The Decline of Science and Technology in America 1347
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.'"
America has a choice.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Insightful)
How long could our high tech army, navy and air force equipment stay operational if the Chinese refused to export any electronics?
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Informative)
As of recently, most countries obeyed this unwritten law: Iraq switched to Euros back in 2001, and the interim US government immediately switched back to dollars. Iran recently began valueing a good portion of its' oil reserves in Euros. Same with Venezuela. OPEC in general has been flirting with the Euro as of late.
So it that context, Duffbeer703 is right on the money.
Re: America has a choice.. (Score:5, Funny)
> Not quite. Duffbeer703 may be referring to the "dollar hegemony", a global dynamic put in place in or around the end of WWII, which refers to how countries need stockpiles of US dollars in reserve to buy petroleum in an international market. Therefore, and by a wide margin, the main United States export is dollar bills, of BIG denomination.
> As of recently, most countries obeyed this unwritten law: Iraq switched to Euros back in 2001, and the interim US government immediately switched back to dollars. Iran recently began valueing a good portion of its' oil reserves in Euros. Same with Venezuela. OPEC in general has been flirting with the Euro as of late.
I read somewhere, within the past few months, that arms dealers are starting to switch over to the Euro, and the great fear is that drug dealers will follow.
America has a choice for a short while longer (Score:4, Interesting)
The US military is currently on the edge of being over extended and cannot in practice be used to enforce national policy without some major changes. Right now, it's just not able to take on extra activities without leaving the country "undefended".
The US has been losing it's edge in technology research for a few years. The IT industry has come to a standstill pretty much since 1998 and won't move until MS and others stop being a bottle neck. Recently, Rice was the first foreign minister to blow off the ASEAN [honoluluadvertiser.com] meeting, indicating that the US may be preparing to cede the entire Asian economic region over to China. For manufacturing, everybody including the US has already moved over to China.
Dollar hegemony and inertia look to be what keep things going this long. The dollar, however, would become irrelevant if the cost of oil were tied to the Euro. I recall Saddam Hussein including among his threats shortly before he got raided.
If current policies are allowed to continue much longer without intensive corrective action, it may be time to say that it's over for the US.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Developing" foreign states become axis of evil material when they have something the U.S. wants or fears (nukes in N Korea) and the puppet governments get uppity and refuse to take their marching orders. For another example, remember Manuel Noriega in Panama. The historical pattern is clear and it is you who need to grow up and realize how you are being manipulated through your morals and ideals. I'm not saying those morals and ideas aren't valid or worth pursuing, just that you're fooling yourself if you think those are the real reasons behind US foreign policy rather than a pretext useful in manufacturing domestic consent.
The US government never had morals (Score:5, Insightful)
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".
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I suggest you go take a look at what happened in many southern American countries, or in pre-republic Iran for example. Please take a peek also at where the governments which were in power at the time got their money and knowledge from. By your own standards the USA has been and still is very evil.
You've sold out your morals (or your common sense) for a retarded idea (anti-Americanism? socialism?
I can't speak for the poster of GP, but I can say that for all I can see, he replaced the utter ignorance about anything outside the USA with a dislike of hypocracy. I congratulate him on that. Now for as far as you are concerned, come back when you can actually think for yourself and have informed yourself instead of mindlessly repeating what government propaganda is trying to tell you.
Just one more thing, if you do not want to look utterly stupid then it is really a good idea to consider that differing opinions and critisism are very American, stamping out anything that is not like you is very un-American. Next time you accuse people of being anti-American that might be something to consider. Maybe you heard about this concept called Freedom? Herr Bush loves to throw the word around, and so do his henchmen, now maybe go look up what it actually means, it may not be what you think it is.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Gold Standard (Score:5, Informative)
Thirty years and countless books on the subject and not til today do I learn the US entered Vietnam for France. It's been a while though and apparently I'm not up on the latest 'Freedom Fries' school of historical thought.
It wasn't just to support the French that the US went into Viet Nam. Then president Eisenhower was afraid that if the Viet Namese, North and South Vietnam, were allowed to vote to reunite not only would they reunite but they would also become communist. Because of this dispite the signing of the Paris Accord of 1954 [sunsite.org.uk] being signed by North and South Vietnam and the Geneva conference Eisenhower didn't want the election to happen. To prevent reunitification Colonel Edward Lansdale [vietvet.org] "carried out a campaign of military and psychological warfare against the Vietminh.(35)"
As for the crack about "Freedom Fries" I never did call them that. I was against invading Iraq without broad UN, Security Council support. I'm still waiting to see all those stockpiles of WMDs.
FalconRe:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent is insightful, not flamebait. For a good example of what happens when science and enlightenment are replaced by theology and repression, just look at the Middle East. The Arab world was the cornerstone of world civilization in the Middle Ages -- they invented the zero, we still use Arabic digits, they were astronomers and mathematicians, and they initiated the Renaissance by preserving ancient Greek and Roman writings. But they let all that slip and became mostly a bunch of backward theocracies instead. America is next if it continues on this road.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Interesting)
"It is owing to this long interregnum of science, and to no other cause, that we have now to look back through a vast chasm of many hundred years to the respectable characters we call the Ancients. Had the progression of knowledge gone on proportionably with the stock that before existed, that chasm would have been filled up with characters rising superior in knowledge to each other; and those Ancients we now so much admire would have appeared respectably in the background of the scene. But the christian system laid all waste; and if we take our stand about the beginning of the sixteenth century, we look back through that long chasm, to the times of the Ancients, as over a vast sandy desert, in which not a shrub appears to intercept the vision to the fertile hills beyond."
-Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Funny)
Nostradamus eat your heart out. Looks like Paine was quite the prophet.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I think the problem is when a religious institution no longer concerns itself with helping people but decides that it should dictate to people that we are in trouble. I'll go so far as to apply this to all systems of belief that fall into the religious catagory. If the system of belief must protect itself by demanding that people act in a certain way and seek the power of the government to enforce that behavior, that system of belief should be burned at the stake.
But then, what do I know. I was raised a conservative Christian, but God and I have our doubts about each other.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Quaint are these arguments pinning all the woes of the Western world on religion, on Christianity. Typically, Christianity is blamed for any and all murders, genocides, etc. I find that systems void of any deity are quite effective at slaughtering people too, thus we had millions killed, murdered, exterminated under fascism/communism (and whatever "ism" Pol Pot ran).
In the Abolition of Man Lewis argues that there has always been a string of truth throughout civilization (citing there is only one civilization). He calls this the Tao and argues that it has always existed and keeps cropping up no matter what in whatever religious form. Kant's paradox points this out as he compares the mystery of the starry heavens to the mystery of the moral law within. We just can't escape it -- this need to do and be right, so, call it what you will, but Christianity is simply another form of it (no one ever said it was perfect).
Lewis goes on to note that, for the first time ever, the Tao is actually under attack and in jeopardy of being done away with -- that this is a unique event in history. This is exactly what happened the last century in Germany, the USSR and Cambodia -- Taoless (The Tao being a general concept of a supernatural force we must answer to) systems took over the minds of humanity (yes, even in Cambodia -- oddly). Now, people died, and, sure, people died under religions too, but the fact remains that, for the first time ever, people were killed, en mass, not for land, not for belief, not for any reason other than the fact that they no longer should exist on the planet. The Jewish Holocaust is the best example of this. It was killing, for the first time ever, with the goal of entirely eliminating a certain people from the planet. Say what you will, but all other wars and conflicts had another, primary, goal.
In short, Christianity may suck, religion may suck, but these have never produced the goal which a Taoless system has produced, nor has ever such a dismal concept been conceived in any religion.
Irreligious systems, Taoless systems (communism, fascism, etc.), surprisingly, have the same goals as religion. They simply don't want a god to be any part of the solution, but this causes the paradox of demanding the function of a heart without having a heart. We simply don't behave very well on our own without the thought that we will, eventually, answer to a higher force. It is the brain that feeds the stomach through the heart. We remove the organ and demand the function.... We castrate and then demand the gelding procreate -- it simply cannot happen. Or, Lewis puts it another way, "what makes a man sit in the trench through the 6th hour of bombardment for God and country?" which he answers, "what else can make a man sit through the 6th hour of bombardment but God and country?" (These quotes from memory). This leads into thought that along with religion comes concepts of country, nationhood, family, etc. One could argue that we are moving beyond these hindrances -- that the American Civil War marked the end of state-centeredness and into nationhood, or that the end of WWII marked the end of nationhood and into a global community. Indeed, perhaps we are moving beyond god, beyond the boundaries of answering to such a force, but without the heart -- without these pesky religions -- it is an ominous world looming wherein there is no great parent up there to whom we must answer, where Nietzsche's ubermensch will create his own world, in his own likeness and the final minorities who don't look like me must be removed as so much infestation.
I empathize with Voltaire who witnessed the horror of a flawed religion, a flawed Christianity. I empathize with Bultmann who attempted to save the embattled faith from itself, but at the end of the day Kant's "moral law within" cannot be escaped, nor can it be supplanted with a godless system based on what's best
Re:Today, Class, We Will Study "Zeitgeist" (Score:5, Informative)
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
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And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
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You are completely wrong. If anything, most of the founding fathers were Deists, believing in at most whatever form of "Natures God" they personally had. Paine was definitely in sync with the founding fathers and their opinion on christianity in relation to government, i.e. there should be nothing but separation. Look it up. You need to do better on a large public forum such as
Jefferson said the Bible was a dungheap (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Are you kidding? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Are you kidding? (Score:5, Informative)
Certainly I know that manuscripts produced and used in celtic-monasteries have margin notes and other additions that are not the work of illiterates:
c.f. pangur bán: http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/16
There was also the preservation of written works for their own sake. Many non-religious classical texts were preserved and duplicated in monastic settings, and this went some way to preserving these works during the interregnum following the decline of the Roman empire.
Though surely coming from your personal experience, I think some of your other comments come across as a little prejudiced and over-general. I'd be interested to see the evidence for your origin of copyright laws thesis. And as another poster commented, there's no indication that Newton was by any means an atheist.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:4, Funny)
... and Microsoft patented it.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Informative)
Funny, I don't remember any liberal politics in my classes on circuit analysis, mechanics, electromagnetism, calculus, differential equations, tensor analysis, quantum mechanics, solid state theory, antenna design and analysis, electromechanical systems, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum. Perhaps you could explain to me the liberal bias inherent in a Greens Function or a multi-body gravitation problem? Perhaps hideous Communist ideologies are lurking inside Schroedinger's Equation?
Better yet, maybe you could explain something else to me. How does one go about parallelizing a finite-difference time-domain computational problem for an arbitrary antenna structure using conservative ideology?
Well anyway, you are probably right. After all, Rush Limbaugh says so and he went to college for like a year, right?
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:4, Insightful)
If some sort of Intelligent Design were to become a science, it would need to be able to make independently verifiable and falsifiable predictions. The key hypothesis, of course, is that there is some sort of intelligence directing the creation of life on Earth. There would be many different related hypotheses (to use the proper scientific term). One would be that all life was created as it is, which basic biological evolution would rule out, unless someone can conclusively demonstrate that evolution did not produce the initial variety of life, but only functions after that initial creation (there being no life before a creation that can evolve). A second, and stronger one, would be an intelligent hand in the evolution of life. Certain results would be expected that could demonstrate an intelligent hand versus simple non-intelligent evolution. And I am sure if you wrack your brain you could think of some others. But they would need to be testable and falsifiable hypotheses and I personally think it would be an interesting study. This is not, however, what current ID proponents are after. They are simply and brazenly trying to force their absurd fundamentalism on the rest of us.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:4, Insightful)
What do you think America has been that last 200 years? Christian-Judism has always had a strong influence on America the influence is less and les each year.
Do you think the ten commandants were recently put up in court houses? Do you think pray in school is a recent thing.
Do you the Bibles being taken out of school is a recent thing?
When was the Conressional minister put in place?
And yet somehow over the last 200 years America was at the fore front of science and technology.
Take any shred of religion out of the government, but don't tell me our forefathers or constitution says it should be that way.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Founding Fathers seemed to think differently:
"[When] the [Virginia] bill for establishing religious freedom ... was
finally passed, ... a singular proposition proved that its
protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble
declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the
holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting
the word "Jesus Christ," so that it should read "a
departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our
religion." The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof
that they meant to comprehend within the mantle of its protection the
Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the
Hindoo and infidel of every denomination."
Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, 1821.
"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law, and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man. They are still so in many countries and even in some of these United States. Even in 1783, we doubted the stability of our recent measures for reducing them to the footing of other useful callings. It now appears that our means were effectual."
Thomas Jefferson, 1800
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution."
James Madison, 1785
"As I have now given you my reasons for believing that the Bible is not the Word of God, that it is a falsehood, I have a right to ask you your reasons for believing the contrary; but I know you can give me none, except that you were educated to believe the Bible; and as the Turks give the same reason for believing the Koran, it is evident that education makes all the difference, and that reason and truth have nothing to do in the case. You believe in the Bible from the accident of birth, and the Turks believe in the Koran from the same accident, and each calls the other infidel. But leaving the prejudice of education out of the case, the unprejudiced truth is, that all are infidels who believe falsely of God, whether they draw their creed from the Bible, or from the Koran, from the Old Testament, or from the New."
"It is often said in the Bible that God spake unto Moses, but how do you know that God spake unto Moses? Because, you will say, the Bible says so. The Koran says, that God spake unto Mahomet, do you believe that too? No. Why not? Because, you will say, you do not believe it; and so because you do, and because you don't is all the reason you can give for believing or disbelieving except that you will say that Mahomet was an impostor. And how do you know Moses was not an impostor?"
Thomas Paine, 1797
"The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."
George Washington, Treaty of Tripoli
You know what's missing from American education besides a good grounding in the sciences? Even the tiniest bit of knowledge as to the opinions, beliefs and motives of the Founding Fathers, who must stand as being the most misunderstood men in history.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:4, Interesting)
George Washington 1779
"I have sometimes thought there could not be a stronger testimony in favor of religion or against temporal enjoyments, even the most rational and manly, than for men who occupy the most honorable and gainful departments and [who] are rising in reputation and wealth, publicly to declare their unsatisfactoriness by becoming fervent advocates in the cause of Christ; and I wish you may give in your evidence in this way."
James Madison 1773
"Here is my creed: I believe in one God, the Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his providence. That he ought to be worshiped. That the most acceptable service we render him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this."
Benjamin Franklin (who, let it be known to all the gentle readers, was decidedly NOT a Christian or a religious man)
Jefferson was an atheist.
You know what's missing from American Education? Even the tiniest bit of knowledge about how to think for yourself.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:4, Insightful)
What is relevant, is that they knew first hand what kind of problems limiting religious freedom generated, so they made a big point of ensuring nobody in this experiment we call The United States of America would be persecuted or discriminated against for his religious beliefs, or lack thereof.
Sadly, the GOP of late seems to ignore the "lack thereof" part, and in many instances the "religious beliefs" part as well if it doesn't match the distorted ideas they have of what Christianity should be.
Freedom of religion means you can subscribe to any faith you want, or none at all. Freedom of religion also means freedom FROM religion.
It also means the government does not have the right to encourage religion over none, or one religion over another. This is exactly why the 1st amendment says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".
Translation: No laws can be made that specifically discriminate against or benefit religion or religious beliefs.
Injecting religion into poltics is an extremely bad idea.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:4, Insightful)
It also means the government does not have the right to encourage aetheism over religion
Government itself must be atheist. Not atheist in the "there is no god" sense but in the sense of "matters of god are irrelevant to the operation of government." Way too many people think that refusing to get involved in the debate is actually some bias towards atheism when nothing could be farther from the truth.
These are the same people who think that government must acknowledge christianity but refuse to consider what it would mean if their government were to acknowledge something like buddhism or salafism instead - claiming that the US is a christian nation so that would never happen with blinders firmly attached.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Informative)
George Washington, Treaty of Tripoli
Shame that is from Barlow's fraudulent translation. None of the existing copies of that treaty show that at all. See http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/5/9
BTW, it wasn't George Washington, but John Adams who signed that treaty.
Dammy
And no, I'm no a Christian, I am a Pagan.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I'm 100% negative about this religion. There is no doubt that the US has been economically successful as a result and that the liberties of Americans are at least on a par with some European countries.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering the large number of Atheists and Deists that were amoung their ranks, I'd say the only reason they DIDN'T say it should be that way was because it wasn't a popular opinion. It still isn't.
Of the brightest minds I've come upon, almost all have been Atheists, Agnostic, or Deist. Few would admit it publically, however, in fear of creating enemies in the religious fanatics that abound.
In our line of work, that kind of tension in the work place is very dangerous.
It's kind of sad when you're smarter, nicer, more honest, and better educated than the many people around you, yet you have to conceal your true beliefs out of fear of persecution.
The Constitution grants us the freedom to believe (or NOT) as we choose. Why then is it that despite your claims that the religious influence is shrinking that it becomes more and more difficult (and more dangerous) to openly proclaim one's Atheism?
When our government takes actions influenced by religious beliefs they are essentially denying the Athiests their rights. Not imposing those beliefs on the masses does not hinder one's right to worship. Figure it out. There is only one constitutionally correct way to handle this, religious people just don't care about anyone else's rights but their own. Somewhat ironic, I would say.
Posting AC for obvious reasons...
Choice (Score:5, Insightful)
I stay out of peoples bedrooms and churchs, for the very reason that I don't want others in mine!
Not actually familiar with history, are you? (Score:5, Insightful)
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:
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it hasn't. It's been at the forefront for the last 70 years or so, but that's mostly due to the nazi's rise to power, which caused a big wave of immigration of European scientists.
Now, please don't take this as flamebait; I don't intend to say that the USA don't have their own brilliant minds or that they didn't have them before the nazis, but I think that the current situation, where the USA, which account for less than 5% of the world's population, are the scientific center of the world, so to speak, is in no small part due to the fact that many top scientists did go to the USA back then.
In the future, over time, things will shift again. Not necessarily back to Europe, but India and China, for example (both nations with more than a billion inhabitants, which is more than the USA, Canada, Australia, Europe and Japan have combined) will definitely leave us behind them in terms of scientific significance.
Basing politics on religion rather than science is just gonna speed that up even further.
Wow, you know nothing about India, do you? (Score:5, Informative)
Please, try to find out actual facts to support you arguments. I don't so much like the way the anecdotes pulled out of your ass smell.
It's not religion that will diminish the US... (Score:5, Interesting)
...It's the attitude that says this:
The single biggest negative perception about the US that I experience here in Europe is the collective ego represented by the way the US government conducts itself, and the comments made by so many Americans in many an Internet forum. Here are a few claims I've seen in the past week alone:
Now here's an alternative version, as seen by the devil's advocate:
Seriously, this isn't meant to be a troll. That first list really is the impression a lot of Americans I've encountered give, and the second list is certainly how the US is increasingly perceived here in the UK.
The problem for this discussion, of course, is that being a world leader in scientific research depends fundamentally on three things: attracting good people, getting them in touch with everyone else's good people, and funding them well enough to do their thing. Pissing off the rest of the world and destroying your economy from within probably aren't the best ways to achieve any of those three critical things. Yeah, I'd say the US is pretty much toast for a while as far as leading the world in scientific research.
Re:It's not religion that will diminish the US... (Score:4, Interesting)
Americans, in general, are the masters at expending every effort to not have to think or do anything. Example: The Atkins Diet. Nowhere else in the world will you find people who will invent crazy ass, unhealthy diets, count carbohydrates, and generally jump through hoops to accomplish what could easily be done (more healthily, too) by GETTING OFF YOUR FAT ASS AND DOING SOMETHING.
America is going down the toilet, slowly but surely. I hope it dies the painful, agonizing death it so richly deserves, WITHOUT fucking up the rest of the world first. It pisses me off though, because I love this country, and I hate to see the idiots destroy it. But there is nothing I can do to stop them.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Insightful)
You teach kids that ID is science and you get crappy scientists.
Where is ID being taught?
Private Catholic schools (for instance) have higher aptitude scores for math and science. Public schools do not teach ID.
The state of public schools in America can hardly be blamed on religion since religion plays an infinitesimal part of the curriculum. Teaching to the lowest common denominator along with a general malaise in interest in science among kids is a much larger part of the determination of the curriculum.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, this is a good sign, since private Catholic schools teach the theory of evolution.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh blah blah blah. People say this every generation, because they don't realize people have said it every generation. America is always at some kind of crossroads. And you know what? It usually comes out pretty okay.
The political pendulum swings back and forth. Always has. But this country has never been particularly liberal, except maybe for a brief period in the late 1960's and early 1970's that was mainly a reaction to the Vietnam War (and the same thing may happen again in a few years). People talk about how even Democrats today are basically conservatives - well, who the hell do you think dropped the atom bomb on Japan? It wasn't a Republican.
The point being, this is a conservative country. Get used to it. It's always been that way, going back to its founding - remember, this country exists because people needed somewhere to go to practice their religion. The freedom to not practice religion was added later.
This is not to say I share this view - on most issues (not all), I'm about as liberal as it gets in this country. But I've been around long enough to see several swings of the pendulum, to live through several wars, and to know that nothing that's going on right now is really all that unusual in the grand scheme of things. Sure, if you take a 10 year view, things aren't so hot right now for us liberals and scientific thinkers. Maybe even with a 50 year view we'd be at or near a low point. But those of us who lived through Vietnam (and I was young, but I do remember it) and the aftermath know how bad things can really get in terms of ideology, the economy, and yes, even science. This that we're in now, this is nothing. A blip on the radar.
So, before you come up with these dramatic proclamations about how America's at a "crossroads" and you predict we'll take the wrong path and eventually fade into irrelevance, remember all the times people before you said those exact same things, and remember how dumb they sounded even five years later.
America is simply doing what it always does, going through the motions of trying to find a balance of values that appeals to its people. Those values may not be your values, but they're really no different than ever. It's a balance that can never truly be attained, though, so you will see things shift back and forth periodically. We are just at the extreme edge of one of those shifts right now, but from a historical viewpoint I really don't see that this is anything unusual.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Informative)
This is incorrect. The founding fathers knew first-hand the dangers of religious power, which is why the only mention of religion in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution was to make sure that "no religious test" would be required for public office. The first ammendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". And anyone familiar with Thomas Paine or Thomas Jefferson knows full well what they thought on the subject. For example, Jefferson wrote "no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."
Most of the occurences of religion in the US government were put into place in the 1950's, a period of immense insecurity (Athiest/Communist Threat, etc.). Politicians in 1954 added "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, and in 1955 added "In God We Trust" to coinage and paper money.
The founders, on the other hand, were quite careful in making clear that the United States was _not_ founded as a Christian country, or even as a particularly religious country, and that the freedom of religion clearly included, as Jefferson put it, "freedom of and from religion."
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem has nothing to do with religion - its about lowered standards of quality in American culture. Does the religious right let Bush get away with anything he wants? Sure. But religion only happens to fit into the model because that's Bush's demographic. Nixon's demographic let him get away with anything he wanted, just like Clinton's, Reagan's and Johnson's did. Voters rarely turn on the guy they put into office. Bad Presidents always reflect poorly on the individuals who support them, but that doesn't mean that the ideas that bind the demographic are neccesarily invalid simply for that reason.
Stem cell research is a relgious / science overlap. Intelligent Design is a ridiculous idea from a very very small minority in Kansas. Past that, I don't see much overlap from religion in science in America. Sure, the conservative party is playing down environmental research, but that has nothing to do with religion - that's a culture of corporate profits interfering with science.
You blame religion for the decrease in American science - I blame the media. I blame CNN for undercovering important issues, and spending two weeks on a runaway bride. I blame Disney for making a movie about a girl who is interested in science and math and is unpopular until she decides to drop it all and become an ice skater. I blame television networks that make 10,000 reality tv shows and 5,000 Ally McBeal spinoffs for every one Numbers or... well, I can't think of another show I like on network tv. How about the fact that TLC found it was much more profitable to stop showing documentaries and focus on home decorating shows? I also blame underfunded schools and a corporate culture that has dropped R&D in favor of easier methods of reducing profits.
Simply blaming religion is insulting to those of us who are thoughtfully religious, and worse than that, its wrong.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:3, Insightful)
America has never had a problem with being Christian and being a science and technology leader. Scientists often have religious or quasi-religious motivations. They want to know how the world that God created works. Truth
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:4, Interesting)
The truth of the matter is that the United States has been a Wartime economy since World War II.[3] The thing propping up such an economy? The Cold War, of course![4] The US outspent the Soviet Union at every turn, eventually causing the USSR to go bankrupt. The wartime economy then began to taper off, slowly reducing the amount of private and government funded research. By the end of the 90's, science was already in trouble, but no one noticed because of the technology boom.[5] (Itself an artificial boom caused by overspending.) The tech boom crashes, and suddenly the true state of things is revealed.
The entire Stem Cell issue, and ID issue are irrelevant to the US's technology bottom line. We simply can't afford the level of progress that was achieved in the Post WWII economy. We had one last "Hurrah" in the 80's and early 90's, then everything petered out after that. It's not sexy, it's not pretty, and there's no good place to put the blame. But that's the way it is.
[1] [wikipedia.org]
[2] [wikipedia.org]
[3] [wikipedia.org]
[4] [independent.org]
[5] [selenasol.com]
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's look at history. Arguably, the era experiencing the greatest innovations in science and technology was from the mid 17th century to the middle of the 19th. You've got Newton and Liebniz and Hooke and all those other Royal Society guys rewriting every bit of our knowledge of how the world works -- and doing so under the authority of a state and church with far, far more control then the US government has ever had.
The second greatest technical period is probably from WWII through the 1960s in America -- especially the 1950s when we developed and perfected nuclear power, jet aircraft, rocketry, computers, etc; and all in a far more controlled society. Heck, the 50s US has become the cliche of an uptight, religous, puritanical society. Yet we grew by leaps and bounds.
Besides, the whole "intelligent design" stuff, where it affects anything it affects pure science. And pure science very rarly is the driver of much of anything. Where the technical fields impact our lives is through engineering. It's making science practical. And that's something that the evolution vs ID really has no impact on.
But engineering really is in dire, dire straits in this country, but for completely differnt (almost opposite) reasons. Primarily, in my mind, because of the stiffling of innovation because of government regulation and excessive lawsuits. When you codify everything, mandate everything, and ban everything else then there is no room to innovate and do new things. It's the Democrats and their state-controlled regulatory state that has stiffled the technical fields, not the religious right.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:4, Insightful)
You've got to be fucking kidding me.
science and evolution are not concerned with god (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Brainwashed! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Brainwashed! (Score:5, Interesting)
I must say you bring up some good points and I tend to agree much of your arguement. A good portion of this country is very uneducated and tends to follow blindly to what its fed from news stations such as Fox News who proclaim themselves to be, "Fair and Balanced." In a lot of ways this country *is* going backwards, as ultra-paranoid religious groups are collectively working to sway votes in the whitehouse. I think what we do need is the same sort of counter-group to thwart their attempts at branding their religious/ personal beliefs on "the rest of us."
Re:Brainwashed! (Score:5, Interesting)
Or, in fact, into reading the bible any more than selectively. US fundamentalist Christaianity seems to have rather odd ideas about what exactly Christ said. The concepts of loving your neighbour, helping the poor, and forgiveness that seem to crop up a lot on the new testament... well apparently they're not so important. Despite 85% of the population of the US professing to be Christian, the US has ranks second to last among developed nations for foreign aid as a percentage of the economy, rate almost as poorly for private charity, have high rates of poverty for a developed nation, and are the only developed nation that still uses capital punishment (so much for "turn the other cheek"). 75% of Americans thought that "God helps those who help themselves." was a teaching from the bible - look as hard as you like, it isn't there; Ben Franklin said it. Christianity in the US is less Christianty, and more some bizarre American religion with vague Christian roots - I mean hell, most mormons are closer to following the new testament then a great many US Christians.
Jedidiah.
Re:Brainwashed! (Score:4, Insightful)
2 & 3. Capital punishment mostly features in the old testament, while Jesus preaches a very different approach. Can you explain how:
"38 You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' 39 But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41 If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you."
Means what you claim rather than having compassion even for those who wrong you? It would seem to be to be saying that "an eye for an eye" is wrong, and that we should have compassion and understanding even for those who try to hurt us.
Jedidiah.
Science's Vitality (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [energybulletin.net] 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.
How can it not decline? (Score:4, Insightful)
This prize bollocks (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Corporations (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Corporations (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Corporations (Score:5, Interesting)
Or they just don't get it. I sat down with one of the VP's at my old job (as the company was starting to head down the toilet) to talk about their hiring practices. The company policy was "we pay in the 60th percentile." For every job, they used some salary survey to determine what it was worth. They literally looked at the salary range and picked a number based on the 60th percentile. Here's a summary of the conversation we had:
Me: What kind of organization are you trying to build?
VP: World Class.
Me: So, if you were going to hire someone to administer your databases (a component so critical that even a VP knew that the business did not run without them), what kind of person would you want?
VP: Someone at the top of their field.
Me: So if you had to rate them, say on a scale of 1 to 100, what are you looking for?
VP: I wouldn't even consider someone who isn't in the top five percent of candidates.
Me:So what your looking for is someone whose skills are in the 95th percentile but is willing to work for pay in the 60th percentile?
I never got a reply. For what it's worth, I wasn't an employee, I was a contractor.
Corporate idiocy (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Focus on short term profits over long term profits.
2. Management by MBAs that have no technical understanding, and cannot understand technical subjects, nor key trends and drivers in an industry.
3. Rampant cost-cutting, to the point of providing legacy computers to their employees.
4. Hiring incompetent, wannabe techies with no mastery of technical subjects or even the motivation to learn.
5. Lack of vision for developing core capabil
Fix the delusions (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Fix the delusions (Score:5, Interesting)
There are also the perceptions of Europe as being some socialist unproductive quagmire. Yes, in terms of GDP per capita most European countries are behind the US - but they also get much longer holidays, and work less hours and thus have more time for family. Turning things around if CO2 emisisons (as US opponents of Kyoto like to claim) are the natural byproduct of production, and reducing emissions would reduce GDP... well consider this list of countries by GDP/CO2 emissions [wikipedia.org] which shows that in terms of waste most European countries are significantly more efficient in generating GDP than the US. Is Europe perfect? No, not in the least, they're just different, with different priorities - they produce less but do it more efficiently. That's not the pereption a lot of Americans have of Europe though.
Jedidiah.
US Technological Leadership (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course such trends never continue indefinitely - it's just a leveling of inequalities left over from the WWII and cold war days. The US benefitted from an immigrant brain source once (Einstein, Von Braun, Tesla) - it could easily flow the other way if conditions here become too hostile or the grass looks greener elsewhere.
Get off the political troll.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Re:Get off the political troll.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Mod up, bro! That is the nail (i.e. you've hit it on the head). Aside from Bush and other problems, kids just don't want to work. Fewer kids go into science and engineering every year.
The old tradition, and really what built America, was that your great+grandparents immigrated and worked like dogs/died like dogs (viva Upton Sinclair). Then their kids had it a little better. And so on, until we get kids who are disconnected from hard work and suffering. Who, really, won't do anything if it is too hard
Re:Get off the political troll.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a deep cultural thing though. I am a mathematician and I can't tell you how many time I've had a conversation that went
Person: So what do you do?
Me: I'm a mathematcian.
Person: Oh, I was never any good at math in school.
And that last point is always said with almost an air of superiority, like there's an underlying "I didn't do well at math and I'm successful, why did you waste your time?" - often enough people will actually come out and say that too. I'm sure any other mathematicians here on Slashdot can testify to much the same thing. There is a deep deated cultural belief that mathematics isn't important - is it any suprise teachers and parents pass that attitude on to their kids?
Jedidiah.
Prepare for onslought of inane talking points! (Score:3, Funny)
For example: Everytime a discussion about science on
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous, and it is among the merits of science that it prepares the future for its duties."
- Alfred North Whitehead.
Maybe more researchers need to take up golf (Score:4, Insightful)
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 [msn.com] out for a few rounds of golf...
Patents (Score:3, Insightful)
LiberalConservative Cycle (Score:4, Funny)
Here's the cycle of America:
1) Democrats gain power, expand government control over X, Y and Z.
2) Republicans gain power, use government control to fuck up X, Y and Z.
3) Goto (1)
Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Current admin punishes criticism, different ideas (Score:4, Interesting)
The real stupid part? The metro serves a large number of people and is always in need of more money. So, in reality, they punished the people. Look for lots of punishment from an angry God, er, government because scientists feel differently about religion, environment, and politics in general.
Distraction is a serious problem. (Score:4, Interesting)
I feel sorry for Joseph Wilson and his wife every day. They experienced this first hand - object and be retaliated against.
It's not my idea - I heard it originally from a journalist for the SF Chronicle - but one of the biggest tools the White House is using is distraction. Attention is being drawn to social issues (such as gay rights, and vegetable rights - Schiavo), while significant detrimental policies are being waged against science (like barring publication of papers about global warming) and civil rights.
The true crimes involve Writ of Habeus Corpus (Jose Padilla), and intentional endangerment (Valerie Plame), not stem-cells and Hubble.
Re:Distraction is a serious problem. (Score:5, Interesting)
Columnist Molly Ivans pointed this out about the Bush Administration well before 9/11. She called it "The Politics of Outrage". Basically the cycle goes something like this:
1) Administration does something outrageous
2) Outcry & Criticism of action erupt that day
3) Next day: Administration does new outrageous thing
4) Outcry & Criticism over new outrage, yesterday's outrage forgotten (at least by the press)
5) Lather. Rinse. Repeat, EVERY DAY.
The truly disturbing thing is this strategy seems to work.
This administration cynically manipulates news and news cycles every day. Real criticism is either ignored or jollied away as "well I disagree, but support your right to be feel differently, but we aren't changing".
When the next idiocy or outrage occurs, the previous outrageous actions are stuffed under the floor by the media. This has given them free reign to pursue every boneheaded policy, or just flat out greedy corporate wellfare program they can think of. Its no wonder at all that Science is being strangled to death in the U.S.
Rove, Bush, etc I salute you. You are the greatest marketeers the world has ever seen, and God save us all from your foolishness and greed.
-I.V.
Re:LOL @ Joe Wilson (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
The Wedge Strategy:: Real live conspiracy! (Score:5, Informative)
It isn't a matter of falling standards and laziness. It isn't the fault of too much TV or rap music.
There are forces in society who want science neutered and brought to heel.
"Intelligent Design," and the manufactured controversy over "junk science" . . . it's all part of a plan to:
You can find it all here, in a document called "The Wedge Strategy."
http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html [antievolution.org]
I'm a Christian, and this scares me to death (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Why is the problem and solution always government? (Score:3, Interesting)
The basic problem is your ( not all of you, I know) belief that the federal government is the solution to your problems. Stem Cell research? Oh, this cannot happen without unrestricted federal spending. Public education is screwed? Let's get Ted Kennedy and President Bush to work together to create "No Child Left Behind", only to have Ted rip it after he helped create it.
The long term results of the Feds being involved is more slow moving, poorly engineered administrations like NASA. If the private sector had been invited into the space business 25 years ago, we would be much further along.
I am starting to think that this is a generational view. I am an older Gen X'er, and it seems that the younger Gen Y crowd is much more use to asking for solutions from their "Parents" (aka, the Government) than in doing for themselves.
blame you dad! (Score:5, Interesting)
In the 60s/70s...they were entering the colleges and workforce...what did we get...a massive overhaul to the educational systems. In the 70/80s they were moving through their "working lives"...what did we get...a massive overhaul to industrial relations in favor of the workers...in 2000, they're all heading into retirement, mostly funded by shares, wanting to live on less money and also worried about death...what do we see? More power being given to corporations and taken from workers (in all three countries), more focus on immediate share holder returns rather than r&d, outsourcing to cut the cost of consumables, cutting of government research, services and educational assistence to lower taxes, and an increase in relious uptake as they all worry about death.
This is sheer speculation on my part, but in Australia we're watching all the great social practices put in place during the 60s/70s and 80s be repealed...from free education and medical, to workers rights...and from what I hear here it seems to be happening in the US and UK. These trends, to my untrained eye, seem to follow rather closely the needs of the major voting demographic (baby boomers)...so lets face it...if you're under 40 you're screwed...unless of course you move to south america where I believe the major demographics in most countries is 15-25 (they're having somewhat of a baby boom at the moment).
JPL Open House last summer was very encouraging (Score:5, Interesting)
But, I had one glorious day last year. The Jet Propulsion Labs at CalTech had an open house in May, and I attended this year with my little boy. It was a unique experience. You don't just stumble upon JPL, it's way off in the corner of the LA basin, but people came from everywhere around to the open house.
At each of a fifty or so different stations, there were JPL scientists describing their current work to an incredibly diverse but intensely interested audience. The scientists and engineers are, of course, very enthusiastic about their projects -- but the tremendous enthusiasm of my fellow attendees was surprising and heartening. Young and old, of every imaginable race and combination thereof, in families and individually -- everyone was just enthralled. It was kind of interesting to watch the engineers trying to describe the interferometer that JPL hopes to send up to measure the positions and velocities of stars more accurately to this group -- but they struggled to explain it, and people struggled to understand it.
As I said above, it was glorious. I recommend it to anybody in the LA area. There is hope.
Thad Beier
Comments from Neal Stephenson (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.reason.com/0502/fe.mg.neal.shtml [reason.com]
Reason: The Baroque Cycle suggests that there are sometimes great explosions of creativity, followed by that creative energy's recombining and eventual crystallization into new forms--social, technological, political. Are we seeing a similar degree of explosive progress in the modern U.S.?
Stephenson: The success of the U.S. has not come from one consistent cause, as far as I can make out. Instead the U.S. will find a way to succeed for a few decades based on one thing, then, when that peters out, move on to another. Sometimes there is trouble during the transitions. So, in the early-to-mid-19th century, it was all about expansion westward and a colossal growth in population. After the Civil War, it was about exploitation of the world's richest resource base: iron, steel, coal, the railways, and later oil.
For much of the 20th century it was about science and technology. The heyday was the Second World War, when we had not just the Manhattan Project but also the Radiation Lab at MIT and a large cryptology industry all cooking along at the same time. The war led into the nuclear arms race and the space race, which led in turn to the revolution in electronics, computers, the Internet, etc. If the emblematic figures of earlier eras were the pioneer with his Kentucky rifle, or the Gilded Age plutocrat, then for the era from, say, 1940 to 2000 it was the engineer, the geek, the scientist. It's no coincidence that this era is also when science fiction has flourished, and in which the whole idea of the Future became current. After all, if you're living in a technocratic society, it seems perfectly reasonable to try to predict the future by extrapolating trends in science and engineering.
It is quite obvious to me that the U.S. is turning away from all of this. It has been the case for quite a while that the cultural left distrusted geeks and their works; the depiction of technical sorts in popular culture has been overwhelmingly negative for at least a generation now. More recently, the cultural right has apparently decided that it doesn't care for some of what scientists have to say. So the technical class is caught in a pincer between these two wings of the so-called culture war. Of course the broad mass of people don't belong to one wing or the other. But science is all about diligence, hard sustained work over long stretches of time, sweating the details, and abstract thinking, none of which is really being fostered by mainstream culture.
Since our prosperity and our military security for the last three or four generations have been rooted in science and technology, it would therefore seem that we're coming to the end of one era and about to move into another. Whether it's going to be better or worse is difficult for me to say. The obvious guess would be "worse." If I really wanted to turn this into a jeremiad, I could hold forth on that for a while. But as mentioned before, this country has always found a new way to move forward and be prosperous. So maybe we'll get lucky again. In the meantime, efforts to predict the future by extrapolating trends in the world of science and technology are apt to feel a lot less compelling than they might have in 1955.
It's a relative decline. (Score:5, Interesting)
The rest of the world has been a relatively peaceful place for the last 50 years. So now the rest of the world is catching up. It doesn't mean the US is doing worse, the rest of the world is doing better.
Bringing Foreign Talent to the U.S. (Score:5, Interesting)
The article commented about visa restrictions preventing talented people from coming to the U.S. to study or do research. I just don't see that at all. In my field, there are tons of foreign post-docs working in the U.S., and many them decide to stay here after their post-doctoral appointments are done. Ironically, I have been told by many people in my field that I should look for a job overseas, since I can't find one here. Instead of trying to cultivate the talent that is already here in the U.S., our government's policies and the hiring practices of many institutions are bringing in foreign scientists while American scientists are being told to look to other countries for employment. In principle, I'm not against bringing foreign talent to the U.S. to help with scientific research. I just don't think it makes sense to do this on a large scale when U.S. scientists are struggling to survive.
I've also heard the complaint from many industry leaders that they can't find Americans with the right technical and scientific skills to fill job openings, so they need to bring in foreign talent. I've started looking into industry jobs, and I'm beginning to realize that computerized resume searches may be partially to blame for the apparent lack of qualified applicants. Most of the job descriptions are so specialized that I don't think there would be anyone in the entire world who fit the job exactly and would have all the right keywords in their resume. It doesn't matter if corporations look for employees in the U.S. or in other countries if they aren't willing to invest in training their staff. The executives and upper level managers of most corporations probably don't have a lot of technical experience themselves, and yet they expect a prospective employee to show up at their first day of work and know everything there is to know about the corporation's products. This is unreasonable and impossible, given that this type of information is often proprietary and available only to people who already work at the company.
I think that there are plenty of talented scientists, engineers, and programmers in the U.S. but the policies of our government and the practices of large corporations make it nearly impossible for us to actually find work in our chosen fields. Until we fix these problems, the U.S. is going to get further and further behind the rest of the world.
Much as it would please me to put the blame on ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Simple solution (Score:3, Funny)
The cold, hard, undeniable truth about evolution is:
APES EVOLVED FROM HUMANS!
Isn't it obvious?
Re:Oh, this is going to be good. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Oh, this is going to be good. (Score:5, Funny)
Well, go ahead and close that file. It's already got all the facts and hard science in it that it's going to get.
Re:Seperate them! (Score:5, Interesting)
Or did you mean to suggest that they did not mean it, simply by virtue of their being "Christian"? Their variety of Christianity was far more enlightened than what is often found in evangelical churches today. Here's another quote:
Re:Seperate them! (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Religion holding us back as usual (Score:3, Insightful)
Ummmmm. they did a few hundred years back.
http://pilgrims.net/plymouth/history/mayflower.ht
Re:Religion holding us back as usual (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Again (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Again (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyone who is unbiased sees a world leader imposing religious dogma onto secular public schools, and scientists doing legitimate and lifesaving research with aborted fetus tissue, or even pre-life-viable embryos in a labratory.
Slashdot has a story involving Bush because like him or not he's a world leader and what he says counts as news. If he says something objectionable, then it's the medias' responsibility to report it and explain why it's objectionable. In an open society you're allowed to use the media to respond, or say the media is wrong for saying Bush is wrong, but if all you can say is that they are "biased" and that somehow passes as a solid argument, then we're letting people like you off way to easily.
Tell us WHY critics of Bush's science and religion policy are wrong? You can't, because they are right.
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you kidding? He crippled the entire line of ESC research for years. And every argument given for doing so was entirely baseless. The Christian Right simply wouldn't ever shut up about how it encourages abortion, even though the one has utterly nothing to do with another. As a result, the US has already begun falling behind in biosciences. He puts _faith healers_ on medical boards. Money spent on actual scientific studies of environmental problems gets thrown away because the guys at the top don't like the results. The latest crop of republicans are about the worst thing to happen to science and they are making religion look like a caricature of itself. To the rest of the world, the most powerful nation on earth looks like it's becoming a Christian version of Saudi Arabia.
The lunar missions ended because American leaders decided the money was better spent getting GIs killed in Vietman. The space program ultimately stagnated because US leaders made it a government monopoly run by a political committee. I see a solid week of news dedicated to ongoing technical problems with a single solitary shuttle (i.e., a third of our entire manned fleet) and I think, "We don't have a space program, we have a space hobby". And the reason people get pissed off with the expense is because it doesn't _do_ anything useful or even new anymore.
Anyway, it's not so much that there's a declining number of competent researchers and scientists. It's just that they are increasingly being told that neither they nor their work is wanted here. Fact is old and busted, faith-based-government is the new hotness. Average Joe is not just getting dumber, he's becoming more and more convinced that this is a virtue. Nothing could demonstrate this better than the studies showing that half the voting population would refuse to vote for a candidate for no other reason than because he was an atheist. I.e., competency and intelligence are secondary to whimsy and insanity.
Re:SSC (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Am I an anomaly? (Score:5, Interesting)
Much of the present climate is very much anti-science. In recent times I've been almost ridiculed for "believing" in DNA. One woman sneered and called me an "academic".
I think the problem is that science is being made into a "belief system". I've heard so many times, "Science is just like religion" or "Science is just another paradigm". Clearly it's not. If I were to say that the Bible instructs the faithful to wear purple polka-dotted pantaloons on Wednesdays I'd be dismissed as a crackpot. Yet so many in the religious community can claim that science is a "belief system" and misrepresent aspects of scientific theory (evolution, the Big Bang) and get away with it. They have conned people into believing that science is something more than a process and by doing so, forced people to choose between God and science.
Sure it's noble to seek knowledge, but ultimately it's just a process. One might as well call arithmetic a belief system. "You're adding! You godless heathen!!!"