The space program is grounded. The Pentagon hogs the federal research budget while foreign competitors concentrate on making money from science. The response to AIDS remains chaotic and inadequate. And little is being done to counter a huge looming decline in the ranks of scientists and engineers as the college-age population declines.
These failings are chilling realities today in the United States, still high up there as a powerhouse in science and technology, but stumbling and far less confident than at any time since World War II. How did we get into this fix? How do we get out?
The fault is not in the quality of our scientists and engineers or in the overall amount of money that the federal government and industry are putting into research and development. Americans are on the frontiers of almost every important field of research, and spending for R&D is at a record-breaking peak of $120 billion. The sum exceeds the combined R&D spending of Western Europe and Japan. While the Soviets excel in space, they lag far behind in many important fields of research.
The great failing in American science has occurred in one of the murkiest areas in public affairs-the relationship between politics and sage science advice. Presidents and politicians on down need science advice because almost all politicians are scientific illiterates. There`s only one Ph.D. scientist in the 435-member House, Rep. Don Ritter (R., Pa.), and none in the Senate. The dearth reflects the fact that research is an intense, indoor activity that, unlike law, provides little opportunity for cultivating a political career.
In the executive branch, the source of scientific wisdom is supposed to be the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, home base of the president`s science adviser. But it has usually been only a bit player in great national affairs, rarely able to match the power and influence of the Pentagon, the space agency and the medical research establishment. In the Reagan administration, the science office was converted into a cheerleader for Star Wars, huge boosts for the Pentagon and huge cuts for civilian research. The provision of independent advice was not its assignment. The world at large was surprised by Reagan`s public embrace of missile defense in 1983. So was the White House science office.
When Reagan took office, defense absorbed about 50 percent of federal research funds; it now gets 75 percent, a suicidal misuse of national resources in today`s fierce competition for industrial innovation. But it persists-while Japan devotes 2 percent of its government R&D spending to defense.
Following the resignation at the end of 1985 of President Reagan`s first science adviser, George A. Keyworth, the post remained vacant for six months and has since slumped into near-oblivion. Keyworth`s successor, a right-wing physicist of no renown, William R. Graham, achieved the distinction of receiving the only nays in committee since the office became subject to Senate confirmation 25 years ago. The three votes against him were in large part based on doubts about his qualifications for the job.
Presidents cannot be compelled to seek excellence or to listen to their advisers, let alone revere and heed them. But the catastrophic misuse of America`s great research resources surely ought to inspire the scientific community to raise a storm.
In a time when almost every political problem-from arms control to AIDS-is compounded by scientific complexities and uncertainties, scientists of stature are remarkably invisible on the national scene. The reason is that politics has not summoned them to visible, influential roles, and they and their organizations have demurely not clamored to be summoned.
The leading exception to the invisibility pattern is Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who, to the annoyance of the administration, has courageously, and on his own initiative, taken the lead in public AIDS education. His performance demonstrates the potential for talking scientific sense to politicians and the public.
Scientists possess no political muscle. They don`t vote as a bloc or control campaign money. But they are listened to by the press and the voting public. As the presidential campaign warms up, the issue of competent, properly situated scientific advice for the presidency should be lifted out of neglect and openly discussed.
