OT: American Science on the Decline

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American Science on the Decline

by alipi,

Sat Jul 07, 2007 at 01:58:44 PM EST

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/7/7/135844/5833

Despite the fact that we swept the Nobel prizes this year, I think

that America has a growing problem which will have a significant

effect on our economy in the future. As a scientist, I have watched

this administration progressively defund NIH with what looks like

zero regard for the effect that this will have on the country.

Money spent on research yields by far greater returns than money

spent on anything else. Research creates new industries, and opens

markets which did not exist before, and therefore research is the

only real way to " create something out of nothing " in terms of the

economy. It is therefore of great concern that funding for NIH has

reached such drastically low levels that medical centers across the

country have said in no uncertain terms that the situation is at a

breaking point. There is not enough money to support young

scientists, and more importantly there is not enough money to

support high-risk high-yield projects which would have been funded

in the past.

It seems to me that this is a topic that is not getting anywhere

near the coverage which is warranted, I would think that this would

be something that all three major candidates would have spoken up

about by now. I know that Hillary has voiced concern over the

current funding levels, but I never got the impression that research

funding is any sort of priority for her. I wonder what the netroots

think about this issue?

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Re: American Science on the Decline (none / 0)

Why don't you see this as a priority of Hillary's?

She called for doubling the NIH budget and increasing the NSF budget

by 50% over the next decade. Many more details of her proposals to

increase scientific research can be found here:

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/feature/in novation/

I'm a professor at a research university, and I think her stance on

this is excellent.

by markjay on Sat Jul 07, 2007 at 04:03:54 PM EST