View Single Post
  #63  
Old September 14th 08, 04:39 AM posted to sci.space.policy,sci.environment
BradGuth
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 21,544
Default United States Falling Behind EVERYONE In Physics, Science,Rockets, EVERYTHING.

On Sep 13, 1:02 pm, Ian Parker wrote:
On 13 Sep, 15:22, Fred J. McCall wrote:



Damon Hill wrote:


:Ian Parker wrote in

ups.com:
:


Ian is an idiot, which he is about to prove once again. Why waste
time rebutting his lunacy?


:
: I think the US is falling behind both Europe and Asia. I
: think there are a number of reasons.
:
: 1) The failure to build a supercollider.
:
:Too busy building advanced semiconductor fabs--those are
:hugely expensive.
:


Well, no. Semiconductor fabs are privately funded. The supercollider
was publicly funded. Not even money out of the same pocket.


In point of fact, it cost more to shut the supercollider project down
than it would have cost to finish it. It got shut down by a
Democratic Congress that was ****ed off that Texas dared to replace a
Democratic Senator (Bob Krueger, appointed by Ann Richards to replace
Lloyd Bentsen) with a Republican (Kay Bailey Hutchison) and wanted to
exact a revenge against the State of Texas.


Well if that is the case it is indeed a case in point. If Science in
itself were valued such a thing would not occur. In any case - What
about all the money earmarked for a lunar base and a maned trip to
Mars. What about Ares which does not seem to work. These are all
public projects.

Most countries have had a mixed economy as regards Science. Government
pays for blue skies stuff, private enterprise pays for the next 5
years. As far as CERN is concerned, not only was there the main
project there is also the Grid. Now I know you are going to say that
private enterprise should create Grids. I think they will.

Could I also point out that the country with the fastest broadband
access is S Korea. The US is falling down the broadband league. Grids
will ultimately mean less commuting and the possibility of
videoconferencing at home. If you don't dig the Higgs boson, you can
at least videoconference at home.

: 2) Creationalism, the view that the World is no older than
: the Ice Age.
:
:Quite a lot of people here, most in fact, don't believe in
:that. Still, the fundamentalist conservatives are inhibiting
rogress.
:


How?


In quite a few ways. The public perception of Science is important.
Students need to be encouraged to go into Science. If they see a
government that sems to be wavering in its enthusiasm students will
take the cue.

The Government does in fact dispose of a vast amount of money in
publicly funded research, both though universities and through "big
science". You may not like this and you may well be right. I would
have thought it obvious that the head of NASA (and his boss) should
not believe that you cannot see beyong the Ice Age (3KPa).

The Republican contender has chosed such a person to replace him
should his ticker fail. McCain seems to

1) Show a complete contempt for Science and scientific truth. No
respectable scientist should EVER consider voting for him.

2) The American people seem to have taken 3KPa to their heart. Why?

: 3) Governmenr interference with things like Stem Cell
: research.
:
:Got more specific examples; this seems trivial by itself.
:


It's less than trivial. There's been no "government interference".
There's merely been a lack of government interference in the opposite
direction; a failure to subsidize it, rather than interference to
prevent it.


This is not entirely true. Science operates in a mixed economy. One
normally expects universities (publicly funded) to do this sort of
research. If you don't have university departments doing it students
will go elsewhere.

Does the abscence of stem cell research affect the rest of biology?
Yes and no? If a whole field is not being taught students will go
elsewhere. You could I suppose do it in industry, but it is better for
industry to simply go to Europe or Asia. Furthermore if the feeling
goes round that establishment X is excellant for biology, that will be
where the best biological researchers will congregate.

: 4) The US is now a lot less welcoming to foreigners than it
: was in the time of Kennedy.
:
:You don't live here, do you? Spanish has become the 2nd
:national language by default. We're not as bilingual as
:Canada but our economic wealth attracts much immigration.
:


And 'foreigners' who actually have something to offer don't find it
difficult at all to come here.


I am not al all sure. Whether you are good or not the process is
bureaucratic. If you get a firm offer from Europe or Asia that is
where you will go.

As I said ultimately demography (300 million as against 1.3 billion
Chinese) will tell against the US) will tell and (eventually) the US
is bound to decline. However the decline in the Bush years has been
astonishing in its speed.

- Ian Parker


Science is seldom if ever privately funded. Directly or indirectly
the general public gets to pay for nearly everything if not
considerably more than you'd think possible. We're at $54 trillion in
federal debt and counting. How much added debt can we afford to pass
along to future generations?

Our resident LLPOF warlord(GW Bush) is directly responsible for at
least 10% of that federal debt, and it's only getting worse by the
minute.

~ Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth BG