The science community has successfully tricked a major politician into thinking that the U.S. is experiencing a rapid decline in its science and technology standing in the world. In the March issue of the American Physical Society News (link here, subscription required) Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA), chair the very influential House Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the major science agencies, writes the following:

In my role as chairman of the House Science-State-Justice-Commerce
Appropriations subcommittee, which controls the budget of NASA, the National Science Foundation, the White House Office of Science and Technology policy and NOAA, I have met over the past year with groups that advocate for business, education, and research and development. What I heard from them is that America is facing unprecedented competition from countries such as China and India and our role as the global innovation leader is being challenged. I was alarmed to learn that three key measuring sticks show America on a downward slope: patents awarded to American scientists; papers published by American scientists, and Nobel prizes won by American scientists.

What does the data say? Actually, the opposite:

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Part 1 and Part 2 of this series discussed Chapters 1 and 2. This installment focuses on RAGS Chapter 3, which is titled, “How is America doing now in science and technology?” It really should be named, “How is science and technology doing now in America?”

The focus is regrettably not on what S&T can do for the U.S. public, but what the U.S. public can do for the S&T community. According to data that we discussed last month (here) the U.S. has 1.26 million workers who are classified as researchers, which represents roughly about 1% of the U.S> labor market. Given the small size of the R&D part of the workforce, compared to the whole, the most important question for using investments in S&T as a tool of “competitiveness” is: What is the relationship of investments in different areas of S&T and the quality and quantity of jobs in the broader U.S. labor market? This important question goes unasked by RAGS. Read on for details.

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An article about India and concerns about U.S. outsourcing in this week’s Newsweek is relevant to our on going discussion of Rising Above the Gathering Storm and U.S. “competitiveness.” It is titled, “Outsourcing: Silicon Valley East Americans once feared their jobs would be shipped to India, but the backlash was overdone. Now everybody’s winning,” and can be found here. Here is an excerpt:

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Part 1 of this review focused on Chapter 1 of RAGS. This post focuses on Chapter 2, which is titled, “Why are Science and Technology Critical to America’s Prosperity in the 21st Century?” It seems obvious that science and technology are indeed important to society, and understanding why this is so would be helpful for understanding how to prioritize R&D investments in the context of many other demands on public funds, and the relative desirability different possible R&D portfolios. Unfortunately, this chapter does little more than sandwich reams of information between highly general and simplified assertions of the importance of R&D. RAGS Chapter 2 does very little to answer the question posed in its title. For details, read on.

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Given the recent attention to competitiveness by the White House and Congress, I thought that it might be useful to dig into the intellectual foundation that lies underneath. This post is the first in a series and offers a perspective on the recent NRC report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm (RAGS), all 543 pages of it, chapter-by-chapter. I start the review with this post focused on Chapter 1, titled “A Disturbing Mosaic.” We provided an overview of the executive summary of RAGS here.

The summary of my critique of the RAGS report so far is that there is a disconnect between the statement of the problem and the proposed solution. It is a truism that science and technology underpin modern society. And it is also true that the world economy has been transformed by economic globalization. But it does not clearly follow from these initial conditions that a policy focused on increasing investments in basic research in the physical sciences, mathematics, and engineering, and the number of scientists and engineers, will improve U.S. “competitiveness” much less counter the negative effects of globalization. While there are a suite of other policy recommendations to be found in RAGS, the focus is mostly on government funding for science and the production of PhD scientists and engineers. My interpretation of Chapter 1 in RAGS is that its arguments are largely faith-based rather than built on a foundation of policy analysis, but perhaps that is to come in future chapters. Read on for details.

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It looks like science policy issues might be increasing at the focus of policy makers attention in the near term. Chemical & Engineering News reported late last week,

“A bipartisan group of senators plans to introduce a package of legislation next week aimed at boosting U.S. competitiveness in science and technology by doubling federal funding for basic research and establishing a new science agency within the Department of Energy. The bills will be collectively titled the Protect America’s Competitive Edge Act. They would implement 20 recommendations contained in an October 2005 report by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) that outlined a series of steps the U.S. should take to maintain its global economic competitiveness. The legislation would establish an agency at DOE called the Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy (ARPA-E) that would provide grants for “high-risk” research and development programs in the energy sector.”

The 20 recommendations referred to are from the NAS report “Rising Above The Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future”. The report was in response to a request from Congress that asked:

(1) What are the top 10 actions, in priority order, that federal policy-makers could take to enhance the science and technology enterprise so that the United States can successfully compete, prosper, and be secure in the global community of the 21st Century?

2) What strategy, with several concrete steps, could be used to implement each of those actions?

Like kids in a candy store, the NAS committee was unable to limit itself to just 10 and came up with a list of 20 recommendations. Here are the recommendations:

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