Abstract
Just imagine a physicist as a candidate for president of the United States. That is what Cong. Ver-non Ehlers, a Michigan Republican and physicist, did in a February 2008 column in APS News, a publication of the American Physical Society (APS). “The candidate would recognize that geographic boundaries are almost meaningless in the twenty-first century. He or she would recognize that the internet and other technologies have allowed financial and intellectual capital to flow freely worldwide at nearly the speed of light. The United States is no longer competing with a handful of developed countries, but with the entire world,” Ehlers wrote.
Ehlers is not running for president, nor is he projecting that a physicist or any other scientist is likely to occupy the White House anytime soon. But his suggestion points to the potential benefits to the American people, if scientific and technological research and education were to rise to the top of the nation's agenda.
Science gained stature on Capitol Hill in March with the election of Illinois Democratic Cong. Bill Foster, a former Fermilab physicist. This brings to three the number of physicists in Congress (Cong. Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat, is the third)–a still minuscule part of Congress, at least in number, but a growing contingent. And Congress has recently been paying more attention to the role of scientific research and education as essential components of a national innovation strategy. With the support of the House and Senate bipartisan caucuses that focus on science and technology, and the persuasive arguments of the National Academies' Rising Above the Gathering Storm report, Congress passed the America COMPETES Act in 2007 and supported significant increases in scientific research funding in the 2008 appropriations bills (until domestic discretionary spending was cut across the board).
Physicists and others throughout the science and engineering community need to find ways to encourage policy makers in Washington to regain their focus on increasing funding for research and education. The APS has been effective in bringing physicists to Washington to speak with political leaders, informing the physics community about happenings on Capitol Hill, and generally raising the profile of physics in the political arena. What's needed now is a cohesive plan–or action agenda–for elevating concerns about the future of U.S. science and technology in the eyes of decision makers.
Physicists and others throughout the science and engineering community need to find ways to encourage policy makers in Washington to regain their tocus on increasing funding for research and education.
The agenda should address at least three questions: How can the U.S. science and engineering community be brought together to speak with one voice? How can the community be most helpful to the physicists and other champions of science in Congress as they work together to advance their collective agenda in research and education? How can the community be most effective in supporting the existing House and Senate science and technology caucuses?
Washington is a busy place. As important as science and technology are to the future of the nation, more urgent and politically consequential matters tend to crowd out longer-term issues like science in Congress and the White House. Unless this changes, the prognosis is not good for the United States in a world that increasingly requires innovation based in large part on new knowledge and technological capability. U.S. political leaders have some waking up to do, and the new physics threesome, with the help of the science and engineering community, could ring the alarm bells and get the research, education, and innovation train moving again in Congress. The time is right for scientists to play a more active role in politics, or as the late California Democratic Cong. George Brown, a great champion of science, said, to “be more effective citizens.” The nation would be forever grateful.
Supplementary Material
America COMPETES Act