A few days ago The New York Times reported that new organizations are sprouting up "to encourage scientists and engineers to speak out in public debates and even run for public office." There are many good reasons for science to be put on the front burner of our public agenda. More than fifty percent of our economic growth since World War II is attributable to science and technology; this is the best investment our country has made. And our scientists and engineers are the best possible advocates for reinvestment in innovation, especially considering the state of our economy.
But the very fact that American scientists feel the need to aggressively advocate for science conceal a bitter irony that the Times article failed to note: We once had a group of brilliant, influential and politically engaged leaders who were fascinated by science, wanted the country to be the world leader in the pursuit of new knowledge about the natural world, and in some cases even made original contributions.
They were called the founding fathers.
Consider, for example, Benjamin Franklin, after whom one political action group, Ben Franklin's list, is named. One can draw a line of descent from Isaac Newton, the greatest scientist of his day, to Benjamin Franklin, the greatest scientist of his (and the founder of my university). The list goes on. Thomas Jefferson (founder of my previous employer, the University of Virginia), was famously preoccupied with both astronomy through Newton and political liberalism via John Locke. As a student at King's College, now Columbia University, Alexander Hamilton was intent on a medical career and attended all the lectures on natural philosophy that he could. John Adams, John Hancock and James Bowdoin founded the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston. Jefferson and Hamilton, otherwise bitter rivals, made complementary contributions to the innovative foundations of the new country: Jefferson through the patent statute, Hamilton by laying the foundations for history's most successful capitalist economy. By way of the wildly popular pamphlet Common Sense Thomas Paine was not only the most effective propagandist of the American Revolution, he also closely followed current scientific breakthroughs. In The Age of Reason he declaimed on the size of the earth, the nature of the planetary system, and the scale of the universe. Paine theorized that there must be millions of worlds like ours millions of miles apart.
President Lincoln chartered the National Academy of Sciences just as the modern meanings of the words "science" and "progress" were emerging. Especially in the industrial boom times after the Civil War, moral values were seen as a key consequence of scientific progress. Historian Charles Rosenberg has observed that "[t]he vast majority of nineteenth-century Americans never doubted that human beings had progressed and that this progress -- inevitably -- subsumed dimensions both moral and material. It was inconceivable to them that the steam engine and morality were not somehow interconnected." Piety, productivity and, by the end of the nineteenth century, efficiency were all within the same universe of desirable values and consequences of science and progress.
Physics, engineering and chemistry were regnant, and biology was still largely observational rather than experimental, so the great debates about evolution and the origins of life were yet to come. Partly for this reason, conservative religious beliefs were quite compatible with a cohesive moral vision through the late 19th century. Ministers and naturalists could agree on their beliefs about nature. What has changed this American sensibility?
At the turn of the last century the atmosphere shifted due to misconceptions about Darwinism, debates about creationism and, in our time, the advent of experimental biology and modern genetics, which has stimulated political controversies like those over cloning and stem cells. Modern biology has become a cultural wedge. In popular culture, movies like Rise of the Planet the Apes continue a tradition of anxiety about the power of the life sciences that began with "Frankenstein," with scientists the true villains who, in their fits of hubris, create innocent suffering and creatures who destroy themselves and their creators.
The United States is still by far the biggest producer of new knowledge, but China and other competitors are on the rise. In the 21st century leadership in science is not optional for a nation that proposes to remain a superpower. The new experimental biology will inevitably be part of that new foundation of power and prosperity, but the long-term investments involved require a deep and broad cultural commitment, the kind we've had since World War II and that fulfilled the founders' vision. As I argue in my forthcoming book The Body Politic: The Battle Over Science in America, we need to find ways to include the new biology as part of the American narrative of the 21st century.
Ben would have been the first to sign up for his list. Let's add all our names to his.
Jonathan D. Moreno is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2011/07/we-suck.html
I was PVS. They don't care. I talk now. "So what?"
the electorate is scientifically illiterate, so they wouldn't recognize a scientist unless they was paid by Massey Coal or BP Oil (insert any corporation that stands to loose from scientific realities), or claimed to develop viagra or fat free butter. "Scientists who study the environment aren't scientists, they are just liberals with an agenda!"
Indeed they were the founding fathers ----- When you have vision you have direction --- the political parties who used to be torch bearers of the vision of these founding fathers are at odds --- cut throat tendency --- you should not have it all or nothing attitude --- we were a nation of science, arts, finance, prowess, leadership, torch bearer of liberty, freedom and justice, envy of the world to follow, now all is hijacked in the war of words specially the WMD that echoed at oval office and the hill ten years ago, and the RMDD --- the new word that echoes in the halls of wall street and across the nation and the globe ---- RUMOURS OF MORE DEBT DECLINE --- INTERNATIONALLY --- WE HAVE BECOME A NATION OF FEARS & EXCESSIVE SPECULATIONS THE REPUBLICANS MADE THE GAS ON THE WORDS OF WMP TO 170 DOLLARS PER BARRELL ---- THEY MADE LOT OF PEOPLE RICH AT THE EXPENSE OFTHE WHOLE NATION NOW BANKRUPT AND CREDIT DOWNGRADED -- WE ARE COUPING FOR THE LAST 8 YEARS OF WAR MONGORING, CHASING FEARS AND FEARS AND FEARS UPON FEARS OF SOMETHING AND ENDING UP UNROMANTICALLY NOT VERY SCIENTIFIC and we are
People think they are entitled to their opinions. Generally yes, but we can't have a nation that's lead by opinions alone. We need to be honest with our statistics and butt them up against other statistics to really make them make sense. Yesterday I heard during the Republican debate that (paraphrase) "My actions have kept abortions low in my state." Yes, that's fine, but did the numbers of single parent household increase? Did the crime rate go up? What areas have the most births, are they poor areas? Would those people have gotten abortions if they could? Do they teach sex-ed in their schools? To not recognize the abstract relationships between seemingly unrelated things is an acceptable quality in a person that wants to lead anyone. We can argue about opinions and "facts" all day, but we must be honest with the information we have, and the information we are able to acquire.
Science changes as we understand more, religion largely stays the same no matter the amounts of new information about our existence and reality we live in we discover. We need leaders that understand that.
Ivory tower indeed.
Did I use too many ""?
So much easier to "believe".
"Vote for me because God told me to run for President" and people DO.
Watch Fox News, because we "report" what you believe, instead of unbiased "News" that you may not agree with, and might have to think about.
The "dumbing down" of America is real.
One has to look no further than Congress for proof of that theory. The reason our "leaders" can't balance a budget, is because they are obviously mathematically challenged. (or ethically challenged).
The two biggest contributors to the Nations debt crisis (before the unemployment crisis hit) were the Wars in the Middle East, and the Bush tax cuts, and BOTH of those items are off the negotiating table.
Republican policies are responsible for MOST of the 14 trillion dollar Federal deficit, and yet they have convinced millions to blame the "tax and spend" Democrats for the bad outcome of THEIR policies.
How "logical" is that?
Only liberals think that tax cuts add to the debt....
This was the case 30 years back when I got my engineering degree - and it has only gotten worse. Even back then you had more foreigners in graduate Science and Engineering than Americans - this in one of the top engineering schools in the US.
My sons participate in a G&T program during the summer - THAT program's math and science classes are filled with South Asian, ethnic Chinese and other immigrant family kids (you see more Americans taking the H&SS offerings).
We had to FIGHT to get our children moved ahead in math and science in our local public schools (as have others in other schools) despite test scores showing their abilities. Sadly the US seems to pride itself on being 'anti-elitist' which often translates into anti-intelligent and anti-learned. The lack of engineers and scientists in elected office - and the preponderance of mediocre lawyers and 'businessmen (who got C's and D's in college) explains much of what is wrong with this nation. We should have a 'minimum education' exam for politicians - covering history, current events, economics, math and science.... but THAT will never happen in a 'profession' drawing those whose ignorance seems to be a source of pride.
Adding to all that, conservative religious folk seem to be deathly afraid of a changing world and instead of trying to keep up with it are legislating moves BACKWARD to preserve their personal beliefs - invalidating a Constitutional separation between church and state.
The Gingrich House even disbanded the scientific advisory committee to Congress.
Science and religion have never been able to coexist, and science is now losing.
When you throw in the fact that corporations are increasingly controlling science, it forecasts a rather gloomy future for science as a social driver in the U.S..
Well, OK, for those that read anyway.
Our biggest investments in R&D and education came from government spending during WWII and the space race of the 60's. We are still reaping the benefits of those investments (as I type on my computer over the internets). This is what America has always been good at: ingenuity.
Sadly though the current Republican party has decided that faith is more important than intellect, short term profit is more important than long term benefit and education is 'indoctrination' of our youth. While the candidates stand on stage and tell us that they don't believe in evolution, science is in the lab using what we know about evolution to create new drugs, new discoveries and new knowledge.
In the country they'd like to take us back to we do manual labor, we get paid a pittance and a small group of people reap the rewards, That's not how we became a great nation and it's a sure formula for our downfall.
The answer is science."
Michael Shermer, 'The Believing Brain'