Washington Post columnist David Broder wrote Sunday about several bipartisan legislative initiatives to "keep the United States in the forefront of innovation and technology." Proposals include boosting federal investment in basic research, and recruiting more science and math teachers by awarding four-year college scholarships. Broder urged President Bush to get behind this push and make it part of his State of the Union address next month. I heard New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman make a similar appeal to Bush during an interview about his book "The World Is Flat."
Of course Bush’s record on science isn’t good, as documented in the new book "The Republican War on Science" (click here for review). But as Broder argues, a science and technology initiative "would please business, labor, parents, teachers and students — and be good for the country."
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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15 Comments
There certainly is a problem with SOME Republicans favoring business over science, but not to the extent you seem to want to paint it. Yes there is a faction of the Republican party that has no use for the endangered species act, one of them holdiong down the white house, but there are those on the other side of the table who are way more extreme in their beliefs.
For instance, earth first. An extreme radical group that thinks man is a plague on this earth, and will destroy homes, businesses, and personal property in the name of animals.
So it’s not just the Republicans who are setting things back. But, we do need to up the anty when it comes to turning out all fields of scientist if we are going to compete with the rest of the world. To not do so is to relegate us to third-world status.
I don’t believe that ‘Earth First’ is associated with the democratic party in any way.
What do wacko fringe groups have to do with the topic at hand here? The fact is, because of ever tightening budgets, non health-related science, like social assistance programs, have suffered REAL cuts (not just cuts in the growth of spending). That means that curiosity driven research is fading away in favor of R&D that is more or less “project directed”. By this I mean looking for alternative funding from corporations, for example, who have short term “technology” problems to solve. Not that there’s anything wrong with these types of problems, but the scope and the focus is usually not on the R&D/teaching aspects of the typical graduate school mission. It also means that younger research faculty will be increasing hard pressed to compete successfully against their older, established, peers… a huge disincentive to enter the R&D community. In fact, much of the paperwork for federal funding of R&D looks for some “tangible” result as the “end product” of the R&D effort. Again, nothing wrong with this to a degree, but if you can see the end result of your work in the first place, then you aren’t really stepping away from your technology base all that far.
Lots of scientific innovations come from curiosity driven R&D and from serendipity. Science R&D has paid back whopping dividends to the US. It’s not a social welfare program for PhDs. We underfund it at our own peril.
HAHAHAHA!!!!!
Bush as science president?! I have a better chance trying to teach my Husky dog quantum physics.
Actually Earth First is exactly the type of extremist group that is beginning to dominate the democratic party.
They support everything that the democrats do and oppose Bush at every turn. The democrats can have the wackos!
I watch the author of that book on CSPAN Book TV. He made a very conviencing aurgument on technology, innovation, and hard work. The Global Economy is here and many people choose to ignore it or fight it. But its here to stay.
I think I will check out the book.
OT (slightly)
Federal District Court Judge John Jones ruled today in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania that it is unconstitutional to mention the so-called ‘theory’ of intelligent design in high school biology classes.
While I suspect this item will merit a thread all its own, it is appropriate to mention here, since intelligent design is a central tenet of the Repubican faith-based, capitalist driven attack on science and scientific research.
Score one for the Judge: just any old thing can’t be counted as science just because someone wants it to be.
How bout Geography? We are attacked on sept 11, 2001 by 15 Saudia Arabians so we attack Iraq?Where is the logic here?
Somewhere in the mind of our King.
Dub,Makes me think of the old joke about the drunk who was asked why he was searching for his watch under a streetlamp when he lost it down the street. “Cause the light’s better here!”That’s both why we attacked Iraq, and why you expected to find logic in the White House.
I think a lot of the problem is that an educated informed populace doesn’t fit the purposes of the GOP. It’s harder to lie to thinking and informed people.
So XXX, that would explain why you have fallen for all the Dumacrats BS for so long.
Boy NoJo, that was cunning. you’re so bright, I’ll bet your dad called you “sun”. Go wipe the sticky stuff off your keyboard.
Bush is a WAR president! Anything else is back seat news.
it’s hard to college educate more kids when bush cuts student aid.
but, in bushs world, the rich get the breaks, the rest can eat cake.
yeah, XXX, you are right. and, i hate it when a fat chick who lives in a trailer park proudly says…i’m a republican.
i used to think it was funny. now it’s a reminder of how far away from common sense our country was gone.