In 1999, D. Allan Bromley, a former science advisor to President George Herbert Walker Bush, wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post by this title. He opened in this vein:
America is on a roll. We’re balancing the federal budget, reforming welfare and making retirement secure. Sound like a breakthrough in fiscal management? Not exactly. Our awesome economic success can be traced directly to our past investments in science. The problem is, this year’s federal budget for science is a disaster, and it compromises our nation’s economic and social progress.
Dr. Bromley went on to discuss particulars of that federal budget that he saw as cause for concern. The op-ed deserves a thoughtful read[1] in its entirety.
Why revisit this today? Start with this. America is a nation with a population of some 320 million. That’s about 4% give-or-take of the total world population of eight billion. We aspire to maintain relevance, or indispensability (or, sigh – even dominance?) in this world, which happens to be also populated by 1.4 billion Chinese and 1.4 billion Indians – to say nothing of another four-or-so billion from other countries.
There’s only one way this demographic reality can be squared with the global aspiration. It’s really quite simple.
To be at all relevant let alone indispensable going forward, we must be (1) the world’s most innovative nation, and (2) the world’s most inviting (especially to the sci-tech savvy of the world’s eight billion); we must be a destination.
A few years after Dr. Bromley’s piece, the Sunday Outlook section of the Washington Post featured another op-ed,[2] this one arguing that China would not likely become the dominant nation for the 21st century. That author listed four reasons: (1) rapid aging of the Chinese population, brought on by years of a one-child-per-family policy; (2) lack of the transparent, reliable financial statistics needed for effective economic policy, whether domestic or global; (3) failure to deal with rapidly growing environmental problems; (4) the lack of any compelling vision that would make the world’s peoples (especially the young) wish they lived there. By implication, America’s arguably better track record in these four respects at the time was offered as cause for comfort here in the United States.
There’s less reason for complacency today. That’s not because the Chinese experiment has been an unvarnished success. The government hasn’t been able to coax the population into a burst of marriage and procreation. Financial statistics remain murky; China has created a powerful engine for export but has not motivated the needed growth in domestic consumption. Despite vigorous efforts to move into renewable energy, rising domestic energy demands still leave China largely dependent on coal. Rivers are polluted. Urban air quality is poor. And China is hardly an immigration magnet. Other peoples aren’t eagerly trying to break down the doors to enter, nor does China show any signs of wanting them.
But today the United States alternative looks less promising in several important ways. Our population has been aging only slowly in large part because of immigration, which until recent years had remained strong because of the U.S. opportunity-pull: a strong economy plus a liberal democracy. Present policies are shutting the door for immigration in general and are threatening freedom of speech and the rule of law. The U.S, will start to age more rapidly as the result. Our economy has been the world’s strongest, but tariffs and a range of policy uncertainties across the board threaten the world’s current reliance on dollar-based financial transactions that have kept foreign investment pouring in. Those policy uncertainties extend to environmental issues; with the current tilt back toward fossil fuels our future no longer looks as clean or as safe, or globally competitive as it once did. As a result, some of the shine is coming off the US-as-destination for the wealthy, highly-educated, and tech-savvy. Foreign-born, including many from India and China, still plan to emigrate, but increasing numbers are contemplating moves to Europe, Canada, and Australia instead of the United States. Some of the foreign-born here are returning to their home countries (where China and India in particular have put out the welcome mat).
All this would matter less if American kids were interested in and being well prepared in STEM. But this doesn’t seem to be the case. Consider the U.S. ranking in the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Our 2022 PISA scores were only middling. The U.S. ranked 26th in math, 6th in reading, and 10th in science among 81 participating education systems. Those U.S. math scores were the worst in the history of the surveys, with math scores being the lowest ever recorded for the U.S. in the eight cycles of data collection. And our higher education, which has until now been the envy of the world, is being convulsed by recent targeting of individual universities and bullying – as well as draconian federal budget cuts for research and threats of more across the board. None of this portends well for continuing innovative world leadership.
What can scientists and innovators do, given this loss of national vision? It’s certainly right to put a spotlight on the problem, to ask more of the nation’s leaders, and to seek and hope for judicial relief. But that should only be the start. Scientists should use the present political turbulence as an incentive to focus even more on the direct links between their research and on-the-ground societal benefit.
A recent communication from the Council of Engineering and Science Society Executives (CESSE) highlights an interesting illustration of the kind of action that will bear fruit – this from Canada and its environmental community. It’s an Evict Radon National Study that allows Canadians to actively support research by purchasing at-cost radon testing kits and participating in radon testing alongside professional scientists. Canadians help themselves and at the same time help cancer researchers survey radon exposure across the country.
The program is making an impact by targeting a major public concern (cancer deaths), by involving governments as well as the private sector, by going beyond building public awareness to provide matching opportunities for action (in-home measurements), and by motivating kids (in those same homes), showing them science-at-work. It’s a wonderful blend of the tangible and experiential, versus the abstract and vague. Note the second-order impact of building public identification with and support for science and innovation. And it’s just one small example of the possibilities.
It’s easy to imagine similar, equally effective programs here in the United States. Time to get moving.
[1] You can also find a 2018 LOTRW post on his op-ed here.
[2] I blogged on this in 2013; even then, my search skills were not up to the challenge of finding the original source; I’ve had no better luck this time around.