There’s an article in the local paper about the big 2008 federal cutbacks in support for basic research in science. This is not good. The cuts have followed years of federal decline, and the scientific research institution is feeling the pinch. Labs are turning from basic research to more short-term, profit-oriented work, and young PhD students are avoiding basic science because of declines in job opportunities. There’s a brain drain going on here, and it’s going to hurt America. There was never a time when we needed high level scientific research so much. We’re in the middle of a growing energy crisis and a food crisis and a global warming crisis, and we need as much technology as we can get to keep these things from bringing America down from its role as the big economic power of the world. Sure, basic research does not have an immediate payoff. But without the basic research in electronics and computer science that occurred in the 1970s and 1980s, we might not have the Internet as we know it today.
Well, bottom line is that this is really stupid, and whoever gets elected President this November (hopefully it will be settled in November — there are possible tie scenarios that would be even worse than 2000) had better do something about it. Or else America is going to be heading into a tailspin by the time that either Obama or McCain conclude their second term. A tailspin that’s a whole lot worse than the one we seem to be in now. Just as Toyota overtook GM as the biggest carmaker, it’s not impossible that India and China could some day surpass the USA in science and technology.
Jim,
I see the 2008 federal cutbacks for research as part of a larger general lack of respect for learning as a whole. Any respect for “reading, writing, and arithmetic” has long gone; for a while, science reigned supreme. Now (with a president who can graduate from one of the Ivy League school barely able to speak a sentence), surely there is no mystery as to why there is a lack of respect for learning.
And while I’m on this rant, I might also include the general attitude of the “young ‘uns” who think nothing of buying papers online or outright plagiarizing materials when the need to write arises. This problem is so pervasive that in my area we have even had a school prinicipal who plagiarized a speech.
One thing I must say for Obama: He can put a sentence together, even a paragraph–and mirable dictu!! He can put an entire speech together–and the tho’t of that speech flows logically and makes sense. Imagine! A president who may actually be able to speak intelligently!
As to the tailspin the economy is in: Today I actually heard the word “depression” used–that the scenario we are seeing now has not been seen since the “depression” of 1929! We may have some seriously hard times ahead of us.
MCS
Comment by MCS — July 1, 2008 @ 1:29 pm
Jim,
I see the 2008 federal cutbacks for research as part of a larger general lack of respect for learning as a whole. Any respect for “reading, writing, and arithmetic” has long gone; for a while, science reigned supreme. Now (with a president who can graduate from one of the Ivy League school barely able to speak a sentence), surely there is no mystery as to why there is a lack of respect for learning.
And while I’m on this rant, I might also include the general attitude of the “young ‘uns” who think nothing of buying papers online or outright plagiarizing materials when the need to write arises. This problem is so pervasive that in my area we have even had a school prinicipal who plagiarized a speech.
One thing I must say for Obama: He can put a sentence together, even a paragraph–and mirable dictu!! He can put an entire speech together–and the tho’t of that speech flows logically and makes sense. Imagine! A president who may actually be able to speak intelligently!
As to the tailspin the economy is in: Today I actually heard the word “depression” used–that the scenario we are seeing now has not been seen since the “depression” of 1929! We may have some seriously hard times ahead of us.
MCS
Comment by MCS — July 1, 2008 @ 1:29 pm