Don't look now, but America's long-standing lead in science and technology may be evaporating. Europe is catching up, but China and other Asian nations are really giving us a run for our money. Why are we falling behind?
Caltech president David Baltimore answers the question in the L.A. Times. It's in part, he says, because "we have more people who believe in the devil than who believe in evolution." He deplores the "lack of federal leadership in funding schooling that emphasizes math and science," and also our culture's "general anti-intellectualism and the cult of the sound bite."
Journalist Karen Heyman supplies further food for thought in a letter published here. Money quote:
"We need to stop trying to understand fundamentalist readers and point out some cold, hard economic facts about what fundamentalism is doing to our hegemony in science.
Secular nations don't worry about whether or not to fund stem cell research. Secular nations don't waste time and resources re-proving evolution every decade. Secular nations don't water down their textbooks and classroom teaching because somebody complained their point of view wasn't represented (and on that one, the PC crowd is just as bad as the creationists). Secular nations don't stack science and medical agencies with mediocre partisans with narrow, outmoded agendas."
Strong stuff.
Or perhaps it has to do something with current school standards? Dumbing down schools and universities to avoid hurting anyones feelings?
While the religious right opposes cloning research, the extreme left opposes genetic modification.
But that wouldn't make a good story to bash Bush, so you can hardly expect any MSM to report on it.
Posted by: Daran | Friday, December 03, 2004 at 04:36 AM