[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 53 (Monday, May 4, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E745-E748]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

[[Page E745]]



          THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES A NATIONAL TREASURE

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. STEPHEN HORN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                          Monday, May 4, 1998

  Mr. HORN. Mr. Speaker, one of America's great treasures is the 
National Academy of Sciences. Its distinguished members have rendered 
service to our government and the American people since the early years 
of the Civil War. President Lincoln saw the need for the availability 
of talented scientists to help their nation whether they are 
recommending various policies and to provide specific advice on complex 
scientific and technological problems both military and civilian.
  At its 135th Annual Meeting earlier this week, Dr. Bruce Alberts, the 
President of the Academy reported on its work. I believe my colleagues 
and citizens generally will be interested in the work of the Academy to 
encourage a better scientific base by students throughout our land. 
Half of Dr. Alberts' report expresses a major concern as to whether our 
country will be able to educate the two million new teachers which we 
will need in the next decade. Those new teachers must have a solid base 
in mathematics and science if the United States is to remain the leader 
in science and technology throughout the 21st Century.
  The Academy has consistently built working relationships with other 
scientists and their academies throughout the world. That type of 
collaboration is essential if the countries--both large and small--are 
to meet the needs of their people and to provide the opportunities for 
a better life than is now possible in all too many places.
  The report of Dr. Alberts should be reassuring. His remarks entitled 
``Moving from Analysis to Action'' show that our brightest minds are 
devoted to dealing with the very real problems that confront all 
humankind. I submit these wise remarks for the Record.

                     Moving From Analysis to Action

       Welcome to this 135th annual meeting of the Academy. We had 
     a very exciting year in Washington in 1997. When I spoke last 
     April, our role as an independent adviser to the nation was 
     threatened by a legal ruling that applied the Federal 
     Advisory Committee Act to the operations of the Academy. 
     Because of a great deal of very hard work by many people, the 
     crises that started in January 1997 ended in November, when 
     Congress passed a bill that ensures our committees are kept 
     free from government control. The tremendous support we 
     received from the federal administration and from so many 
     members of Congress is deeply appreciated, and it is great 
     testimony to the value they place on the objective advice 
     that we provide to the nation.
       As is appropriate, much of the advice we provide focuses on 
     the policies needed to support our vigorous scientific 
     research enterprise. Especially influential are the reports 
     of our Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, 
     known as COSEPUP, under the leadership of Academy member Phil 
     Griffiths. Their analysis of President Clinton's 1999 budget 
     was released last week. This report focuses on the federal 
     science and technology component of that budget, an important 
     concept that was developed in the 1995 report of an Academy 
     committee chaired by Frank Press. COSEPUP will provide this 
     analysis every year, making sure that this crucial part of 
     the federal investment in science is closely watched.
       COSEPUP also is deeply engaged in a very important study 
     dealing with the implications that the Government Performance 
     and Results Act has for basic research. This new law, known 
     as GPRA, requires all agencies to set goals and to use 
     performance measures for management and budgeting. It is 
     intended to encourage greater efficiency and accountability 
     in Federal programs. But if not implemented wisely, it could 
     have a negative effect on the research enterprise--an effect 
     that we are working hard to avoid.
       For the remainder of this talk, I want to focus on just two 
     issues: education, and science in its international context. 
     I start with the education imperative.
       At this session last year, I discussed the eighth-grade 
     results in the Third International Mathematics and Science 
     Study (TIMSS), where U.S. students ranked about average in 
     both science and math among 41 countries. This spring, the 
     test results for our high school seniors showed that they had 
     done even worse in this international comparison. Many 
     Americans didn't believe it. Column after column ran on the 
     opinion pages of the nation's major newspapers, challenging 
     the results. How can the world's undisputed leader in science 
     and technology produce a population of young people with such 
     poor science and mathematics skills? Recall that this was a 
     test in which students at the end of secondary school from 21 
     countries participated, and U.S. students out-performed only 
     two countries. Could these poor results reflect either a flaw 
     in the exam, or an unusual bimodal distribution in the U.S. 
     performance--with the top 10 percent of our students doing 
     very well? Unfortunately, the answer is no. TIMSS also 
     included a comparison across countries of the very best 
     students in both advanced mathematics and physics. The 
     results are shown on the next slide. Here, there was not a 
     single nation that we outperformed!
       If we examine U.S. scores on our own national examinations, 
     we find that the performance of our students has been 
     improving at a gradual pace since 1970. What the TIMSS 
     results mean in fact is that, while we have been improving 
     our science and mathematics education slowly, many other 
     nations of the world have been doing so at a faster rate.
       Clearly, we can and must do better if we are to remain a 
     strong and productive nation throughout the next century. 
     This Academy has been trying to play a major role in science 
     and math education for many years. I would like to talk about 
     some ways in which we can be even more effective, given that 
     there is so much that needs to be done.
       As you know, through the National Research Council, we led 
     the development of this nation's first-ever set of National 
     Science Education Standards. We have made these voluntary 
     Standards freely available on the World Wide Web, and we also 
     have published special user-friendly guides for parents. And 
     just this month we released a new type of product for the 
     Academy--a book produced for teachers to help them teach 
     evolution and the nature of science. Some 15,000 free copies 
     of this book have been sent to science teachers across the 
     country, and anyone in the world can also get it free from 
     the Web. Academy member Don Kennedy, who led this highly 
     successful effort, is encouraging us to produce more 
     documents along these lines. Please take a close look at the 
     evolution book, and then send us your ideas for further 
     projects.
       As I left California in 1993 to assume my job at the 
     Academy, the state was completing its elaborate process of 
     adopting new science textbooks. This event, which occurs 
     every eight years, culminates with a small list of state-
     approved science teaching materials, determining what each 
     school district can purchase with state funds. I watched this 
     process closely in San Francisco and was appalled to see what 
     happened at the middle school level. Despite all of the 
     expensive and time-consuming effort involved, San Francisco's 
     middle schools were left with, as an example, a sixth-grade 
     human biology textbook with mindless chapters devoid of any 
     context that could enable readers to understand the content. 
     What is tragic about this is that many of San Francisco's 
     elementary school students are benefiting from an excellent 
     hands-on science curriculum, composed of modules similar to 
     those produced by our National Science Resources Center, a 
     partnership between the Academy and the Smithsonian 
     Institution. When these students leave the fifth grade, many 
     say that science is their favorite subject. But in middle 
     school, textbooks such as the one I have just described make 
     them lose all interest in science.
       Outstanding teachers have told us repeatedly that the 
     Science Standards are not enough. In order to teach 
     effectively, teachers need both curriculum materials that 
     match the Standards and high-quality training in how to use 
     them. The Academy has been attempting to help by examining 
     all of the science curricula commercially available and 
     compiling analyses of the best available teaching materials. 
     In 1995, the National Science Resources Center published a 
     book titled, ``Resources for Teaching Elementary School 
     Science,'' and this month they published a sequel, 
     ``Resources for Teaching Middle School Science.'' Again, 
     these two documents are available on our Web site, at no 
     cost.
       We also have begun a new project, organized by our Center 
     for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Education. Here a 
     committee chaired by NAS member Maxine Singer is bringing 
     scientists and science teachers together to produce an easy-
     to-use, effective guide for school districts on how to select 
     curriculum materials that match the Science Standards. 
     Through such devices, we hope to create a more sophisticated 
     market, which should in turn drive the production of higher-
     quality curricula.
       Unfortunately, multiple forces have created within our 
     education system a very stable equilibrium that resists 
     change. The next slide shows a diagram of the entire system, 
     based on a figure that was published in one of our education 
     reports. The system is in gridlock, with most of the arrows 
     pointed directly at the teachers. Over the next few

[[Page E746]]

     minutes, I will explain what the Academy hopes to be able 
     to do in specific areas.
       I start with state and national examinations. As indicated 
     by the next slide, at present the tests support the 
     vocabulary-laden textbooks, and the textbooks support the 
     tests. Students are taught to memorize terms and regurgitate 
     definitions, and perform procedures without meaning in order 
     to do well on the exams. Having them learn for meaning is not 
     the main goal--and sometimes not a goal at all. Biology is my 
     field, and I can state with confidence that it is totally 
     unrealistic to try to teach anyone all of biology in one 
     year. But such broad survey courses are exactly what is 
     taught in most high schools, and this type of teaching is 
     strongly reinforced by the national SAT II biology subject 
     test offered by the College Board. The result is pressure on 
     teachers to cover all of biology, with little opportunity to 
     develop concepts, or to give students any feeling for the 
     nature of science.
       Consider this quote from a popular 1997 study guide called 
     ``Cracking the SAT II: Biology Subject Test'': ``We'll show 
     you that you don't really have to understand anything. You 
     just have to make a couple of simple associations, like 
     these. Aerobic respiration with: presence of oxygen more ATP 
     produced. . . . Anaerobic respiration with: absence of 
     oxygen, less ATP produced. . . . When we get through, you may 
     not really understand much about the difference between 
     aerobic and anaerobic respiration. But you don't have to, and 
     we'll prove it. . . . Whether or not you understand your 
     answerers, the scoring machines at the Educational Testing 
     Service will think you did. Their scoring machines don't look 
     for brilliant scientists and they don't look for 
     understanding. . . . Stick with us, and you'll make the 
     scoring machines very happy.''
       The textbooks that teach to such tests, as well as the 
     tests themselves, stand in powerful contrast to our view of 
     education as a valuable experience. Is it any wonder that an 
     extensive analysis of the attitudes toward schooling of 
     20,000 middle-class American adolescents shows that 40 
     percent of them are completely disengaged from what is going 
     on in the classroom? These young Americans place no value on 
     what is being taught, and they correspondingly pay no 
     attention to it. The blame for this has often been placed on 
     a decline of parental and community values. But when one 
     looks at the science curriculum and the science tests that 
     these students are subjected to, one has to wonder whether a 
     great deal of the blame does not instead belong the 
     excruciatingly boring material that they are expected to 
     learn.
       The Academy has been working to improve the science 
     achievement tests used for college admissions for more than 
     six years. We began by engaging both the College Board and 
     the Educational Testing Service in discussions about their 
     science exams. More recently, we have been working with the 
     American College Testing Program and with the Association of 
     American Universities to encourage them to require different, 
     more meaningful measures of science achievement. I am pleased 
     to say that we are now seeing some progress in all of these 
     endeavors.
       Let's turn now to the districts that govern our schools. 
     What can be done about the fact that so many of our school 
     systems are dysfunctional organizations that not only fail to 
     support teachers with the incentives, resources, and training 
     that they need, but place burdens upon teachers that make it 
     almost impossible for them to do their job well?
       We will never have quality education for most of our 
     children unless school systems can transform themselves into 
     effective organizations that spread good instruction 
     throughout all of their schools. Our Center on Science, 
     Mathematics, and Engineering Education is in the midst of a 
     planning process that focuses on school-district improvement. 
     A small group--led by Ray Cortines, previously San 
     Francisco's school superintendent and former chancellor of 
     the New York City schools, and by Robert Waterman, an 
     expert in corporate management who co-authored ``In Search 
     of Excellence''--is attempting to see what can be learned 
     from studies of the 20 or so effective school districts in 
     the United States and Canada that might serve as 
     organizational models. My personal belief is that we will 
     not be able to make major progress in U.S. education until 
     we can successfully attack this issue head-on.
       I want to end this part of my discussion by focusing on the 
     education and recruitment of teachers. We know that far too 
     few of them have the understanding of science or math that 
     they need to be able to teach these subjects effectively in 
     schools today. We also know that the preparation for teaching 
     provided in most education schools is inadequate. Teachers 
     are generally taught pedagogy, divorced from any subject 
     matter, whereas to be a good math teacher, one needs focused 
     preparation on how to teach mathematics. And to be a good 
     science teacher, one needs focused preparation on how to 
     teach science. Moreover, we seem to assume that a science or 
     moth teacher will learn everything that he or she needs to 
     know during their college years, but in reality a teacher 
     should be provided with an experienced, expert mentor, along 
     with continuous professional development. Doctors don't 
     graduate from medical school and practice medicine for 30 
     years with only their initial training. Similarly, with 
     science evolving at an ever-increasing rate, the professional 
     development of science teachers must become a non-ending 
     process that is deeply embedded in each school district.
       An enormous turnover of teachers will occur during the next 
     10 years, when it is estimated that some 2 million new 
     teachers will be needed. What might the Academy do to address 
     the urgent national need for talented teachers? For 
     education, I believe that the World Wide Web has an 
     unexploited potential for creating dynamic change. This 
     summer, the Center on Science, Mathematics, and Engineering 
     Education is planning to try an experiment in which we bring 
     together the nation's best teacher educators in middle school 
     mathematics. We propose to have these individuals attend a 
     revolving ``summer camp'' where they demonstrate how they do 
     what they do in teacher develpment--using their very best 
     videotapes, teaching lessons, and student exercises. The aim 
     is to pool the best of these materials to create high-quality 
     ``shareware'' for teacher preparation that can be made freely 
     accessible on the Web. We have not yet been able to reform 
     teacher education through policy studies and books aimed at 
     university facility and deans. But perhaps we can drive 
     reform from below by using such Web sites to make all 
     students aware of the preparation they should expect from 
     their colleges and universities, if they are to become 
     effective teachers.
       If the Academy is going to have a profound impact on the 
     quality of science education, we need to encourage all senior 
     scientists who discuss career options with young scientists 
     and mathematicians to stress the importance of teaching as 
     one career option. Simultaneously, we need to lower the 
     barriers that presently prevent many talented young 
     scientists from even considering teaching as a career. Here I 
     cite as a model the Teach for America Program, which recruits 
     talented undergraduates to spend two years teaching in some 
     of our nation's most desperate schools. Remarkably, studies 
     show that these teachers perform very well despite an initial 
     handicap stemming from their having received only six weeks 
     of summer ``boot camp'' training in how to teach. About half 
     of these individuals stay on after their two-year commitment, 
     and many become leaders in their schools and school 
     districts.
       In my opinion, we need many more pathways that allow people 
     who know science and mathematics well to readily enter the 
     teaching profession.
       Let me now change topics completely, and move on to an 
     equally important challenge: the need for a greatly expanded 
     role of U.S. scientists in the developing world.
       In the early 1990s, the Carnegie Commission on Science, 
     Technology, and Government published a series of reports 
     emphasizing the need for a greatly increased role for science 
     and scientists in international affairs. Several of the 
     members of the Academy were leaders in that effort. As the 
     Commission pointed out, there are tremendous unexploited 
     opportunities for the scientific community in the 
     international arena. In a world full of conflicting cultural 
     values and competing needs, scientists everywhere share a 
     powerful common culture that respects honesty, generosity, 
     and ideas independent of their source, while rewarding merit. 
     A major aim of this Academy is to strengthen the ties between 
     scientists and their institutions around the world. Our goal 
     is to create a scientific network that becomes a central 
     element in the interactions between nations--increasing the 
     level of rationality in international discourse, while 
     enhancing the influence of scientists everywhere in the 
     decision-making processes of their own governments.
       I am pleased to announce that we recently received a letter 
     from the Department of State in which Secretary Madeleine 
     Albright requests that we help the State Department determine 
     ``the contributions that science, technology, and health can 
     make to foreign policy, and how the Department might better 
     carry out its responsibilities to that end.'' This effort has 
     been encouraged by our Public Welfare Medalist, William 
     Golden, whose advice and help on this matter has been 
     crucial.
       What are the main principles that should underlie our 
     response to the State Department? I would like to suggest 
     consideration of the four ideas shown on the next slide, 
     which I will briefly discuss in turn.
       Science Can Be A Powerful Force for Promoting Democracy. 
     The vitality of a nation's science and technology enterprise 
     is increasingly becoming the main driver of economic 
     advancement around the world. Success requires a free 
     exchange of ideas, as well as universal access to the world's 
     great store of knowledge. Historically, the growth of science 
     has helped to spread democracy, and this is even more true 
     today.
       Many governments around the world exert power over their 
     citizens through the control of information. But restricting 
     access to knowledge has proven to be self-destructive to the 
     economic vitality of nations in the modern world. The reason 
     is a simple one: The world is too complex for a few leaders 
     to make wise decisions about all aspects of public policy. 
     Thus, in a recent article in the Washington Post titled, 
     ``Beijing Spring: Talk of Reform,'' I was pleased to read 
     that the following public statement had just been published 
     in an official Chinese weekly: ``Only in a democratic 
     environment can people dare to voice new opinions and can 
     their intelligence, wisdom, and ability be fully brought into 
     play. If we don't encourage people to think freely and voice 
     new opinions,

[[Page E747]]

     our society will actually be utterly stagnant, though it may 
     seem tranquil.``
       New Scientific and Technical Advances Are Essential To 
     Accommodate the World's Rapidly Expanding Population. The 
     rapid rise in the human population in the second half of this 
     century has led to a crowded world--one that will require all 
     of the ingenuity available from science and technology to 
     maintain stability in the face of increasing demands on 
     natural resources. Thus, for example, a potential disaster is 
     looming in Africa. Traditionally, farmers had enough land 
     available to practice shifting cultivation, in which fields 
     were left fallow for 10 or so years between cycles of 
     plantings. But now, because of Africa's dramatically 
     increasing population, there is not enough land to allow 
     these practices. The result is a continuing process of soil 
     degradation that reduces yields, and will make it nearly 
     impossible for Africa to feed itself. The best estimates for 
     the year 2010 predict that fully one-third of the people 
     in Sub-Saharan Africa will have great difficulty obtaining 
     food, versus 12 percent of the people in South Asia and 5 
     percent in East Asia.
       It has been argued that the ethnic conflicts that led to 
     the massacres in Rwanda were in large part triggered by 
     conflicts over limited food resources. We can expect more of 
     such conflicts in the future, unless something dramatic is 
     done now. How might the tremendous scientific resources of 
     the developed world be brought to bear on increasing the 
     African food supply? At present, I see large numbers of 
     talented, idealistic young people in our universities who 
     would welcome the challenge of working on such urgent 
     scientific problems. But the many opportunities to use modern 
     science in behalf of the developing world remain invisible to 
     most scientists on our university campuses. As a result, a 
     great potential resource for improving the human condition is 
     being ignored.
       Electronic Communication Networks Make Possible a New Kind 
     of World Science. In looking to the future, it is important 
     to recognize that we are only at the very beginning of the 
     communications revolution. For example, by the year 2002, we 
     are promised by several commercial partnerships that good 
     connectivity to the World Wide Web will become available 
     everywhere in the world, at a modest cost through satellite 
     communications. Moreover, at least some of these partnerships 
     have promised to provide heavily subsidized connections for 
     the developing world.
       Developing countries have traditionally had very poor 
     access to the world's store of scientific knowledge. With the 
     electronic publication of scientific journals, we now have 
     the potential to eliminate this lack of access. The Academy 
     has decided to lead the way with our flagship journal, the 
     Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, making it 
     free on the Web for developing nations. We also are hoping to 
     spread this practice widely among other scientific and 
     technical journals, since there is almost no cost involved in 
     providing such free electronic access.
       The next problem that scientists in developing countries 
     will face is that of finding the information they need in the 
     mass of published literature. In 1997, the U.S. government 
     set an important precedent. We announced that the National 
     Library of Medicine's indexing of the complete biomedical 
     literature would be made electronically available for free 
     around the world, at their cleverly named Web site, 
     ``PubMed.'' A similar ability to search the complete 
     agricultural and environmental literature should follow. The 
     director of the PubMed effort, David Lipman, is presently 
     investigating what can be done to produce such a site.
       The communications revolution also is driving a great 
     transformation in education. Already, the Web is being used 
     as a direct teaching tool, providing virtual classrooms of 
     interacting students and faculty. This tool allows a course 
     taught at one site to be taken by students anywhere in the 
     world. Such technologies present an enormous opportunity to 
     spread the ability to use scientific and technical knowledge 
     everywhere--an ability that will be absolutely essential if 
     we are to head for a more rational and sustainable world in 
     the 21st century.
       Science Academies Can Be a Strong Force For Wide Policy-
     making. In preparing for the future, we need to remember that 
     we are only a tiny part of the world's people. In 1998, seven 
     out of every eight children born will be growing up in a 
     developing nation. As the Carnegie Commission emphasized, we 
     need more effective mechanisms for providing scientific 
     advice internationally--particularly in view of the 
     overwhelming needs of this huge population.
       In 1993, the scientific academies of the world met for the 
     first time in New Delhi in order to address world population 
     issues. The report developed by this group of 60 Academies 
     was presented a year later at the 1994 U.N. Conference at 
     Cairo. Its success has now led to a more formal 
     collaboration between Academies, known as the InterAcademy 
     Panel (IAP). The next slide shows the countries thus far 
     represented in this group. A common Web site for the 
     entire group will soon be online, overseen by this 
     Academy. As you will hear on Tuesday from Foreign 
     Secretary Sherry Rowland, the IAP is working toward a 
     major conference in Tokyo in May of 2000, focused on the 
     challenges for science and technology in the transition to 
     a more sustainable world.
       Inspired by a successful joint study with the Mexican 
     Academy that produced a report on Mexico City's water supply, 
     we began a study in 1996 titled, ``Sustaining Freshwater 
     Resources in the Middle East,'' as a collaboration between 
     our Academy, the Royal Scientific Society of Jordan, the 
     Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the Palestine 
     Health Council. The final version of this report is now in 
     review, and we expect it to be released this summer. I would 
     also like to highlight a new energy study that we initiated 
     this year with China. Here, four Academies, two from the 
     United States and two from China, are collaborating to 
     produce a major, forward-looking study of the energy options 
     for our two countries. Recently, the Indian Science and 
     Engineering Academies have indicated an interest in carrying 
     out a similar energy study with us. I believe that these 
     Indian and Chinese collaborations are likely to lead us all 
     toward a wiser use of global energy resources.
       My dream for the IAP is to have it become recognized as a 
     major provider of international advice--for developing 
     nations, the World Bank, and the many similar agencies that 
     require expert scientific and technical assistance. Through 
     an IAP mechanism, any country or organization seeking advice 
     could immediately call on a small group of Academies of its 
     choosing to provide it with politically balanced input 
     coupled with the appropriate scientific and technical 
     expertise.
       I would like to end my talk by briefly describing three 
     common challenges that we face in reaching out boldly in the 
     two main areas I have emphasized--education and international 
     science.
       The Importance of a Clear Vision. For both education and 
     international science, we need a strong consensus for where 
     we are heading and how we want to get there. I would argue 
     that we now have that vision for science education in the 
     United States in the form of the Science Education Standards. 
     In the coming year, we will attempt to prepare an 
     international science road map to help our State Department. 
     My discussions with the leaders of Academies from developing 
     countries convinces me that they will need to develop their 
     own road maps in the form of national science policies. To 
     quote Jose Goldemberg, a distinguished scientific leader from 
     Brazil: ``What my scientist colleagues and national leaders 
     alike failed to understand was that development does not 
     necessarily coincide with the possession of nuclear weapons 
     or the capability to launch satellites. Rather, it requires 
     modern agriculture, industrial systems, and education. . . . 
     This scenario means that we in developing countries should 
     not expect to follow the research model that led to the 
     scientific enterprise of the United States and elsewhere. 
     Rather, we need to adapt and develop technologies appropriate 
     to our local circumstances, help strengthen education, and 
     expand our roles as advisers in both government and 
     industry.''
       The Need to Learn From Action-Oriented Research and 
     Experience. In his work for the Carnegie Commission, Jimmy 
     Carter made the following observations about global 
     development: ``Hundreds of well-intentioned international aid 
     agencies, with their own priorities and idiosyncrasies, 
     seldom cooperate or even communicate with each other. 
     Instead, they compete for publicity, funding, and access to 
     potential recipients. Overburdened leaders in developing 
     countries, whose governments are often relatively 
     disorganized, confront a cacophony of offers and demands 
     from donors.''
       Replace a few words, and exactly the same could be said 
     about most of our nation's past attempts at education reform.
       My contacts with education projects in the United States 
     and with international development projects in agriculture 
     have made me aware of a common failing in these important 
     human endeavors. Many experiments are carried out to try to 
     improve these systems. A few are very successful, but many 
     turn out to be failures. The natural inclination is to hide 
     all of the failures. But as every experimental scientists 
     knows, progress is made from learning from what did not work, 
     and then improving the process by incorporating this 
     knowledge into a general framework for moving forward. As 
     scientists, I would hope that we could lead the world toward 
     more rational approaches to improving both education and 
     international development efforts.
       The Need to Rethink How We Measure Progress. As I speak, 
     the U.S. economy is booming. But as I look around our plush 
     shopping malls, observing the rush of our citizens to consume 
     more and more, I wonder whether this is really progress. In 
     thinking about how our nation can prove itself as the world 
     leader it purports to be, we might do well to consider the 
     words of Franklin Roosevelt that are engraved on his new 
     memorial, a short distance from this Academy: ``The test of 
     our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of 
     those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for 
     those who have little.''
       As many others have pointed out, every year the inequities 
     of wealth are becoming greater, both within our nation and 
     around the world. At the national level, improving education 
     for all Americans is the best way to reduce such inequities. 
     Likewise, the spread of scientific and technological 
     information throughout the world, involving a generous 
     sharing of knowledge resources by our nation's scientists and 
     engineers, can improve the lives of those who are most in 
     need around the globe.
       As I have tried to emphasize in this talk, these are not 
     only challenges for science,

[[Page E748]]

     they are also major challenges for this Academy. Because of 
     your stature and your achievements, the people in this room 
     have the potential to change the world profoundly. I urge you 
     to view this organization as a lever through which you can 
     exert a beneficial, lasting influence on both the nation and 
     the world.

     

                          ____________________