More reasons why we prefer spending science money on boondoogles:
Quote:
from NY Times of 11 Nov 2003
"Isn't it incredible that you have so much fundamentalism, retreating back to so much ignorance?" remarked Dr. George A. Keyworth II, President Ronald Reagan's science adviser.
The disaffection can be gauged in recent opinion surveys. Last month, a Harris poll found that the percentage of Americans who saw scientists as having "very great prestige" had declined nine percentage points in the last quarter-century, down to 57 from 66 percent. Another recent Harris poll found that most Americans believe in miracles, while half believe in ghosts and a third in astrology ...
In this atmosphere of ambivalence, research priorities have become increasingly politicized,...
The main exceptions to the downward trend in the federal science budget are for health and weapons. This year, spending on military research hit $58 billion, higher in fixed dollars than during the cold war.
Meanwhile, other countries are spending more on research, taking some of the glory that America once monopolized. Japan, Taiwan and South Korea now account for more than a quarter of all American industrial patents, according to CHI Research. Europe is working on what will be the world's most powerful atom smasher. ...
... latest numbers show that 90 percent of adult Americans say they are very or moderately interested in science discoveries. Even so, only half the survey respondents knew that the Earth takes a year to go around the Sun. ...
... about two-thirds of the public believe that alternatives to Darwin's theory of evolution should be taught in public schools alongside this bedrock concept of biology itself. ...
The leading foes of Darwin espouse a theory called "intelligent design," which holds that purely random natural processes could never have produced humans. [since it sounds 'intelligent', then it must be right - reality be damned]. ....
By 1999, according to the latest figures from the National Science Foundation, the number of foreign students in full-time engineering programs had soared so high that it exceeded, for the first time, the steeply declining number of Americans. ...
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How many noticed that ISS does no science - that list of experiments would never be done except that the ISS is desperately seeking something "scientific" to justify its existence. And the amount of science being done is so trivial as to be Zero. The problem lies with us.
Take computer experts as an example. How many programmers can perform logic minimization? IOW most programmers don't even have basic logic training. How many computer "builders" can list tasks performed by a power supply. They don't need no electrical knowledge. They fix computers because they are experts - they own a screwdriver.
Ignorance of science is so widespread that some never learned the diffference between fundamental research and application research; and why it must remain separate. Some think Ballard Power Systems can do sub-atomic research necessary for major breakthroughs in fuel cells. Or that practical superconductivity, a sub-atomic concept, will be understood without smashing atoms. Or that GM crops will destroy the world. Or that the Bible tells us everything we need know.
We are entering a period of scientific hearasy as demonstrated by the big bucks put into ISS and the total naviety about what a super collider could have accomplished. No wonder more than 50% of all Master's Degrees are now in business - a philosophy similar to communism.