Where's Our Competitive Edge?
Unquestionably, America today is the world’s R&D powerhouse. There are, however, disturbing indications that U.S. dominance in science and technology is starting to wane. More and more ideas are being generated in laboratories outside our country.By Senator Jeff Bingaman
TechComm
December 05/January 06
We can no longer take the supremacy of America’s scientific and technological enterprise for granted because other nations are on a fast track to overtake the United States in discovery and innovation.
A number of mid-course corrections, new policies, and additional investments will be needed to put us back on the solid path of scientific preeminence which this nation has enjoyed since World War II.
It goes without saying that one of the basic policies of our nation’s economic security must be to maintain a sustained investment in science and technology. There is no dispute that science, and the technology that flows from it, are duly recognized as the principal engine of our economic growth.
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Comments
Bingaman is right, of course. He uses the phrase “withering laurels”
to describe the current state of affairs, but according to an article in the 3/13 New Yorker they’re withering not from natural causes but because they’re being sprayed with pesticide. The article is also online, at the following link.
http://www.wesjones.com/specter2.htm
I think a small part of this has been the limits placed on visas after 9-11. The limits were placed on both students and full-time workers. I would say, in general, the folks affected were in the areas of technology and advanced sciences.
While there are many other issues involved, I have to echo mediagirl here. I was working with Sandia’s Visiting Scholars program at the time of 9-11, and afterwords many visitors (from the Middle East, but also South Asia, Southeast Asia) lamented conditions for students and researchers. Unable to get through the red tape here, many top students who used to come—and stay—in the US are finding greener pastures in Australia, HK and even India.
