Skeptical Voter

Thank you so much to everyone for the interest and support you have given us so far. We'll look through all the Endorsements you sent us and will pick a few representatives to put on the site. Also, we're hugely impressed and grateful for how well the Wiki is turning out already, even only after a few weeks of opening. This is a great start and something I hope will only get more useful as we go on.

Five months from now we are likely to have a new Parliament and it is becoming more important than ever that we have evidence and reason at the centre of policy making. With this in mind, Skeptical Voter plans to send out a survey to as many MPs and parliamentary candidates as possible to gauge their support for skeptical issues. We cannot do this alone and want to make sure that the questions we ask are well chosen.

Here's our own selection to get started. What do you think?

1. Do you support the use of public funds to provide unproven alternative "treatments" such as homeopathy?

2. Should schools be allowed to teach creationism as an equivalent theory to evolution?

3. Do you believe that religious belief should be legally protected from ridicule?

4. Should an independent government adviser whose views in their area of expertise conflict with government policy be able to express those views publicly without fear of being sacked?

5. Should Sharia law be allowed as an alternative system within UK law?

6. Do you agree that testing on animals (within strict criteria) is a necessary part of the development of medicines?

7. Should policy-makers trust scientific evidence even when it appears counter-intuitive?

8. Do you think that abortion time limits should always be determined by the current scientific and medical consensus?

9. Should religious leaders be entitled to vote in the House of Lords?

10. Do you support the reform of English and Welsh libel law to allow a stronger 'public interest' defence?

Hello, and welcome to Skeptical Voter, a new website where we aim to discover and catalogue the political positions of Members of Parliament and candidates in next general election, specifically with regard with issues that 'Skeptical' people are interested in. These include the attitude of candidates to evidence-based policy, the role of the libel laws in science, and the teaching of creationism in schools.

Which policy areas do you really care about that would benefit from an evidence-based approach? Would you be interested in tracking your MP's (or potential MP's) views on the importance of evidence in drug policy, healthcare, crime, education for example? Please add your comments below.

Assuming that there will be 646 seats in the House of Commons up for grabs at the next election (http://bit.ly/13hSoU) then, even if we only track the main three parties, that's 1,938 candidates whose opinions on evidence-based policy that we wish to track and perhaps 1,292 candidates with no recent voting record to examine. This means that we will have to settle for gathering survey data from potential candidates so we could really use some help in showing politicians that it is worth their while to respond. The more constituents who show an interest, the easier it will be to get a useful response so please register your interest on our Pledge Support contact page.

Thank you!