The warning is being sounded ever more loudly, from newspaper headlines to the floor of Congress: The United States is about to be deposed as the world leader in science and technology. This groundswell of fear arises from the mounting number of scientists being trained in countries like China and India, and an apparent decline in new scientists at home. Responding to this anxiety, President Bush last year called for a $136 billion boost in federal funding for science education and research. But just what will it take for the United States to rebuild its house of science—and keep the lead in the global brain race? According to USF Associate Dean for Sciences Brandon Brown, we can start by rethinking how scientists are rewarded for innovation and launching a good, old-fashioned PR campaign.
For devotees of American science, today’s fears amount to an outsourcing of everything we hold dear. In our darkest moments, we see half the nation blathering on cell phones as they ship know-how and innovation to Asia, while we hear the other half praying to have all scientific questions shipped to the Holy Trinity. Ultimately, these fears tug strings both emotional and rational. At an unconscious level, we fear a fall from the high seat of technology into torch-lit streets ruled by superstition. We hold a collective pride, soaked in images of busy chalkboards, moon landings, lab coats, and horn-rimmed glasses. More consciously, on a level of cold logic, we understand science and technology as the economic growth hormones for the body GNP.
With any phobia, the afflicted must examine the facts and then focus on the factors within reach. If action replaces worry, American science can assure itself with some homework, some tinkering, and a savvy whitening of the teeth.
The threat of Asian science is often expressed in numbers. China and India produce ever-larger crops of eager scientists and engineers. But the real and relevant numbers are as elusive as the ether. Inside Higher Ed recently cited the case of the “disappearing Chinese engineers.” In a 2006 report titled “Rising Above the Gathering Storm,” the National Academies of Science estimated that 600,000 engineers graduate in China per year, compared to 70,000 per year in America. This single offhand figure has become a factoid that every member of Congress can restate without reading an otherwise fascinating and important report. A subsequent bulletin from the National Academies has nearly halved the Chinese number and doubled the American output. Any relief felt at this update would be as silly as the worry. A nation with roughly five times our population should have more of every profession.
The real question should be: do hordes correlate to science innovation? Can we enumerate a nation’s scientists, like so many identical warheads, to measure discovery power? That makes as much sense as choosing a restaurant based on how many chefs they employ. One good idea, or two minds making a novel connection, can trump 100,000 working to fine-tune an existing technology, be it software or soft serve.
The purely qualitative fear is more substantive than the numerical. The worry of American science losing its standing reminds one of the nation’s reaction to evolving overseas basketball competition. Whether you’re talking steel, semiconductors or sports, everyone will catch up given one game and a constant set of rules. So we must do what we can to encourage innovation. In particular, market-ignorant research generates tomorrow’s unexpected technologies.
The French mathematician Henri Poincaré wrote of discovery as a game of combinatorics. We possess an enormous inventory of knowledge chunks. What creates the next breakthrough is the combination of chunks that were formerly separate. Most combinations are truly senseless, but once in a great while a combination opens a new vista. For instance, applying X-ray diffraction to complex biological molecules revealed the now-familiar double helix.
One obvious strategy for supporting Poincaré’s vision is to maintain diversity within the scientific enterprise. Much like economic investing, you want to keep a variety of experiments percolating, from the sensible to the risky. Fund labs of various sizes and distribute funds over a great range of disciplines. That includes, for instance, not funding genetics and microbiology to the exclusion of meso and macro scale biology. A diverse battery of science should also include funding scientists of various ages. The National Institutes of Health report a disturbing but obvious trend in their funding statistics. The average age of the traditional grant winner rose from about 40 years in 1980 to over 50 years in 2003. Without diminishing our more senior scientists, it’s important to recall that the pre-25 crowd has generated a wealth of groundbreaking discoveries, from Newton to Einstein.
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