Draining down Science

We need to step up our efforts in science in this country. We had a wake up call once before, when the Russians launched Sputnik. That panicked Americans because until that time we sat back in fortress America, secure in the certainty that we were ahead and invincible. Spuntik taught us that if the Russians could launch a satellite, they could launch ICBMs and wipe us out.

Our panic spurred the space race, drove a generation of students into science and engineering, put men on the moon, and provided us with the boost to keep us ahead in technology for decades.

We stand at a point similar to that right now. This crisis isn't as clear as Sputnik but its implications are just as dire. The problem is that we are divided in our understanding and perception of this crisis. In fact, have a sizable faction of the country that doesn't think there is a crisis.

The main crisis I'm speaking about, of course, is climate change, but that is just a result. The root crisis is energy and our using up resources while polluting our planet. The tragedy is that not only are we not prepared with enough engineers and scientists, but we aren't trying to increase our pool of qualified people or fund the institutions that train them and produce our basic research.

These are not new thoughts to me, but lately, there are some things that have happened that remind me of the horrible position we are in. I love the Mars exploration rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Last month's decision to scale back the Martian Probe program and idle the probes shows a lack of spirit and squanders a golden opportunity. Here is a program that is being cut because it is succeeding far beyond its initial expectations. The probes can't last forever, shouldn't have lasted for as long as they do, and shouldn't be abandoned just because we are short sighted and don't have the will to see this experiment out to the end.

The mounting crisis I fear the most is the degredation science education in schools. It started coming under deliberate and systematic attack because creationists objected to the teaching of evolution in schools. Elections of School Board officials in Kansas were based solely on the desire to turn back science education 140 years and derail progress in rational thought. When parents teach their children that science is attacking their religion and they shouldn't believe in what science tells them, they are no better than the Taliban or Iranian fundamentalists that sought to cram their people's increasingly free minds back into the box of religion inspired ignorance.

Science has also been under attack by Bush Administration, starting with the muzzling of any government scientist that spoke out about climate change and continuing with the restrictions on funding stem cell research.

Our trade agreements have resulted in a steady drain of manufacturing jobs, requiring less trained engineers in industry than in the past. Our software companies cannot find enough qualified programmers to develop the programs we need to function in society (witness the latest Windows launch of Vista, in addition to many other examples of glitchy, slow, and poor performing systems and software).

A recent Journal of Science podcast had an excellent discussion where the speaker talked about the long term benefits of primary research. He mentioned that some of the most important discoveries were originally just novelties and real breakthroughs took years to become developed, put into widespread use, and eventually become essential to life as we know it. The podcast listed railroads (almost 60 years from discovery to widespread use), computers (40 years), lasers (30 years), and transistors (30 years) as inventions that fit this description.

The mysteries we are probing now, such as the nature of Mars and Saturn, the search for dark matter, and understanding subatomic particals are basic fields of research that need to be explored. No one can predict where these searches will take us. The discoveries we are tapping into now have the promise of fueling industry and solving our problems for many years to come. Now is not the time to scrimp on science, now is the time to redouble our efforts.

Post Script: right after posting this, I heard a Scientific American story about the movie Expelled starring Ben Stein. This is a movie touting the merits of Intelligent Design and talking about how Evolution is flawed, but the scientific community is aggressively working to discredit anyone that opposes it. So my posting is timely, and the story goes beyond my premise to show that there are people actively working to discredit science.