The Pew Research Center report on attitudes toward science in American life is intriguing. The masses appear be more respectful of scientists than vice versa. But the public is also more worried about the state of US research than scientists themselves are. The proportion of the public considering science America's "greatest achievement" has declined from 47 percent in 1999 to 27 percent now. While nearly half of scientists (49 percent) consider US science "the best in the world," only 17 percent of the public do. In fact, over a quarter (26 percent) regard it as only "average," a judgement shared by only 5 percent of scientists themselves.
There are some apparent contradictions in the thinking of scientists. Three quarters of them (76 percent) say this "a good time for science" in general, and a slightly smaller proportion for their own fields, but fully 87 percent are concerned about lack of funding for basic science as a "very serious" or "serious" impediment to "high-quality" research. Does that mean it's a great time -- for mediocre results? It probably reflects scientists' sentiment that grant-makers favor the routine and predictable. As a section of the report explains:
Comparable shares of scientists working in applied (62%) and basic (60%) research say that most research funders in their fields emphasize lower risk projects expected to make incremental progress. Across scientific disciplines, those working in the biological and medical sciences are more likely than others to say that most funders stress low-risk projects.
Here's a view from the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation site for a European perspective. It suggests lasting headaches from the US dot-com hangover:
In Washington, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation only classes the US sixth according to criteria such as investment in research and development, high technology infrastructure and the proportion of researchers in the working population. More seriously, of the 36 countries studied, the United States was the one that had progressed the least in ten years.In science and technology alike, there can be a long delay before a trend in education or grant support is reflected conspicuously, as in the Nobel Prizes, which honor researchers for work often done decades earlier on the basis of previous professional training. The laity, ignorant of scientific (and other facts) though they may be, might have more insight from a distance than researchers who must focus on the next proposal.
It is unfortunate that most of the general public doesn't understand the high caliber of science research in the U.S. In many areas of basic research, and especially in biomedical specialties, the U.S. is still dominant. Many people still come to the U.S. for training (especially graduate and postdoctoral) precisely due to the high quality of the research here.
The last statement in the article doesn't ring true to me (I work in basic science research). It's off-base, ironically, for exactly the reason that was sited as supporting evidence - the fact that researchers must frequently focus on the next proposal. Every time we write a grant application, we must start with a background section. That section includes citations to the best and most recent journal articles in our respective fields. So we must maintain a comprehensive knowledge base covering all of the literature in our specialty. Most of the influential research in biomedical science (probably 80-90% in my specialty) still comes from labs based in the U.S.
It's true that funding agencies do tend to stress low-risk projects, but this approach makes sense. Scientific achievements most often come from slow and steady progress, punctuated by an occasional major discovery. The major discoveries can't occur in a vacuum; they rely on having that foundation of knowledge that was built up over prior years. It's something that you can't force. Yes, we'd love to cure cancer tomorrow (and paralysis, and Alzheimer's, ...), but until we know much more about basic genetics and cell biology, we're just shooting in the dark.
I think most scientists do worry about basic science funding, but my impression is that it's a fear for the future, not a complaint of the present. Indeed, as the title suggests, our dominance is fragile. It wouldn't take long for other countries to overtake us if the level of research funding were reduced. For now, we're still on top. I hope we stay there. I also hope that in future we do a better job of relaying to the general public how good the science really is in the U.S. - it's something worth being happy about.
Why wait till future to convey the sense of health of Science in USA instead of now? It does not make sense to wait, it better be started now.
Public at large understands that in the reign of one of the most anti-science Administrations - Bush II - all Science Nobel Laurets came from America (that is what happened in 2006). Public knows that it is so because of Cold War and all the heavy investments by American Administrations of past in basic science.
In a way, funding Science is always about future. Not so smart Public knows that it takes around 2 decades at minimum for an investment in Science to show results. With our current dire state of Economy, Public is aware that we will not be able to fund the Science of tomorrow. We know how NASA's Moon program is going to completely collapse due to America's bankruptcy. That is why it is essentially that we never stop selling Basic Science. A society which has more than 70% jobs dependent on Services and substantial % on Knowledge Economy; we got to be vigilant for our survival; got to continue funding Basic Science.
First of all, I don't understand why US eminence is an issue - as if we were in competition with everyone else, which doesn't seem to be the spirit of science. Haven't all of us learned, ever since grad school, that collaboration is the key to success in science? It is true that there is a lot of competition in science, but during recent years such competition has done more harm than good to science. Scientists nowadays can be called "careerists", because they are worried more about publication, grants, and tenure than about science itself. Should our system continue to be like this, science is just going to be an empty job program.
This is a good point.
I see US dominance in science not as a "let's stick it to everyone else" thing, but more of a "hey, we invested heavily in science, so let's be proud of the results" thing. Investment in science is always an expensive proposition, and the US taxpayers deserve to know that the investment is paying off in big ways (both in term of scientific advancement, and yes, job creation and economic expansion). I don't believe that creating jobs for scientists and advancing science itself are mutually exclusive (it's almost certainly the opposite).
If our desire to maintain a global dominance in science (a little "healthy competition"?) results in our continued investment in science, then perhaps it's not such a bad thing.
Ed,
Over at Framing Science, I warn about the "fall from grace" narrative that has been applied by several commentators and journalists in interpreting the survey results. If anything, as several experts have referenced, the survey results show that science enjoys almost unrivaled respect, admiration, and deference in American society, with these perceptions relatively unchanged since the days of Sputnik. In an excerpt from a forthcoming journal article, I discuss more of these themes.
If there is a "dangerous divide" in society, it is between how experts view these survey findings and some of the extraordinary claims that are being made by bloggers and commentators.
http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2009/07/on_the_pew_science_survey_bewa.php
--Matt
Talking about whether our investment in science is paying off in significant ways, it is sad and disturbing to see what kind of research gets grant money nowadays. The NY Times has a recent article on this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/health/research/28cancer.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=grant%20cancer%20research&st=cse
Projects unlikely to break new ground but more likely to show predictable results are getting funded. Some funded research topics merely test common sense, and others are outright ridiculous. In addition, the likelihood to get funding depends very much on the PI's resume rather than on the idea itself. I'm in the field of biomedicine and public health, with both clinical and basic research trainings. Throughout my grad school and post-doc years I worked on projects about which I had doubts. As a relatively young person in the field, you are always told to believe in the significance of what you're doing without questioning it, because you have no option - how can you get your ideas funded without having 100 previous publications, as your advisor/boss does?
As a student studying Materials Science and Engineering at an internationally respected institution in the SE United States, I regularly see the declining public interest in science stateside first hand. Just listening to casual conversations after class take place in Hindi, Arabic, and Korean (and heavily accented English) can clue anyone in on the trouble. Fewer and fewer native English speakers (my peers) enter the department every year. Don't even get me started on the lack of female Americans in the college of engineering. While plenty of opportunities exist for students pursuing scientific careers, the numbers of applications to technical schools such as mine indicate what talent there is in public schools is being steered elsewhere as of late.