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The Decline of Science and Technology in America
puke76 writes "There's a good article over on the BBC about the decline of science and technology in the U.S.. Vint Cerf and others are going on record to voice their concerns about the current administrations recipe for 'irrelevance and decline.' Scientists are increasingly concerned about the White House's pandering to the religious right at science's expense. From the article: 'radically we have moved away from regulation based on professional analysis of scientific data ...to regulation controlled by the White House and driven by political considerations.'"
There's a saying that I hear a lot of religious people say: "You reap what you sow". Ironic then that in this case America gets precisely what it sows. You teach kids that ID is science and you get crappy scientists. You cut the percentage of GDP spent on RND and you get less nobel prize winners. You ignore the science of economics and you end up with a huge current account deficit which will take a decade to repay. You ignore the *fact* that human produced carbon dioxide is warming the earth and you wreck your environment just in time for your grandchildren.
America is at a cross-roads of sorts. It can choose to be the The Christian Republic of America or the United States of America. It seems as time goes on these options are becoming more and more mutually exclusive. The religious fanatics are intent on replacing the textbook with the Bible. The atheist fanatics (yes they do exist) are intent on removing any shred of religion from public life.
The next fifty years are going to be interesting. Will the US continue to train world class scientists and be a home for the creative? Or will the US sink in to irrevelence through placing religious dogma before pragmatism.
The condom policy in Africa makes me think the latter rather than the former.
Simon.
The sad thing is many of these christian fanatics are uneducated, Rush Limbaugh/ Bill O'Reilly products (sculpted zombies) who's life doesn't stray further than Wal-Mart.
I think this is a key point. And not just public support for science and government funding, but the motivation of young people going into the field is critically important to whether or not scientific effort actually makes a difference in the real world. Are there real world problems (like the problems that led to development of
radar and computing in WWII, or the needs of cold war espionage and besting the Soviets post-Sputnik) that captivate people's attention? If the critical needs are there, that ensures both public support, government funding, and highly motivated researchers bringing real advances.
And we do have critical needs for R&D work right now - renewable energy probably most critical. Developing things further in space is a challenge that needs our best efforts now too. But our government and media, and even places reflective of geek opinion like slashdot, spend a lot of effort downplaying the seriousness of problems like oil depletion and
global warming. People can't be motivated to do anything about it if most of the country thinks it's not really a problem at all.
Energy: time to change the picture.
First off it's easy to decline when you're the world leader to begin with. Unfortunately in an age where the Internet is taking over, and unlimited possibilities for learning present themselves, the protectionists in the Bush administration are having their way with Americans. What kind of an insane world leader would suggest that we have to fight religious extremists, and then in the next breath insists that he supports Christian ideology being taught in the 21st Century science classroom?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Corporations are more to blame for the decline of science than the government. Most industrial development is ultimately driven by companies looking to make money on new technologies. Lately, most companies have been gutting research budgets in favor of more short term profits (ie. HP). Look at most job postings, how many both require an advanced degree and are willing to pay enough to hire someone? Most companies aren't interested. Until corporate America can look past next quarter's numbers, R&D will not really exist in the U.S. anymore.
Yet Americans continue to think that they are automatically number one in everything. The man on the street still believes that we Americans are the smartest, strongest, and most capable people in the world. Mostly that's a delusion supported by ignorance, as the typical American knows very little about what's going on in the world outside of the US.
Certainly any American is capable of being the best, and is more likely to acheive that given good opportunities and education, and a culture that values whatever endeavor they choose. For science and technology, that's just not valued much by our culture. Americans like entertainment and instant gratification, and think the more of that they have the better they will be.
I fear for our future.
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
"Young Americans are opting for better paid law and medicine over science and engineering and visa restrictions on bright foreign students further dilute the talent pool"
Well, the more we blame this situation on religious/anti-religous bugaboos and other flamefests, and not on THE WAY WE RAISE OUR KIDS nothing will ever change.
How many of you (or your wives for that matter) get on their childs teacher's case for being "too hard on my kid", "they just aren't good at math" etc. and not the other way around?
Why do you think Asians kick so much ass in the sciences and tech fields? Because they believe in hard work and challenge their kids (granted, maybe too much sometimes)
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
The Bush neoconservatives believe that their destiny is to mold the world as they see fit, and they don't care what they have to do or say to fulfill that goal. If that means lying about WMD, killing civilians, or sacrificing military personnel, then so be it. It is all for the greater good.
So don't expect them to give a crap about the cost to science by doing what the religous right demands, cause they need them to be in power in the first place.
Now if they could find a way to launder money out of R&D, like the defense, pharma, or oil industries, then you might get somewhere.
Maybe some R&D project managers need to take
Jack Abramoff or Tom DeLay out for a few rounds of golf...
And while science is suffering from religious activists and the whim of politicians, innovations in engineering and technology as a whole are suffering from an outdated patent system, whose sole purpose seems to be rewarding large monopolies rather than promoting innovation.
A million monkeys and this is the best sig they could come up with...
If not that, they ended up running universities where their business depends on having more science students to
Then they get stressed out that my kids look around at their father and his cow-orkers stressing over whose job is the next to vanish. They look at the management, lawyers, and politicians getting wealthier and more powerful every year, and shock! they decide not to go into tech.
Here's the paradox: they want the best and brightest to make life decisions that they themselves saw as foolish.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I'm not sure that you understand what bias is. Just because Slashdot often paints Bush in a negative light when it comes to science-related issues, it doesn't mean that there's a bias. Face it, there's not much you can say that's positive about this administration's attitude towards science, and if the /. editors were to balance out all of the negative Bush-related science articles with positive ones, that would be extremely biased in Bush's favor. (In fact, that is the essence of what is wrong with Fox News.)
Un actually you are dead wrong.. The Indians, The Mexicans and even the Vikings were here before Christopher Colombus sailed that ocean blue. What we need is a completes separation of church and state. While people may have thier moral and religeous thoughts, i think our government needs to be able to look at whats good for americans without prejudice(and thats truly what most religeous politicians are) thought. Think about the supreme court...
~~"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." ~~Dennis Miller
As a Christian, and an amateur scientist (though not a Christian Scientist) I am increasingly disturbed by an administration that ignores whole chunks of the Bible (namely, nearly every word of Christ) in favor of pandering to a small and crazy fringe group who wants an untenable literal interpretation.
I am disturbed as a a scientist because it's holding us back, and educating our kids with BS, and I'm disturbed as a Christian because this is not Christianity, at least not of the mainstream portion. And most Christians are too afraid to stand up and say anything at the wholesale hijacking of their faith. (I wonder if this is how Muslims feel) Please, slashdotters, don't paint with a broad brush Christians as being like.....this.......
The "meat" of Christian teachings are _not_ incompatible with evolution, the big bang, modern society in general, etc, etc.
Voted for Bush the first time around, voted libertarian on try number 2.
Somebody please mod this back down. If the poster wants to make an insightful comment he/she can give some information to support it, as the child posters supported their claims to the contrary.
[javac] 100 errors
Many of the people who came to America were not religious conservatives, but religious liberals. The quakers, for example, were prosecuted for their views on organized religion. See this link for example. Your comments are exactly what the religious right would have us believe, that religion should be the core of our government, when in fact it was founded by people who got the harsh edge of that stick. The basis of our government is freedom of religion, not freedom to choose a state religion.
I stay out of peoples bedrooms and churchs, for the very reason that I don't want others in mine!
What you are saying, that America has always been a Christian nation the way it is today, is a nice little fairy tale, but it simply isn't true. Members of the Christian political movement that have hijacked America's politics in the last 45 years try to pretend that the spot they hold is their divine right and that they have always held it, that oceania has always been at war with eurasia, but the fact is a political member of the SBC stranded 200 years ago would be nothing but a ranting street preacher. Drop them 225 years ago among the deist-packed "founding fathers" that people are always trying to lay claim to, and they'd be even worse off...
Take any shred of religion out of the government, but don't tell me our forefathers or constitution says it should be that way.
Our "forefathers" and the constitutional law they wrote say it should be that way, in very specific terms:
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
god is, by defenition, outside of the scope of science. the question of the existance of god is theology [think sub-division of philosophy].
the only people that i see bringing god into scientific debates are fanatics trying to prove god's existance through non-scientific methods and logical fallacies while claiming it as science [eg intelligent design].
this does not make it science.
evolutionists have no opinion on god from a scientific point of view.
sum.zero
Ah yes. The ever so predictable jab at Bill Clinton from a republican. How convient that we use the past to gloss over the huge republican fuck up that is today present time.
Country is bleeding cash to foreign nations, country is insanely in debt, oil costs a fortune, christian religious dogma dictates public policy, record high unemployment, health care is unaffordable, we've off shored most of our manufacturing, stem cells are no considered babies, ass backwards tort reform, bullshit patriot acts by a republican government no less (the irony is fucking histerical)...
Oh the list goes on, and its retarded. There isnt a single GOOD thing that has come from this administration, other than perhaps "we invaded Afghanistan" but yet, havent gotten Bin Laden.
Our current goverment is a joke. They're incapable of doing anything AND that includes the democrats that are in office as well. They're lame and weak.
The republicans know how to fight, but they have no clue how to run a country. They certainly are good at giving government hand outs ot their rich friends though.
And that is a big issue.
So lets not talk about Clinton. Lets talk about the assholes in power RIGHT NOW.
The article got one thing right - unless you have a limitless passion for science, there is no reason for an American student to become a scientist.
If you become a PhD scientist, you will not get through your now essentially-mandatory post-docs until after you are thirty years old. Depending on your field, you can then expect to start at a salary of $60-80k.
On the other hand, a typical lawyer is out of school at age 25 and already makes a higher salary than the PhD will. Yes, they have a larger debt but it is only about a year's salary. Also, the lawyer does not have to worry much about someone from China or India replacing him at a third the price.
Economically, it does not make sense for a bright young American to choose science. We should not be surprised when few do.
Yes, those nasty Christians. The ones who kept learning alive inside monasteries during the Middle Ages. The ones who started the universities. Christians like Newton, Darwin and Galileo.
What learning? Most monks were illiterate scribes who learned to copy letters without ever learning how to read.
The real intended role of monestaries was to keep anyone remotely intelligent away from the general public where he might go starting trouble by speaking out against the Church. If you keep all the remotely bright people lured away, and force them to dedicate their life to the Church in order to learn anything, you can control them: and control of the masses was and is the purpose of Christianity since it's inception.
It's hard NOT to blame the Christian for the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings: they perpetuated that statement for thousands of years. The founding fathers were literally traitors of their day; not only to their King, but to their God as well. God had appointed King George to rule over them, and god-fearing men obeyed. Only evil heretics like Franklin and Jefferson dared rebelagainst the divine goodness incarnate in royalty. Or so said the Christians.
They claimed it was God who appointed the Kings, and it was a heresy against God to argue against the Church.
Newton, Darwin, and Galileo didn't have the choice to reject Christianity: when you face death for being an atheist, it's not a good idea to argue against a God. In England, the early copyright laws were formed to keep unpopular writings supressed: pornographic, heretical, and atheistic statements were illegal, and you could be killed for it.
Even today, there are still laws against blasphemy on the books in the USA, Canada, and Great Britan. Even today, there is little freedom against this religion.
As a boy,I was forced to worship the Christian's God, in my public school, funded by the public's tax dollars. If anything should be free of the taint of religious brainwashing, it should be a house of education, but no, the Christians got there first.
Catholics in my province get special treatment under the law; Catholic schools get public funding, unlike any other religious school in the country.
It's unfair, but that's Christianity. Claim what they will, they're only out for the power. When your starting premise is a lie, it's not surprising that many of them learned to lie to themselves as well.
--
AC
First... The Us was far more 'Christian' during the 40s 50's and 60's, the time of it's greatest advances. Second... Lawers, Singers, Sports and Business management are the big things today. Science is not a player in the career stakes today. Third... Corporations run America more than anytime in it's history. They exist to make money not fund science. Science can feed from the crumbs off the corporate table. Forth... In the mad house thats patents have built, whatever I may discover is bound to be already patented ten times over with an army of lawers to back them up. Whatever isn't patented is copyrighted or otherwise protected under the DMCA. Lastly... Ignorance is king! Look at mass entertainment and news. Life beyond third grade education simply isn't required and such today is considered a fringe demographic. Religion the cause my ass!
Look it up. Honestly, *none* of the founding fathers were Christians. At best they were "deists", which is really a polite way to say "atheists", because deists believe that while a god exists, it does nothing and everything works by natural law just as if no god existed.
Even if the things the Republicans said *were* true (something I dispute), did it justify breaking the law? Did it justify the risking of the lives of other operatives and associates that worked for and with the Brewster-Jennings cover organization? Or is it OK to break the law in the name of political expediancy if you are a Republican administration official? What a fscking moron.
That is all.
So, I took a look at the website you've been touting on several posts. There's a book by Stuart Kauffman "The Origins Of Order", which clearly satisfies the requirements of the prize. Since other titles of Prof. Kauffman are listed, I can't see how they could have missed that one...
TOOO shows how auto-catalytism of peptides (tiny tiny molecules, 2 amino-acids or more, occur in non-living natural form etc.) could have formed the primeval building blocks. He provides a testable model for it. The test works. He uses the results to validate his model and then demonstrates the implications of those results.
One of the fundamental theses within TOOO is that of interconnection and interaction. A massive neural network without any connectivity is completely useless, make it highly connected and you end up with a brain. The same principles can apply to the evolution of life itself - interaction is the key, not any static properties.
TOOO then also addresses the limits that evolution must work within, and how even the simplest of these sets of peptides can become complex and integrated. He shows that order and chaos can be harnessed by evolution in a similar fashion to mutation and sex. He shows these are complementary approaches.
So why hasn't he won your prize ?
As for Logically, God exists and life has meaning, or He doesn't and it does not. There is no in-between for a binary condition., well that's not a binary condition (it's total bollocks as well, but leaving that to one side...)
There are four states for any two binary orthogonal values A and B, they are {A,B}, {A,!B}, {!A,B}, {!A,!B}. The only case your assertion holds is in the degenerate case where A=B (at which point A and B are not orthogonal)
For example, I do not believe in god (so god does not exist, at least for me), but my life has meaning to me.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
... Dubya's crowd, I'm afraid this has been going on for much longer...
Back in the 50's and 60's there were research organizations throughout corporate America -- even a number of basic research departments (yes, that's right -- BASIC research, not just APPLIED research).
And corporate America had at least one eye focused on the big picture, making plans beyond the next quarter and being more concerned about the welfare of the company than their bonuses and severance packages.
Over the intervening years, we have seen not only basic, but applied research departments closed down in all but the largest companies. Emphasis has shifted to the current quarter (never mind the next quarter, we'll deal with it next quarter).
All that Dubya can take credit for is using the Religious Right to pummel the weakened science establishment. And the most likely reason he has chosen to attack the scientific establishment is that they ARE weakened and do not represent any sort of political (or other) power in contemporary society. Dubya picks his victims well.
The fault is in our society, and its view of science. Why we belittle the importance of science, and ignore the methodology of the scientific method, I know not, but it is manifested in the declining fraction of college and university science graduates for a much longer time than Dubya has been a factor.
Dubya is more the symptom of the problem than the cause.
at least, not when it concerned foreign citizens.
in Chile and here in Brasil the CIA helped stage military coups (74 and 64 respectively) transforming what where democratic republics in bloody, raping/murdering dictatorships.
As Deep Throat once said, "follow the money".
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048