Congress Stems Science

Kenneth R. Miller has written a thoughtful examination of science in America today, and its waning appeal to both the aspiring student and the general public. (I’m not a scientist but a writer, primarily of science fiction. But I have always believed that one of the secondary but important purposes of science fiction is to serve as a handmaiden to real science.) 

The root causes of this decline appear to have gained the attention of the Obama administration. Recognizing that our future as a great nation is at stake, the federal government has begun a new emphasis on the importance of science (broad scale) in public education.

The above ties in with the observations of some of our more thoughtful pundits that the 'best and brightest' of today's college students too often see careers in finance as the path toward a happy life. Far too many seem clueless in understanding that enjoying the work you do each day is far more important (and less prone to producing ulcers) than doing work you dislike, the purpose of which is to amass more money than you actually need. This is a disturbing trend in a country that, in the last century, led the world in science and technology. 

In another article Sam Stein points out the deleterious effects of the Fed budget sequestration on scientific research. This is a fairly thorough examination of one of the less obvious ways our dysfunctional Congress is hurting our country, and the world. Our leadership in scientific research is slowly but surely eroding. 

And a corollary -- A quite good source of foreign exchange will also fade away. Our local (fairly small) hi-tech college, The Florida Institute of Technology, recently reported that one-third of their full-time students are from other countries. I suspect much larger and better known science-oriented schools, such as MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford, etc., also have large foreign student populations. (Luckily for us, some unknown but apparently sizable percentage elect to become citizens and put their expensively acquired skills to work here.) When their parents/sponsors decide to send them elsewhere (a trend that seems to have already started, but is still in its infancy), the US will lose a significant source of foreign exchange income.

I worked for 13 years in the NASA Education Office at the Kennedy Space Center, retiring as Deputy Chief. Our two major functions were to help professional teachers better understand science and technology (with an emphasis on the space program) and encourage students to undertake careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering and
mathematics); again with an emphasis on the space program. I have no statistics on how many of the students we worked with followed through and became scientists, engineers or mathematicians. I hope it was very many.

A devotion to science and technology is one of the major reasons our country has gotten to where it is today. But if our best young minds choose careers in finance, we won’t be there tomorrow. And that worries me. The idea that gaining large sums of money is the key to personal happiness has become endemic in our society.  That concept needs some serious re-thinking. A life devoted to performing useful and productive work, work that you enjoy, is much more likely to provide that elusive quality called ‘happiness’. And the “pursuit of happiness” was one of the founding principles on which our country was created.