I feel somewhat ambivalent on this issue - and here's why: I roughly know where democrats like Obama or Hillary stand on science issues. I am more in the dark about McCain, but in either case it probably matters very little. All three of them will be orders of magnitude better than Bush (especially on global warming and stem cells).
But I think the story is going to be very different this time around - it will not be so much ideology, but rather fiscal restraints and priorities that will become a key issue. I think we may look back at Bush administration and think that with all bickering about stem cells and environment, at least science was funded.
What I am afraid will happen is that despite all candidates paying some lip service to the importance of science and technology, it is in fact very low on their priority lists. Short term (relatively speaking) concerns of recession/economy, deficit, housing bubble, war in Iraq, healthcare, social security/baby boomers retiring, and many other things will take priority over "long-term investments in science and technology".
The real problem for us scientists is that even eliminating entire federal budget for science/technology - does not save you much money - but also doesn't cause too many people to complain.
I really think the biggest challenge is not figuring out where candidates stand on the issues. And it's not convincing candidates science is important - the real challenge is convincing the public at large that scientific progress is vitally connected to their standards of living. The connection may not be straightforward or short-term, but it is there.
Maybe the easiest argument (still not very easy) is for biological and medical sciences. I will bet you that most regular people think drug discovery is made entirely by pharmaceutical companies and NIH scientists are paid to play with mice all day long for no practical reason whatsoever. Most people also probably have a very negative view of pharmaceutical companies that make a lot of money, at the same time bankrupting people unable to pay for their medical care. Perhaps rightfully so.
But someone should drive the argument that on the large scale, the investments in fundamental science is the only way to move forward on the road to curing cancer, Alzheimer's and many other terrible diseases - industry won't do it on their own - the invisible hand Adam Smith was writing about has palsy and is missing four fingers (a line I stole from someone else).
Finally, here's a quote from the article:
... growing gap between our need for scientists and engineers and the capacity of this country's educational system to produce them...
I am not sure what they mean. If by scientists and engineers they mean PhDs, then US produces plenty - too many perhaps. If they mean undergraduates scientifically literate enough - I can't argue with that, except the real problem probably starts in high school, or even earlier, and has more to do with math and science education than support for science.
The real problem is the ability of scientist to do science, instead of sitting in their offices writing grants and making sure the grants get renewed. It's tough enough now, but wait till recession hits.
3 comments:
I hate to say this here as an Obama supporter but he promised everyone everything and once he gets elected(and he will) he is going to disappoint many, many people. The honeymoon is going to last only two days. I am afraid it may turn out to be worse than Carter's presidency(you guys probably wonder how it get can any worse than it is now).
Democrats' healthcare plan just doesn't add up mathematically. There is no way they will be able to pay for the cost of universal healthcare in a country of 300 million people without raising the taxes to at least %60 for the highest income bracket and charging 8 bucks for a gallon of gas(just like europe). I wonder how many americans are gonna appreciate universal healthcare when they start paying 200 dollars to fill up their SUV's.
I think whoever gets elected will disappoint a lot of people.
The economic reality on the ground created by current president is not something anyone can get out of easily.
I do not really know how to solve the grant-writing problem. The scheme of just giving each professor some money (as in many European countries), suffers from the almost complete absence of quality control. But I do have the impression that the US has fallen into the opposite extreme: Getting grants is so much work that one wonders how much more scientists one could pay if one did not need all the people in grant-writing support, let alone if all the professors could do science.
One of the most absurd statements I often heard in Europe was that universities there should likewise have employees to help scientists with grants and the related bureaucracy. This seems fundamentally wrong to me, and the funding agencies should rather reduce their byzantine level of paperwork.
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