he said. "The Britney Industrial Complex needs innovation too."

A recent federal government study found almost forty percent of high school seniors failed to perform at the basic level on a national math test. Science skills issues were even more of a concern. "Half of 12th-graders didn't show basic science skills," Gates said.

The panelists fielded many audience questions afterwards.

From this blogger perspective it was a William F Buckley, Jr. style of debate on science and technology issues of the day. Perhaps the following quote from the Breakthrough Institute said it best recently :

'We need to invent totally new energy systems that we haven't even thought of yet.'
- Michael Shellenberger

The ICCF-14 cold fusion conference runs through friday August 15th, where members of the media, the public and science community are invited to attend.