New legislation designed to help foster science, innovation, and education: the America COMPETES (Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science) Act. Proposes, among other things, the doubling of NSF/DoE Office of Science budgets in four years.
O brave new quantum world!
It makes sense to focus funding for science education in the US on grade school / high school, not post-graduate / research. If people are coming into universities as undergrads without even the faintest notion of what science even is (which is obviously the case now), pouring money into research is like putting icing on wormcake (there’s a Max and Ruby reference for all the parents of toddlers out there).
I have an educational proposition that is much cheaper: Make every single high school student in the US read Dawkins’ The Ancestor’s Tale and Sam Harris’ The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation. Probably less expensive that the budget for finding a cute acronym for the legislation.
If this passes, expect the next ~5 years to be a time of unparalleled growth. Then when the doubling is over and there are way too many people who established themselves during the doubling along with way too many people seeking academic jobs, be prepared for a world of suck. That’s the biomedical research world today, following the doubling of the NIH budget. During the doubling, over 20% of project proposals were funded, leading to a glut of investigators, and creating a huge demand for technical staff, students and postdocs. Now, even God would struggle as the NIH budget has plateaued and only ~9% of projects are funded. The academic path for the junior biomedical researcher (PhD, not MD) is almost impossible right now. And MDs only have a leg up because they can generate clinical revenue as they try to get research funding. As a PhD, you’re a 100% drain on your department until you get substantial funding.
Jon’s description of a biomedical ecosystem collapse is accurate.
To forestall such a collapse in the science and technology sector, the NSF/COMPETES program should direct half its support to the NSF’s Engineering Directorate.
Like many topics of great interest and importance, it is surprising how few people care to comment upon issues of stagnation and collapse in the technology sector.
After a generation-long boom, physics and mathematics went flat (and stayed flat) in the mid-1970s. After a similar generation-long boom, biomedicine went flat (and looks to stay flat) in 2002.
Engineering is an interesting case. In the utopian scenario, engineering is at the outset of a generation-long boom (building upon the prior booms in math, physics, and biomedicine) that provides a new engine for planetary job creation. In the dystopian scenario, the entire science and technology sector (including engineering) stagnates for a generation, and in particular, few new jobs are created. This while the planetary population builds from six billion to ten billion, and the global ecosystem degrades. 🙁
The latter scenario is called “business as usual,” and IMHO it reflects mainly a lack of recognition that changing circumstances create new forms of opportunity for science and technology.
We are opposed to legislative funding for the “America Competes Act”, until such time as judicial remedies are provided to contain or eliminate scientific misconduct, including falsification, and fabrication in the academic arena. It has been our experience this misconduct by “authority figures” is a manifestation of discrimination in the university setting which stifles and minimizes research and education by minorities and the disadvantaged.
Cordially,
S. Ray DeRusse
http://www.bccmeteorites.com
So the best way to increase minority and disadvantaged funding is to make the market even tighter? That reasoning baffles me.