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Research
Reasserting Competitiveness
Invest in education, research, and innovation, says Charles Vest.
Dear Mr. President:
Your ability to govern effectively and provide world leadership will depend profoundly on advancing and utilizing the knowledge and tools of science, engineering, and medicine.
In the 20th century, U.S. achievement in these fields protected our nation's security, fueled most of our economic growth, and nearly doubled our life span. It sent us to the moon, fed the planet, brought world events into our living rooms, established instant worldwide communications, gave rise to ubiquitous new forms of art and entertainment, uncovered the workings of our natural world, and gave us freedom of travel by air, sea, and land. It was a century of speed, power, and new horizons. We have come to take all this for granted.
The 21st century will be very different. And nothing can be taken for granted. To grasp the great opportunities of our times and to meet our challenges in a number of areas--from economic competitiveness to energy, from health care to education, from security to infrastructure--federal policy and action must be informed and enabled by a vibrant science and technology enterprise.
Indeed, our national comparative advantage is a strong science and technology base coupled with a free-market economy and a democratic society.
We will soon feel the full force of global competition. Jobs will follow innovation wherever it is found, and innovation will follow basic research. Our children must be inspired and educated for productive, well-paying jobs in this knowledge economy.
The bipartisan America Competes Act was passed and signed into law in August 2007 but has not been funded. It would jump-start improvement in K-12 science and math education, strengthen and sustain long-term basic research, make the U.S. the best place in the world to study and do research, and help ensure that we remain the most innovative nation on the planet. Its cost is about 0.14 percent of the Wall Street bailout or 1.8 percent of the annual farm subsidy.
Mr. President, the federal government must invest in our future through education, research, and innovation. I therefore believe you should take six immediate actions:
(1) Use your bully pulpit to establish a public vision of an America that will lead and prosper in the 21st century through knowledge and innovation.
(2) Appoint a science and technology advisor before your inauguration and include him or her at the highest tables of counsel and decision making, just like the national security advisor.
(3) Make full funding of the America Competes Act a nonnegotiable first-term priority.
(4) Establish a bold national initiative engaging the private sector, academia, and government to meet our energy challenge and mitigate the advance of global climate disruption.
(5) Restore strong basic-research budgets to the Department of Defense and increase the National Institutes of Health's budget in excess of inflation.
(6) Work with Congress to eliminate academic earmarking.
My colleagues in industry, academia, and government stand ready to support your new administration with fact-based advice and to provide the knowledge and innovation required for U.S. prosperity and improved life around the world.
Charles M. Vest is President Emeritus of MIT and President of The National Academy of Engineering.
Twenty billion dollars might finally turn the U.S. health-care system digital.
Find out where Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain stand on key technology issues.
while it is only prudent to continue to invest in technologies with the least environmental impact possible, the continued errant emphasis on carbon is a red herring. the fact that there is a global warming trend still has no proven connection to human activity, and does not even have any solid leads. trying to build an energy policy around it is just silly. we need an energy policy built around sustainable (i.e., minimize real proven environmental impacts), economical (i.e., minimize costs across the economic spectrum), and effective (i.e., the most bang-for-the-pound) technologies. we do not need energy policy built around a scare tactic which has so far been used almost exclusively for political purposes and not scientific ones. the phrase "funds returned to the public in a progressive manner" is a dead giveaway that this piece is a politically motivated one, and not a piece based on serious scientific analysis.
It's surprising to read such crap in this particular forum.
(1) Please take your blatant partisan political opinions elsewhere. I just read several comments from you that indicated a very low level of interest in technology.
(2) Did you really say the fact that there is a global warming trend still has no proven connection to human activity ? Please educate yourself. Do you claim to be more knowledgeable than the consensus of the world's science community? The consensus is complete, save for one or two holdouts. If nothing else, read Climate Change published by the IPCC last year. You can find it here:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf
Go to page 5.
1) my entire point was that his piece was blatant political opinion. accusing me of the same thing when I am trying to point out the difference between science and politics makes no sense.
2) the IPCC report was politicized from day 1. there is no consensus re: global warming as you contend -- merely politicos trying to take over science. there is, in fact, consensus that there is a warming trend, but none whatever regarding the causes or the actions required.
Bravo! That is dead on! My only concern is the politicization that would likely occur in the S&T Advisor post if it were elevated as recommended. Don't get me wrong -- it is still the right thing to do. It concerns me, though, that Mr. Obama would certainly appoint someone more concerned with politically correctness and agendas than real science (say, someone like Al Gore). It concerns me even more that Mr. McCain would be nearly as likely to do so. There are too many high-profile persons who were once scientists and are now more politicians than anything else who would jump at the job. Then the President gets poor advice. GIGO, right?
It may be a hard sell, but each of these desires has simpler approaches:
a. energy - raise gasoline taxes until it is somewhere around $10/gallon. Use the money to invest in infrastructure, and allow the market to do the rest.
b. digitized health care - nationalize health care, and bring it all under one umbrella
c. invest in education - we've had 40-50 years of gimmicks, to no avail. Lengthen the school day and the school year. Less time for TV and mischief. Besides, how many kids are needed in the fields for harvest these days.
nice Luddite-Socialist comment. while those are simple solutions, perhaps we need a more forward-looking appraoch that actually has a chance of working, and is not likely to present a cure that is worse than the disease.
Can you make a point without resorting to the ignorant use of labels? What exactly is a Luddite-Socialist anyway?
The previous poster provided suggestions. While I do not agree with them completely, I appreciate them. You, on the other hand, seem to be here to denigrate others. Perhaps you could argue that $10 per gallon is too high, or that the implementation of such a tax would be ineffective for some reason?
After the recent years of anti-intellectualism that we've experience, we need to hear more ideas, not less.
"After the recent years of anti-intellectualism that we've experience (sic)"
You mean, like the Climate Change Hysteria in the media and the academy? Isn't "Scientific Consensus" a contradiction in terms?
Hint for the intellectually challenged: Science is based on falsifiability, evidence, and reproducible results - Politics is based on consensus.
And this does not even begin to address the economic illiteracy of "cap and trade" or even carbon taxes to fund "infrastructure investment".
There is no worse example of anti-intellectualism than an expert in one field arrogantly opining on another field with which he has no acquaintance.
Perhaps we should look at the corrosive effect of government funding on Science and on academic institutions - the results are exactly what an honest economist would predict...
Sounds good, but with all things, what was proposed and what actually happens will no doubt be altered by special interests, pushing their own agenda. We, the people, will get the watered down version.
Keep it simple -
For Energy - have the president implement a National Telecommuting Policy aimed at getting 100% of the properly equipped workers in the US workforce to telecommute 3 days per week, and use incentives to get the rest of America up and running too.
For Health Care - openly admit that the Congress and Senate are owned by Special Interests. Leverage the rest of the globe to provide healthcare for standard operations and send folks on Medical Holidays. As for medicines, if a U.S. consumer can cross the Mexican or Canadian Border and pick up an equal prescription for less money, then let them! It's the consumers money so let us spend it anyway we want - including getting competative prices on medical services and products!
As for the other challenges - all are great ideas.
Guest (jadamone)
Your suggestions did not go far enough!
<<We need a portfolio of proven low-carbon energy technologies, says Ernest Moniz.>>
Your <<a 21st-century electricity grid>> would continue to waste huge amounts of electricity generated in excess of the real time demand. Real time computer monitoring and control of electrical networks using Power Line Communications would enable us to SCHEDULE CHARGING of millions of ELECTRIC VEHICLE BATTERIES using power now going to waste. Electric companies are already using PLC to allow their billing computers to communicate with smart meters and even smart thermostats. Smart chargers could allow millions of Extended range electric vehicles to be charged 24/7 without danger of blackouts or more power being generated. Wasted electric power from coal, nuclear, solar, etc is all foolish when we have inexpensive microprocessors and Power Line Communications.
<<We need new incentives For electronic record keeping, says John Halamka.>>
Medical professionals continue to use OUTDATED PROCEDURES to treat illnesses. We need to use the Internet to inform patients and health care providers when a procedure becomes outdated and what are the most current APPROVED PROCEDURES.
<<Invest in education, research, and innovation, says Charles Vest.>>
Every time a school bond issue fails our Professional School Administrators immediately cut advanced courses and our schools become DAY CARE CENTERS. We should create Internet Courses that use the very best instructors to teach these courses. They would then be available to anyone who wants to learn! Email questions and commonly asked questions database could enable these courses to evolve with technological advances.
Make Science Policy Based On Science Not Lobbying $$$
If anything needs to change in Washington, it's the influence of lobbyists on science, technology and industrial policy. I've researched this myself and found practically no members of Congress are tech savvy and we all know about the Bush administration's attitude about science (sold to the highest bidder!)
We need a return to the days of Jerome Wiesner of MIT advising President Kennedy! (See http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2001/ostpside.html)
Re: Make Science Policy Based On Science Not Lobbying $$$
I very much agree a major problem in our world today is due to having non tech savy congressman and senators. How do we tech educate our congress ? We also have government departments such as our energy departent, who feel they have no responsibility to educating congress in basic energy and technology matters. Why do government department managers feel they are doing their job, if they only answer occasional questions from congress ? Where are the needed seminars to educate congress ? How can we get more scientists and engineers in this country to run for political office. When will they become frustrated with the status quo to the point where they enter politics to try and make the needed changes in our economy and natural world happen ? Why do we have mostly lawyers, making technical matter decisions in our congress when study of law provides no training in the sciences needed to solve our growing problems in areas of non fossil fuel energy, health care, business and economics. An education in world history would provide a better background for congressional decision making as compared to law.
Today's Idiocracy Vs. Founding Fathers
You know in what deeply sorrow state America is when you just look at the illiterate mob, the idiocracy, that our ruling class has become.
Being mentally retarded, and being very proud of it, seems to be an excellent "skill" for one's political career. You can see numerous videos with president Bush going around and bragging about being a C student, while mocking the educated people. Here is just an example.
You can also see Sara Palin mocking basic science in a political forum. She literally says outrageously moronic things like this:
..."Sometimes these dollars go to projects which have little to do with the public good...things like fruit fly research..."
Scroll to minute 1:24 in this video to see it for yourself. Outrageous! Thomas Hunt Morgan was one of the biggest geneticists of all time, and he pioneered fruit fly research, which yielded so many valuable insights into genetics. You can read this review on Morgan's work. Now if only someone close to Palin would actually tell her what an ignoramus she is...
Contrast these politicians with our founding fathers. Some of those guys were the leading intellectuals of their age.
Thomas Jefferson amassed the biggest private library of his time, and he did it even at the expense of going bankrupt.
John Adams was a forward thinking intellectual who wrote numerous essays on what government should be like - these papers were collectively published as the Thoughts on Government
Benjamin Franklin requires no introduction. A true genius.
Samuel Adams was a political writer and philosopher.
And the list is long, and not worth recapitulating here. To make a long story short, the founding fathers were all leading intellectuals, thinkers. Many of our top politicians today are just plain morons.
So what happened, America?
Mr. Moniz makes good sense except for the nuclear plant part. Why do so few people accept that nuclear fuel, using current technologies, is a dirty fuel? The waste from nuke power is worse than CO2 in terms of the biological hazard from exposure! Moreover, there are serious concerns with proliferation of 'dirty' nuclear weapons. Now if he wants to approach nuclear power with the same approach as carbon capture and sequestration, that is, with pilot plants involving cleaner technologies and fuels, then that is reasonable. So I'm with you, but let's not greenwash the nukes, ok?
Mr. Halamka is oh so right about the EHRs. Unfortunately, the use of EHRs does not address the nature of the data collected and how that data is to be used. The US health care system is a missed opportunity for the gathering of enormous amounts of health data for mining. A data base of medical records, made anonymous for research purposes, could turn into the largest source of epidemiological, pharmaceutical, bacteriological, and viriological information we have ever known, leading to untold advances in medical knowledge. If the EHR system is merely a way of unifying and consolidating individual health records for the purposes of individual treatment, that would be good, but it would also miss, tragically, the opportunity this data could offer.
Mr. Vest makes good sense. Our relative de-emphasis on R&D, as counter-productive as it is, is perfectly coherent with the overly traditionalist, non-innovative, world view that has somehow become the coin of this realm. Historically, innovation has been absolutely key to the success of societies, nations, and civilizations. I am not suggesting that technological innovation is the ultimate answer to all our problems, but it is a major component and needs to be promoted wisely.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
Our list of the 50 most innovative companies, including the following:
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pkassebaum
11 Comments
CERN & Sustainable Energy
I truly hope the next president heeds the advice written in these 3 pieces. As a young American scientist and engineer, I've been quite seriously considering moving to Europe for greener pastures.
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bugme
29 Comments
Re: CERN & Sustainable Energy
I would strongly encourage you to do so. We do not need quitters. You will probably get along just fine in Europe. Here, we need folks that will endure adversity & keep trying to make progress. We will need them to survive 4 years if Mr. Obama is elected (unless they are working in the selected politically correct favored specialties, of course), and I'm not sure it will be any better under Mr. McCain. However, this is my country, and I'll be staying here and pushing hard to make things happen.
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