[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 59 (Monday, May 3, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4728-S4732]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ENSURING AMERICA'S FUTURE COMPETITIVENESS
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I also want to comment about another
subject which is not as much on the minds of the American public, but
it clearly is on the minds of some.
There is an article that I ask unanimous consent be printed in the
Record immediately following my remarks from today's New York Times by
William Broad entitled ``U.S. Is Losing Its Dominance in the
Sciences.''
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that a
speech Senator Daschle gave 2 weeks ago to the American Association for
the Advancement of Science be printed in the Record following my
remarks.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
(See exhibit 2.)
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, the author of this report on the front
page of the New York Times today, Mr. Broad, points to several trends
that are working against the United States with regard to our world
leadership position in science and technology. He points out the
percentage of patents issued to Americans is declining. He points out
the portion of published research attributable to Americans in top
physics journals is decreasing. He points out the number of Nobel
Prizes awarded in the basic sciences to Americans is decreasing. He
points out the number of doctoral degrees granted in science and
engineering in this country is on the decline. He points out the
declining percentage of science and engineering doctoral degree
candidates from foreign countries who are planning to stay in the
United States after they graduate. This last phenomenon I referred to
has been dubbed ``the reverse brain drain.'' He talks extensively about
that.
The simple fact is, the world has become a highly competitive place
with regard to science and technology leadership and talent and
investments. We have historically believed we were the leaders in the
world in this arena, and we have taken for granted the fact that
promising young scientists and engineers from other countries would all
want to come here, to stay here, and contribute to our continued world
leadership. All of that is now in danger of changing.
We ignore this challenge to our long-term economic security at our
own peril. This challenge requires strong efforts by our Government and
our industry to counter the strong efforts that are being made in other
countries, and to match the strong efforts that are being made in other
countries in this field.
So what needs to be done? Let me list briefly six areas on which I
think we ought to take aggressive action. The first area relates to
research frontiers. We need to start by focusing on broad support for
basic science and engineering research across the board, as well
[[Page S4729]]
as on targeted investments in critical emerging technologies that will
drive future job growth and economic growth in this economy.
Unfortunately, in terms of broad-based basic research support, we
have a pattern of underfunding across the physical sciences and
engineering, and that is in comparison particularly to what we have
been doing in biological and life sciences for several years. I do not
advocate reducing our commitment to the biological and life sciences,
but I strongly advocate a comparable commitment to maintaining our
leadership in the physical sciences and engineering.
In terms of targeted research and development, there are many areas
where there are promising developments that we should be paying
attention to. Let me cite three examples. One is high-end computing.
Japan today is the world leader in high-end computing with their Earth
Simulator supercomputer. That is a sad statement to make on this Senate
floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be
permitted to continue for another 5 minutes.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BINGAMAN. That is a sad statement because I can remember a decade
ago when the United States was the unrivaled leader in high-end
computing. We need to do much better in this field.
Senator Lamar Alexander and I have introduced the High-End Computing
Revitalization Act. I hope that the leadership in the Senate will see
fit to move this legislation this year, and that we will receive strong
support from our colleagues.
Nanotechnology is another area. Although Congress passed a
nanotechnology bill last year, and the President signed the bill with
great fanfare, the truth is, we are not putting the needed funding into
it. The administration has not requested sufficient funding. We are not
committing the money. This is another major shortfall.
The next specific area I believe we need to target is next-generation
lighting. I have spoken several times about that on the Senate floor.
Semiconductor lighting has the promise to greatly increase the
efficiency of lighting devices and also to create an enormous number of
jobs. The estimate is this will be a $12 billion per year industry for
these devices in the future. The question is, where will the leadership
be in developing these devices? Will we maintain some of that
leadership in this country? And where will the high-wage jobs be
created by this? I hope those jobs will be created in the United
States, but Congress needs to act to ensure that.
A second area deals with the training of scientists and engineers. An
enormous amount needs to be done to better prepare our own students for
careers in these fields. We do too little in those areas. We need to do
better. We now have the added concern that the foreign students who
have traditionally come here to study are, first, finding visa problems
that keep them from coming here; and, second, are deciding not to stay
once they complete their education but go back to their home country.
This is a precursor to the shifting of more and more research and
development activity out of this country and into other countries
around the world, which I think is a very bad trend for our
economic future.
The third area is infrastructure. The National Science Foundation
estimates there are roughly $10 billion of unfilled needs for science
and engineering facilities at universities. Unfortunately, the system
we have in Congress today to fund these needs is through random,
uncoordinated earmarks to appropriations bills. This is totally
unacceptable. We need a merit-oriented solution that involves a look at
the merits of the request and the need, and also the commitment that
State and local governments are willing to make to creating this
infrastructure.
The fourth area is finance. We need public policies and strategies to
expand the pool of risk capital for entrepreneurial investment.
A fifth strategy is public-private sector interactions. We need to
fully fund the Advanced Technology Program and the Manufacturing
Extension Partnerships. The administration's request that we zero-fund
the Advanced Technology Program is totally wrongheaded, in my view, and
clearly needs to be rejected by this Congress. We should have the
Federal Government take a stronger role in supporting science parks and
incubators around this country as well.
The final area I would mention is regulation and trade policy. We
need to recognize the strategic importance of legal or regulatory
structures to high-technology industries. We need to increase the
efforts to protect intellectual property, to support fair competition
regimes, to enforce legitimacy and transparency in the global market
system, and to assure access by U.S. companies to these markets.
We need to spend some time better monitoring and being sure we are
getting fair treatment under the trade agreements we have already
entered into instead of rushing forward pellmell trying to find new
agreements we can sign.
We need to focus on export promotion. There is way too little
attention to export promotion.
We need to focus on assistance programs for those people who are
displaced and those communities that are damaged by increased trade.
The current administration and, unfortunately, the Congress in the last
few years have not done what needed to be done in this area. We have no
formal science and technology policy. The administration has
undermanned and seemingly neglected the Office of Science and
Technology Policy.
In previous remarks to the Senate, I have gone through a list of the
proposed cuts by this administration to basic science and applied
research in the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the
Agriculture Department, in the transportation sector, the Department of
Energy's Office of Science, the Advanced Technology Program in the
Department of Commerce.
These include:
$660 million in cuts proposed for basic and applied research at the
Department of Defense, the sort of research that has the greatest
potential for dual use and effective spin-off to the civilian high-
technology industries;
$63 million in cuts for energy conservation R&D at the Department of
Energy;
$183 million in cuts for FY 2005 for agricultural research;
$24 million in cuts for transportation research; and
$68 million in cuts for the Department of Energy's Office of Science,
a major supporter of basic physical sciences and engineering research--
we have 40 Democratic Senators and 15 Republicans on a letter asking
for increased funding rather than cuts here--and;
total elimination of the Advanced Technology Program at the
Department of Commerce, a loss of $171 million for new technologies
that otherwise would have been enabled and brought to commercial
reality. This is a highly successful program praised by the national
academies and even the President's own budget language, cut for short-
sighted ideological reasons.
For the sake of our future national competitiveness, we need to face
up to the challenges and technological revolutions of the 21st century
and ensure that the United States has an effective plan for taking them
on. It would be my hope that the coming Presidential election will
serve as an opportunity to reflect on the ineffective ways in which we
are currently addressing these issues, and to put forth the case that
we need a comprehensive change in our policies to ensure our future
competitiveness.
I yield the floor.
Exhibit 1
[From the New York Times, May 3, 2004]
U.S. Is Losing Its Dominance in the Sciences
(By William J. Broad)
The United States has started to lose its worldwide
dominance in critical areas of science and innovation,
according to federal and private experts who point to strong
evidence like prizes awarded to Americans and the number of
papers in major professional journals.
Foreign advances in basic science now often rival or even
exceed America's, apparently with little public awareness of
the trend or its implications for jobs, industry, national
security or the vigor of the nation's intellectual and
cultural life.
``The rest of the world is catching up,'' said John E.
Jankowski, a senior analyst at the
[[Page S4730]]
National Science Foundation, the federal agency that tracks
science trends. ``Science excellence is no longer the domain
of just the U.S.''
Even analysts worried by the trend concede that an
expansion of the world's brain trust, with new approaches,
could invigorate the fight against disease, develop new
sources of energy had wrestle with knotty environmental
problems. But profits from the breakthroughs are likely to
stay overseas, and this country will face competition for
things like hiring scientific talent and getting space to
showcase its work in top journals.
One area of international competition involves patents.
Americans still win large numbers of them, but the percentage
is falling as foreigners, especially Asians, have become more
active and in some fields have seized the innovation lead.
The United States' share of its own industrial patents has
fallen steadily over the decades and now stands at 52
percent.
A more concrete decline can be seen in published research.
Physical Review, a series of top physics journals, recently
tracked a reversal in which American papers, in two decades,
fell from the most to a minority. Last year the total was
just 29 percent, down from 61 percent in 1983.
China, said Martin Blume, the journals' editor, has surged
ahead by submitting more than 1,000 papers a year. ``Other
scientific publishers are seeing the same kind of thing,'' he
added.
Another downturn centers on the Nobel Prizes, an icon of
scientific excellence. Traditionally, the United States,
powered by heavy federal investments in basic research, the
kind that pursue fundamental questions of nature, dominated
the awards.
But the American share, after peaking from the 1960's
through the 1990's, has fallen in the 2000's to about half,
51 percent. The rest went to Britain, Japan, Russia, Germany,
Sweden, Switzerland and New Zealand.
``We are in a new world, and it's increasingly going to be
dominated by countries other than the United States,'' Denis
Simon, dean of management and technology at the Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, recently said at a scientific
meeting in Washington.
Europe and Asia are ascendant, analysts say, even if their
achievements go unnoticed in the United States. In March, for
example, European scientists announced that one of their
planetary probes had detected methane in the atmosphere of
Mars--a possible sign that alien microbes live beneath the
planet's surface. The finding made headlines from Paris to
Melbourne. But most Americans, bombarded with images from
America's own rovers successfully exploring the red planet,
missed the foreign news.
More aggressively, Europe is seeking to dominate particle
physics by building the world's most powerful atom smasher,
set for its debut in 2007. Its circular tunnel is 17 miles
around.
Science analysts say Asia's push for excellence promises to
be even more challenging.
``It's unbelievable,'' Diana Hicks, chairwoman of the
school of public policy at the Georgia Institute of
Technology, said of Asia's growth in science and technical
innovation. ``It's amazing to see these output numbers of
papers and patents going up so fast.''
Analysts say comparative American declines are an
inevitable result of rising standards of living around the
globe.
``It's all in the ebb and flow of globalization,'' said
Jack Fritz, a senior officer at the National Academy of
Engineering, an advisory body to the federal government. He
called the declines ``the next big thing we will have to
adjust to.''
The rapidly changing American status has not gone unnoticed
by politicians, with Democrats on the attack and the White
House on the defensive.
``We stand at a pivotal moment,'' Tom Daschle, the Senate
Democratic leader, recently said at a policy forum in
Washington at the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, the nation's top general science group. ``For all
our past successes, there are disturbing signs that America's
dominant position in the scientific world is being shaken.''
Mr. Daschle accused the Bush administration of weakening
the nation's science base by failing to provide enough money
for cutting-edge research.
The president's science adviser, John H. Marburger III, who
attended the forum, strongly denied that charge, saying in an
interview that overall research budgets during the Bush
administration have soared to record highs and that the
science establishment is strong.
``The sky is not falling on science,'' Dr. Marburger said.
``Maybe there are some clouds--no, things that need
attention.'' Any problems, he added, are within the power of
the United States to deal with in a way that maintains the
vitality of the research enterprise.
Analysts say Mr. Daschle and Dr. Marburger can both supply
data that supports their positions.
A major question, they add, is whether big spending
automatically translates into big rewards, as it did in the
past. During the cold war, the government pumped more than $1
trillion into research, with a wealth of benefits including
lasers, longer life expectancies, men on the Moon and the
prestige of many Nobel Prizes.
Today, federal research budgets are still record highs;
this year more than $126 billion has been allocated to
research. Moreover, American industry makes extensive use of
federal research in producing its innovations and adds its
own vast sums of money, the combination dwarfing that of any
other nation or bloc.
But the edifice is less formidable than it seems, in part
because of the nation's costly and unique military role. This
year, financing for military research hit $66 billion, higher
in fixed dollars than in the cold war and far higher than in
any other country.
For all the spending, the United States began to experience
a number of scientific declines in the 1990's, boom years for
the nation's overall economy.
For instance, scientific papers by Americans peaked in 1992
and then fell roughly 10 percent, the National Science
Foundation reports. Why? Many analysts point to rising
foreign competition, as does the European Commission, which
also monitors global science trends. In a study last year,
the commission said Europe surpassed the United States in the
mid-1990's as the world's largest producer of scientific
literature.
Dr. Hicks of Georgia Tech said that American scientists,
when top journals reject their papers, usually have no idea
that rising foreign competition may be to blame.
On another front, the numbers of new doctorates in the
sciences peaked in 1998 and then fell 5 percent the next
year, a loss of more than 1,300 new scientists, according to
the foundation.
A minor exodus also hit one of the hidden strengths of
American science: vast ranks of bright foreigners. In a
significant shift of demographics, they began to leave in
what experts call a reverse brain drain. After peaking in the
mid-1990's, the number of doctoral students from China, India
and Taiwan with plans to stay in the United States began to
fall by the hundreds, according to the foundation.
These declines are important, analysts say, because new
scientific knowledge is an engine of the American Economy and
technical innovation, its influence evident in everything
from potent drugs to fast computer chips.
Patents are a main way that companies and inventors reap
commercial rewards from their ideas and stay competitive in
the marketplace while improving the lives of million.
Foreigners outside the United States are playing an
increasingly important role in these expressions of
industrial creativity. In a recent study, CHI Research, a
consulting firm in Haddon Height, N.J., found that
researchers in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea now account for
more than a quarter of all United States industrial patents
awarded each year, generating revenue for their own countries
and limiting it in the United States.
Moreover, their growth rates are rapid. Between 1980 and
2003, South Korea went from 0 to 2 percent of the total,
Taiwan from 0 to 3 percent and Japan from 12 to 21 percent.
``It's not just lots of patents,'' Francis Narin, CHI's
president, said of the Asian rise. ``It's lots of good
patents that have a high impact,'' as measured by how often
subsequent patents cite them.
Recently, Dr. Narin added, both Taiwan and Singapore surged
ahead of the United States in the overall number of
citations. Singapore's patents include ones in chemicals,
semiconductors, electronics and industrial tools.
China represents the next wave, experts agree, its
scientific rise still too fresh to show up in most statistics
but already apparent. Dr. Simon of Rensselaer said that about
400 foreign companies had recently set up research centers in
China, with General Electric, for instance, doing important
work there on medical scanners, which means fewer skilled
jobs in America.
Ross Armbrecht, president of the Industrial Research
Institute, a nonprofit group in Washington that represents
large American companies, said businesses were going to China
not just because of low costs but to take advantage of
China's growing scientific excellence.
``It's frightening,'' Dr. Armbrecht said. ``But you've got
to go where the horses are.'' An eventual danger, he added,
is the slow loss of intellectual property as local
professionals start their own businesses with what they have
learned from American companies.
For the United States, future trends look challenging,
many analysts say.
In a report last month, the American Association for the
Advancement of Science said the Bush administration, to live
up to its pledge to halve the nation's budget deficit in the
next five years, would cut research financing at 21 of 24
Federal agencies--all those that do or finance science except
those involved in space and national and domestic security.
More troubling to some experts is the likelihood of an
accelerating loss of quality scientists. Applications from
foreign graduate students to research universities are down
by a quarter, experts say, partly because of the Federal
government's tightening of visas after the 2001 terrorist
attacks.
Shirley Ann Jackson, president of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, told the recent forum
audience that the drop in foreign students, the apparently
declining interest of young Americans in science careers and
the aging of the technical work force were, taken together, a
perilous combination of developments.
``Who,'' she asked, ``will do the science of this
millennium?''
Several private groups, including the Council on
Competitiveness, an organization
[[Page S4731]]
in Washington that seeks policies to promote industrial
vigor, have begun to agitate for wide debate and action.
``Many other countries have realized that science and
technology are key to economic growth and prosperity,'' said
Jennifer Bond, the council's vice president for international
affairs. ``They're catching up to us,'' she said, warning
Americans not to ``rest on our laurels.''
____
Remarks of Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle to the American
Association for the Advancement of Science
Thank you, Dr. [Shirley] Jackson, for that warm
introduction, and for the tremendous work you are doing. Few
people alive today can claim to have done as much to advance
both the cause, and the frontiers of science.
It is a great honor for me to address such a distinguished
group of scientists and thinkers. Since my childhood, I've
been fascinated with science, perhaps because I knew my
father had hoped to become a geologist before World War II
called. But any child of South Dakota grows up with an
appreciation for the impact science has on our lives. Whether
it's the work of agricultural geneticists improving crop
yields, or simply paleontologists explaining the fossils of
Rapid City's Dinosaur Park, science has a special place in
South Dakota. I chose a different path than a life of
science, but I've always been mindful of John Adam's letter
to his wife, Abigail, in which he wrote, ``I must study
politics and war [so] that my sons may have liberty to study
mathematics and philosophy.'' Sooner or later, every elected
official needs to come up with a justification for the
demands of public office to their husband or wife. I wish I
could come up with something as good as John Adams.
Whatever Adams motivation was for the comment, I share his
understanding of the relationship between politics and
science. Elected officials have an obligation to maintain our
nation's prosperity and peace, not merely for their own sake,
but because they provide our citizens the liberty to pursue
the higher callings of the mind. History best remembers not
the civilizations that have done the most to expand their
borders, but those civilizations that have done the most to
expand the boundaries of human understanding. These are the
accomplishments that resonate through the centuries, and it
is the work of America's scientists that will serve as our
testimony to history.
For all the grandeur of intellectual pursuits, America's
interest in scientific progress has a pragmatic urgency as
well. Today, your discoveries matter more to our every day
life than at any other point in human history. Biotechnology
and genetics, not to mention the steady progress of medical
science and nanotechnology, are extending and improving our
lives. The physics of computer science is sparking new
industries that employ millions of Americans and enhance the
productivity and well-being of countless more.. On the
battlefield and in the laboratory, the war on terrorism is
being waged, not just with soldiers, but with software armed
with artificial intelligence algorithms. America's health,
prosperity, and security are tied to your success. And as a
result, our obligation to ensure you have the freedom and
resources necessary to advance your work is more pressing
than ever before.
This tension between science for the sake of human
understanding, and science for the sake of human well-being
has marked our history since its first days. Even de
Tocqueville thought democracies were ill-equipped to support
pure scientific research. The more democratic a society, he
wrote ``the more will discoveries immediately applicable to
productive industry confer gain, fame, and even power on
their authors.''
But our Founding Fathers had different ideas. Many, most
notably Jefferson and Franklin, considered themselves men of
science and the government they designed their most daring
and novel invention. Jefferson once wrote to a friend, ``We
have spent the prime of our lives procuring the precious
blessing of liberty. Let [young men] spend theirs in shewing
that it is the great parent of science and of virtue.'' So
vital was this idea to the American experiment, that the very
first coin minted in our country bore the motto, Liberty,
Parent of Science and Industry.
When Jefferson sent Merriwether Lewis across the continent
to map the land that held our nation's future, he understood
the expedition would have two results. It would serve
practical purposes such as easing the westward expansion of
the nation and creating new trade relationships with the
Indian populations. At the same time, the expedition captured
Jefferson's scientific heart. In fact, his first choice to
lead the expedition was a French botanist. Jefferson changed
his mind, and after offering Lewis an education in botany,
geology, geography, and the finer points of navigation, he
gave the Lewis a broad and simple directive: explore. The
information Lewis and his men brought back represented
immense steps forward for American sciences from anthropology
to zoology and many in between.
In many ways, Jefferson's leadership and the Lewis & Clark
expedition established the model for government's partnership
with science. And in the 200 years since, government support
for scientific research had helped invent the telegraph,
split the atom, conquer space, create the Internet, map the
human genome, and much more. No nation has ever made such an
enduring and significant investment in science, and no
nation's scientists have done as much to demystify our world
and better the quality of life on earth.
In the years before World War II, America became the
adopted home of a generation of scientists fleeing fascism in
Europe. Never was the importance of a free society to science
more clear. The physicist Emilio Sergre was among those who
came to America, emigrating in 1938, and eventually working
on the Manhattan Project. ``America,'' he wrote at the time,
`` looks like the land of the future.''
America has always been the land of the future. Throughout
our history, we have maintained a remarkable devotion to the
simple idea that our children's lives should be better,
safer, and richer than our own. This simple idea that we
call the American dream has been made real because of the
myriad contributions of Americans scientists.
Today, we stand at a pivotal moment. For all our past
successes, there are disturbing signs that America's dominant
position in the scientific world is being shaken. According
to a recent study, America's rate of scientific discovery is
lagging behind that of European countries. The number of
scientific papers published by American researchers declined
last year, and has been flat for the past several years. In
contrast, every country in Europe has increased its rate of
discovery. In the last two decades of the 20th century,
France, Germany, and the United Kingdom doubled their
production of doctorates in science and engineering. Japan
doubled its production of science and engineering doctorates
in just one of those decades. If this stagnation is allowed
to continue, it will have profound implications for every
aspect of American society. If we are to remain the land of
the future, we must reaffirm the partnership that created
America's dominant position within the world of science.
Regrettably, rather than strengthening this partnership, I
fear that the Bush Administration has allowed it to erode in
two critical ways. First, the Administration is abdicating
its responsibility to provide scientists with the funding
cutting-edge research demands. As you know, the federal
government has seen its R&D investments steadily decline as a
share of the U.S. economy, bringing the federal investment
down to levels not seen since the mid-60s. Public-sector
investments in advanced research have declined sharply,
relative to our economic growth rate, and barely kept pace
with inflation. This year, federal funding for research is
set to increase 4.7 percent. However, the entire increase
would go to the Department of Defense and Homeland Security
for the development of weapons systems and counterterrorism
technology. Make no mistake, these are necessary investments
that will make our nation safer. But the remaining federal
R&D budget that supports research into health, environmental,
biological, and other sciences, will all see funding reduced.
In my home state of South Dakota, for instance, the Earth
Research Observation System is facing the possibility of deep
cuts in staff due to cuts to their budget. Their work helps
us become more responsible stewards of the environment, while
increasing the yields of farmers all over the world. And yet,
this work is endangered due to draconian budget cuts.
But the administration's disregard for science extends
beyond budgetary choices. Just last month, the Union of
Concerned Scientists released a report charging the White
House with systematically working against the spirit of
objective science. The report states that the Bush
Administration has suppressed or distorted the scientific
analyses offered federal agencies to bring these results in
line with administration policy. Time and time again, the
Administration is choosing politics over real science.
Consider the administration's response to global warming.
Even though the scientific community is united on the fact
that fossil fuel production and consumption has contributed
to global warming, the White House deleted that finding from
its 2001 report on Global Warming, and in its place inserted
a reference to an opposing study that was financed by the
American Petroleum Institute.
In addition, when the administration has had the
opportunity, it has stacked the deck by staffing research
boards and advisory councils with under-qualified researchers
who have shown allegiance to the White House's political
goals. Just recently, the President dismissed two advisers
from his Council on Bioethics because they were outspoken
proponents of research on human embryos.
This is not real science. This is vending machine science.
The administration thinks it can pull a lever and get the
results it wants at no cost. But the costs are extraordinary.
If history shows anything, it's that a bet against science is
a bet you cannot win. For the sake of short-term political
posturing, the White House is putting the long-term security,
health, and prosperity of our nation at risk.
Just as importantly, America's reputation as a home for
cutting edge science is being diminished. I am hearing from
more and more friends in the science community that they are
concerned about the support and reception their work will
receive in the years to come. They worry that the
administration's failure to provide intellectual leadership
will erode the high standing American
[[Page S4732]]
science has achieved since WWII. And I fear their
apprehension is well justified.
But we should be honest with ourselves. Outside the
scientific community, there is no hue and cry for more
government funding of R&D. There is no widespread public
outrage when the administration disregards the unequivocal
judgment of the scientific community. And it's unlikely that
the science gap growing between the United States and other
developed nations will become a major issue in the upcoming
Presidential campaign.
This represents a failure on our part. We have not done
enough to show the American people the connection between the
work underway in your laboratories and the problems that
affect their lives. This must change. The stakes simply could
not be higher. What future challenge will we fail to meet
because America's scientists were not given the tools they
need to discover new answers to old questions? When rumors of
a Nazi bomb program reached President Roosevelt, he said
simply, ``Whatever the enemy may be planning, American
science will be equal to the challenge.'' Will future
presidents be able to speak with such confidence?
The challenge to the American scientific community is to
rebuild the link not only between science and government, but
between science and society. I believe we can do so, if we
return to the model established by Thomas Jefferson. There is
an implicit ongoing debate within the government regarding
what kind of research is most important to support. Some
suggest that we should put no limits on the kind of research
we support and have faith that advances in theoretical
science, regardless of the field, will inevitably translate
into practical applications that improve human life.
For others, that approach is too abstract. There are real
problems, and to spend taxpayer dollars on anything but the
most pragmatic search for solutions seems high-minded, but
naive. There is merit to each approach. Both kinds of
research are critical.
But Jefferson offered a third way, and, I believe, the
right way to make the best use of government's resources, and
gain the full support of the American People for the efforts
of science. Merriwether Lewis's expedition represented a
basic attempt to enlarge the scope of America's understanding
of the world around it. It was the stuff of doctoral
dissertations. At the same time, because the mission was
targeted at the urgent needs of an expanding nation, the
voyage captured the support of Washington and the imagination
of our young country.
America saw another tremendous example of this in recent
years in the Human Genome Project. The effort pooled the
combined wisdom of biology, chemistry, physics, engineering,
mathematics, and computer science, tapped the strengths and
insights of the public and private sectors, brought together
1,000 researchers from six different nations to reveal all 3
billion letters of the human genetic code. Few endeavors have
brought together such diverse disciplines for a single and
pure pursuit of scientific knowledge. The discoveries of the
Human Genome Project have created extraordinary promise in
the field of medicine, and brought to life an industry that
could lead the American economy for a generation to come.
It has been nearly four years since the human Genome
Project concluded its primary objective. If the science
policy of this Administration has failed in any way, it has
failed here: it has yet to point the way to the next great
frontier of human understanding. It has yet to call
scientists from every discipline to a single mission of
public service.
Today, we need to rally once again around common goals, and
put the broad interests of the nation ahead of the narrow
boundaries of scientific disciplines. Surely there is no
shortage of challenges. Should we not set our nation's
physicists, chemists engineers, and geologists to the task of
freeing our nation from the need to import oil? Can we create
the scientific and technological foundations for affordable,
carbon-free energy sources? Can we ``level the playing
field'' for American researchers that lack the resources of
our nation's wealthiest universities? Is it beyond our
imagination to address the major challenges of developing
countries--such as cures and vaccines for AIDS, TB and
malaria? In addition to the obvious moral and ethical
imperative to do so, the economic and foreign policy benefits
from harnessing our scientific and technical talent to foster
sustainable development would be profound.
Let me suggest one final goal that could occupy the best
efforts of scientists from every discipline for a generation
to come. Now that we have surveyed the map of human life, let
us turn our attention to that which makes human life unique:
the mind. What challenge would be beyond our reach if we
truly understood how we learn, remember, think and
communicate? What could we accomplish if our education policy
was bolstered with a new understanding of how children learn?
How much safer could our neighborhoods be, if neurophysiology
solves the puzzle of addiction? What industry would not be
strengthened by a more complete picture of the workings of
the mind? There is perhaps no field in which major advances
would have more profound effects for human progress and
health than that of neuroscience. If the American scientific
community could come together and communicate to the nation
the kaleidoscopic possibilities that could result if we
unlocked the secrets of the mind, we could not only achieve
untold advances in science, we could open a new chapter in
the story of America's support for science.
Investments in science and technology are the ultimate act
of hope, and will create among the most important legacies we
can leave. America is still, as Emilio Segre said decades
ago, the land of the future. We have held that honor since
this continent was discovered by a daring act of science more
than 500 years ago. We have earned it anew with each passing
generation because America's scientists and public officials
have understood the importance of applying the power of
American curiosity to most intractable American challenges.
The hallmark of American science is not that we have been
able to overcome each new frontier. The hallmark of American
science is that having conquered one, we impatiently seek out
new, more distant and difficult frontiers. America will be
able to call ourselves the land of the future so long as we
dream that the future holds a better life for ourselves, and
so long as those of us who, in Adam's words, study politics,
continue to invest in your ability to make that dream real.
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