The American Science Deficit -- and What to do About it
Today, on the 40 year anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, we will hear a great deal about NASA's woes, the nation's declining interest in space exploration, and much else. It is crucial, though, to set such observations in the context of a far broader disengagement with science that has occurred in this country since the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Launched by President Kennedy, the Apollo program was just the most prominent example of America's dramatic investment of science in the wake of the 1957 Soviet launch of Sputnik. The first Earth-orbiting satellite, beeping at us from above, inspired stark competitive fears in the nation: Were we falling behind in technology? Would the Soviets fire on us from the skies, and if they tried, could we stop them?
In response, the U.S. Congress jacked up the budget of the recently formed National Science Foundation to $134 million, an increase of nearly $100 million in just one year. And that was just the beginning -- NSF's budget continued to explode in subsequent years, so that by 1962-1963 it had reached $12.2 billion. [This statement is mistaken: the 1962-1963 figure represents the total federal government R&D expenditure.] Meanwhile, Congress created NASA and passed the National Defense Education Act, providing generous funding to encourage American students to pursue careers in science and engineering.
Still, that's just the beginning of the response to Sputnik. At the same time, President Eisenhower pulled science into the White House by creating the office of the president's Science Adviser and the president's Science Advisory Committee, also, the National Science Foundation drew upon the nation's elite researchers in an attempt to remake the high school science education curriculum. Science journalism also boomed, as a generation of enthusiasts wrote about each daily step of the thrilling space race.
In sum, the policies and cultural changes unleashed in the wake of Sputnik shaped the course of American science for decades -- and made us world leaders. But then, something went very wrong. Science budgets stopped rising and began to fall. Educational investment also declined. Science became ensnared with politics, first the foe of the religious right, then something to be spiked at will by the Bush administration.
More broadly, our culture changed vastly since the mid-twentieth century. Science became much less cool, scientists ceased to be role models, and kids aren't rushing home anymore to fire rockets from their backyards.
One could spend a vast amount of ink on the complex changes that brought us to this point -- and you would have to focus equally on the media, the political system, conflicts over religion and even the community of scientists themselves. (In a new book titled Unscientific America, co-authored with a young scientist named Sheril Kirshenbaum, I do just this). But suffice it to say, just as science was at the center of national attention during the days of the space race, so it has plummeted from this position since.
A 2008 analysis by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, for instance, found that if you tune in for five hours worth of cable news, you will probably catch only one minute's coverage of science and technology. As for newspapers, from 1989 to 2005 the number featuring weekly science or science-related sections shrank by nearly two-thirds, from 95 to 34.
When Congress heard timely testimony last week about the state of the space program, one witness was Miles O'Brien -- the space journalist who, ironically enough, lost his job at CNN late last year. That pretty much says it all about how we value and regard science today, as opposed to how we valued and regarded it after Sputnik.
So what needs to change? One doesn't remake a culture easily, and the Obama administration is already doing everything it can, policy-wise, to reinvest in science and to clean house after the "war on science" perpetrated by the Bush administration. But this isn't a gap the president and his administration can bridge, certainly not alone.
It's far from clear that, at a time of media industry upheaval, we can expect new levels of attention to science in the press any time soon. If anything, science journalism may decline further before stabilizing. Ditto for American science education: We need vast reforms, but this is a massive, generational project.
But we also have a largely overlooked asset in this fight: The nation's universities, and in particular, the army of young researchers there who want to bring about a helpful change in our nation's engagement with science. These students -- and I have met them on campuses across the country -- can see that while their professors put us at the top of the world in science, the rest of America didn't follow along. Instead, much of the public missed out on the incredible odyssey of discovery. And at the same time, scientists themselves didn't learn nearly as much about how to talk to the rest of America as they did about how to uncover facts about nature.
Perhaps that is the key imbalance here, and one that it's finally time to redress. Scientists today regularly lament the gap between science and the public, but the real issue is to stop being part of it -- to stop having a vast divide between the "experts" and everybody else. If there's one lesson to take from the decline of public engagement with science since the days of the space race, it's that even the best and brightest among us have a lot of work to do.
Follow Chris Mooney on Twitter: www.twitter.com/UnscientAmerica
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This is utter rubbish. I hope readers will take a look at this blog response for a detailed account of all the false statements Mooney has made here: http://rog
This is classic Chris Mooney: he makes up a bunch of stuff that comports with the classic myth of science-in-decline, and then basks in the warm glow of his (scientist) fans' adoration. They see him as advancing the cause of science, communicating its value as so many scientists' fail to do. Really he's just telling them what they want to hear, and they love him for it.
"Congress jacked up the budget of the recently formed National Science Foundation to $134 million, an increase of nearly $100 million in just one year. And that was just the beginning -- NSF's budget continued to explode in subsequent years, so that by 1962-1963 it had reached $12.2 billion."
Where are you getting these numbers, Chris? Please give us a link to the source of these numbers ... they appear to be wrong.
Bravo, Chris, you're on the right track, as usual.
Most if not many colleges and universities now operate under "outreach" and "public service" mandates. Sending passionate, talented young science grad students and even talented undergrads out to speak to and do science demonstrations for school children would be an instant shot-in-the arm for our nation's science education and science literacy, and it would go a long way in helping institutions of higher learning meet those outreach requirements.
This is SORELY needed, because science teachers K-12 are all too often struggling not only with holes in their own science backgrounds, but with crap-for-c
Way too many science texts read like poorly translated operating instructions for a VCR.
Chris Mooney,
What can you expect when, because of ever increasing suburban sprawl creating LIGHT POLLUTION, kids can not go out into their own backyards, look up, and discover the wonders of the heavens above?
Very few of us today even know what The Milky Way is, let alone know that it is bright enough to case a shadow:(
No, we must dutifully, Light up the undersides of Birds, Clouds and Airplanes each night because we cannot understand that they don't need to be lit up...
And we can't understand that wasting energy costs us money!
Years ago,my youngest asked to go home from school. The teacher asked if he was sick. He said "no,but i want to go home.I'll come back when you are ready to teach me something new".This in the third grade. No wonder the educational system is in crisis....
You can't really blame the educators for this, pathetic though they may be. They are following the trend, not creating it. No amount of money thrown at education will make any difference as long as it is (correctly) perceived that there are no worthwhile career opportunities at the end of it. At the root of the problem is that companies no longer invest in R&D, at least not in the USA. And the reason for that, to a large extent, is the financial deregulation of the Reagan years that taught US companies to maintain their stock price at all costs or be taken over and asset-stripped. Consequently, they've been highly reluctant to invest money in things that didn't show an immediate return, and it made better financial sense to close plants here and subcontract design and manufacture to what used to be the Third World.
After 25 years of this it's going to be extremely difficult to recover, because we no longer have an industrial base to build on, and what we do have left is too concerned with protecting its patents and other IP to do any research that might benefit the country. Who will fill the shoes of Bell Labs, or Xerox PARC - Intel? Microsoft? Don't make me laugh.
Get religion out of education and we can be the leader in science again.
We've already had about 40 years of your idea and it hasn't helped anything at all.
Just goes to show how much you know and how young you appear to be.
What are you talking about? We have had 30 years of RELIGION being taught in schools-witness the Texas State Board of Education installing a chairman who homeschooled her own kids and wants to teach mine creationism. Witness the school voucher program where money was shunted away from public schools to, in many cases, religion based private schools. We've had a dumbing down of science across the board since the Moral Majority sprang into existence, even to the point that the park ranger was FORCED to provide the creationists' account of how the Grand Canyon was formed in 6000 on a guided tour, by National Park Service policy.
Six percent of scientist are Republicans-why? There is no room for science in the absolutist, evangelical view of that party.
The editors of Sky and Telescope had a similar view expressed in the August edition. My experience as a doctor trying to educate my patients is that a significant percentage of them google a condition, read about it for 20 minutes and then feel their experience with that particular condition is equal to mine, despite my board certification and 20 years clinical experience
It'd also be nice to see NASA's efforts applied toward more directly improving things earthly, like global warming or energy problems rather than "fly me to the moon", or going to Mars (you first W!)... I'm just sayin'...
They are. Their climatology department is one of, if not the most repected research centres on climatology in the world. It was a NASA scientist that made the 'global warning is imminent' speech to congress during the Reagan administration and alerted the world that time was running out. It was taken seriously, but nothing was done.
The problem more recently has been that their research was censored for around 6 years of the W presidency and the head of department, James Hansen, has been pilloried from the right for being a Gore-activist (he wrote gore's 'inconvenient truth' slideshow).
Thankfully the censorship has been removed, but the right-wing scepticism of the NASA climatology dept makes it difficult to get their voices heard...NA
Also, they do a lot of groundbreaking medical and psychological work.
The space stuff gets the most attention in the media, but the media's lack of spotlight on their other work doesnt mean that it isnt happening.
You should have probably checked the NASA website and done a bit of research before you commented. In any case, you can check it out now.
But NASA DOES...
Ever hear of the Shuttle "Missions to planet Earth"?
Lots of Satellites out there that are looking at the Earth not to the moon or outer space.
And then there are also all those pesky satellites
Or when a snowstorm is coming...
Or a Hurricane.
And when we do look at our own Solar System we are learning about the Earth..
Want to know about Global Warming?
Try looking at a planet that is the brightest star in the sky, that has an atmosphere composed of
95% Carbon Dioxide with temps around 900 degrees F.
It's Venus!
Please do not compare Venus to the Earth-it shows how little of planetary science you know.
When you throw up inaccurate and inflammatory replies, you do not help your case
There's still some controversy about whether "more science" is really the remedy for what ails the American mentality. Read Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food" for some eloquent observations about the way "scientism" (actually he calls it "nutritionism") has corrupted the impulse to investigate reality that is science correctly applied.
Consider this: The nutritional benefit of whole grain exceeds the nutritional benefit calculated based on its constituent vitamins, minerals, etc. In other words, the science we rely on in our diet ("Let's get the one with the omega-3 oils, honey!") is really incomplete. Better to eat local food whose nutritional value hasn't diminished because of processing, storage, or transport than even the finest organic produce.
I think what we are really talking about is Anti-Intel
It's something that Americans have to deal with from time to time.
Basically, today it's rampant in both liberal and conservative camps.
Whe the rallying cry for a sawth of the country is "drill baby drill" there cannot possibly be enough
science.
And the example you cite of the benefits of whole grains is illustrates the problem. So long as, say, bio-medical sciences are restricted starved of independent funding, they will be beholden to a narrow subset commercial interests. The problem is not more/less science, it is better science.
Yes!!!! Independent funding for medical research is imperative and long overdue, lest medicine slip completely from the ranks of real science, and become a carnival barkers existing simply to hawk snake oil to the unsuspecting and turn people into side-show freaks. Some say it already has.
One can tell Americans know no science and, in fact, have disdain for it by the discussions here on climate change. Half the people who post say it s a fraud or driven by a group of scientists with a socialist agenda. Then they post distortion after distortion about the real science because they get all their information from right wing websites. There is a deep puritanical, anti-intellectual strain in American society which is scary. It is almost like living under the Taliban.
And it is coming form the left
"Who is John Galt?" LOL.
And up is down, white is black, and religious fundamentalism has supported the Democrats.
The left isn't pushing Intelligent Design/Creationism.
Hmmmm.. "Puritanical" is hardly a dscriptive term for a liberal.
I agree, though...t
Are you completely NUTS, Randian? If you think the anti-intellectual movement is coming from the LEFT, you have a serious perception problem.
realpolitic, Agree! Scary. Educated = eltie (bad), education=
What do they have left to trust? talk radio and FOX. All else is BAD, wrong.
They are the mob with pitchforks. I'm scared. Their talk about climate change illustrates it best.
Mr. Mooeny argues that the lack of attention paid to science in the media and the falling numbers of participants among the young are the impact of the politics of the right. I did not see any of Mr Mooney's credentials except that he has written a book. No indication as to wether he is a grad student, a post- doc or even a faculty member of one of our institutions. Nor did I see any data to actually back his argument except for the number of hours of media coverage for science. Certainly one could easily cite to the contrary: the logarithmic increase in the number of peer reviewed journals, the massive amount of publications and meetings available for PIs to submit their work to. the budget of the NIH.
As a scientist, I think everyone should be as interested in the field as I but, given the vast opportunities in all arts, one can imagine why one might choose an alternative path.
Indeed, science itself is probably the greatest cause of its demise.
The current commitment prior to being independent is at least 10 years following high school graduation with you BS, PhD and post-doc work.
Second, large labs which put the PIs career ahead of the grad student and post-doc's are common.
Hell, looking back, I should have taken the easy way out and been an author or a lawyer.
Scientists frequently look to blame others when the light shines brightest in the mirror.
Your points about the long and tortuous path to becoming an independent scientific investigator are all true, but you're ignoring other science *related* fields that are just as vital and take much less time in school. Primarily, these other fields (engineering being the obvious example) take the results of independent scientific investigations and turn them to practical use.
Our country is suffering a shortage of both and the effects of this are twofold:
1) Our ability to engineer our way out of crises is getting smaller and smaller, and
2) The ability of our society to have a reasoned debate on scientific
But look on the bright side: We're much better prepared than before to fend off an alien invasion by selling the aliens worthless financial instrumtents and if it turns out that dancing, singing or vying for a rose from a cute eligible single can ward off climate change, our children's well being is assured.
Don't be too hard on yourself, Randian. You can always get together with your fellow producers (and/or their spouses) and ride off into the mountains to make your own country.
Just kidding---I really hate Randian philosophy, you know? It gives "0" credit to the commonwealth and its assets without which none of us could stay alive.
pilko's points are well-taken. It's not all about those working in academia. It's about the vastly bigger numbers of the rest of us who either work in science-related fields, or simply need to know more about issues which affect our lives and which drive public policy. That's like.... everybody.
Mooney is among the best-credentialed science writers, though it's a dying breed. Just google him up. And read his book, _The Republican War on Science_. You won't like it. I guarantee.
The battle for science literacy needs to be fought in the elementary school level. My son completed KG this past spring. Probably 90% of his time at school was spent in (boring and repetitive) reading lessons. I asked his teacher when they would get to do any science. "If we have time we'll work it in" and "Well, we get some science in some of our reading exercises" I was told. Great. "Cause reading about tadpoles and frogs and life cycles is just as much fun as seeing and touching the real thing. My son is only six years old and already tired of being bored and stifled. Great reading test scores, though, so no one cares.
THis is the result when you teach to obtain equal outcomes. Not every child isn young Jimmie's class can accomplish more than just reading and in order for everyone to keep up, they simply read it 10 times over and over.
Do not blame the right.
Argue for alternatives for your child, home school for the sciences, take them to the natural history museum. Buy them a subscription to National Geographic or Science. Look for charter schools.
They are afterall Your kids.
Our first teachers are our parents:)
I suggest that you get to work...the
I have to agree with Randian this time, Ex-K. You have a job to do.
Look for alternative school situations for your son, and meantime, provide as much science enrichment as you can. Board and trivia games were great for our kids, a steady died of "Nova", and plenty of trips to the natural science museums, nature centers, woods & swamps. Natural history day camps are wonderful, too. Let a corner of your lawn go "natural". Buy hand lenses, bug & bird field guides, and binocs. Offer to help your son's teacher do a special science enrichment project, or get with other parents and do an entire science week. Raise funds for science materials like books, lab equipment, field trips. Get yourself appointed to curriculum development and textbook selection committees. Check your state's required science curriculum benchmarks
Good luck!
You reminded us of the right question in your opening paragraph: "Would the Soviets fire on us from the skies, and if they tried, could we stop them?" Need I remind you that it is the money interests that control the government? We are far from a democracy of, for and by the people. So, when the moneyed class is threatened, it ponies up our money (collected from taxes) for the task of 'please do something to stop those bad guys from taking away my wealth'. No matter that the wealth of the wealthy was generated by the hard work of so many. This class only wants more for itself than others, much more. It is least interested in growing the total pie. It knows that the world resources ae limited and we are approaching the limits. So it wants to keep its super lion share. It does not understand civilization and all of its components - science, philosophy, altruism. Hence only a threat releases it grip on the public purse temporarily which makes for a short, but rapid spurt of knowledge, technology, art, education, altruism; in other words a rapid development of new thought, sentiment and action. Then the manouvering starts and much of newly created wealth is siphoned off by the likes of wall streeters via corrupt politicians. Is it a wonder that US is slowing down and begining to lag in so many areas all at once?
Speaking as a female scientist, I think it is sad to see our education system not put extra focus and push math and sciences. I luckily had an affinity and an appreciation of science so I went towards that, but I think it is hard to steer children towards these subjects. I think we need to show and encourage children at young age so they do not feel any intimidation that they will not be able to succeed in science, they just need to apply themselves.
There's no doubt that the religious right sees science as a threat. Probably a bigger threat than al-Qaida (at least the latter is comprised of religious wackos!)
Limp,
Religion and science go hand and hand. I is only when science pursues to promote itself as God's replacement ( a common occurrence in academia) do they get into trouble.
You've made LMPE's case. Essentially, whenever science doesn't match what the Bible says, science is accused of "promoting itself as G-d's replacemen
But Randian, when has science entered into the churches and places of worship to impose itself on religion? That's exactly what religion is doing to PUBLIC education.
Perhaps mainstream science groups should push for laws to force all religious doctrines and dogmas to adhere to a set of mainstream science standards, and even provide monitors for each church to make sure preachers follow standards in their sermons.
Well, that's a bit over the top, but I can guarantee you there are those so upset by religion's attack on science, they're looking into ways to trim evangelical wings, primarily via tax code enforcement and changes, and possibly new broadcast regs.
If it's a turf war religion wants, I'm afraid if science truly gets aroused and there's a backlash, it's our religious freedom which will lose. Pass that along to your moral majority friends.
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