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The U.S. share of global science and technology activity has shrunk in some areas even as absolute activity has continued to grow, as China and other Asian countries have invested in science and engineering education and increased their research spending.
That's one of the main takeaways of the "State of U.S. Science and Engineering" 2020 report, published by the National Science Board Wednesday. The report has historically been published every other year, but starting with this year's edition, the NSB is transitioning its format from a single report published every two years to a series of shorter reports issued more frequently.
"While the U.S. remains a leading player, other countries have seen the benefits of investing in research and education and are following our example," said Julia Phillips, chair of the NSB Science and Engineering Policy Committee. "While China is not the only story, its dramatic annual rate of R&D [research and development] growth is impressive. Other countries have seen the benefits of investing in research, and China is on a path to shortly become the world's largest R&D performer.
National Science Board report finds US dominance in science is slipping
State of U.S. Science and Engineering - 2020 report
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @04:09AM (6 children)
This is happening primarily because the private sector has figured out that it's easier to just buy politicians that allow them to engage in anticompetitive practices than innovate. At the same time, there are an increasing number of areas in which the mouth breathers on the right refuse to allow government resources be used for research.
The end result is that there's an increasing amount of research that can't be done in the US because there's no money and that's even before you consider the results of patents being used to block development rather than for use in products and the decreasing amount of money that the masses have to spend on new and innovative products. Which again aren't necessarily being made unless the corps have to as it's cheaper to abuse the political process to remove any liability on their part than it is to compete with other corporations to provide the customer with the best possible product.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 19 2020, @05:43AM (2 children)
What's the value of this amount of research? How many flasks are we generating per turn?
I think a key problem with this "let's throw money at it" idea is that a lot of research has baked in uselessness.
Last I checked, the decreasing amount of money was actually an increasing amount. Wouldn't be the first time a promising bit of research got torpedoed by the sign.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @02:47PM (1 child)
That's an impossible question to answer, you don't know until the research has been done. Some inventions like the car are relatively easy for people to imagine a use for an estimate the value to society. But, asking people about things like the Internet, people just wouldn't have any sort of meaningful guess for how much they'd get out of it. They probably would recognize that it could replace letters and in person communication. They might get it as a replacement for physical books, perhaps, but it's doubtful they'd foresee much beyond that.
Fair point, but keep in mind that due to inflation and the increasing cost of doing anything, that it needs to increase just to stay put. Much of the low hanging fruit type of research has already been done. On top of that, there is money being wasted on things like gender research and string theory that just makes matters worse and funding for climate research is getting worse.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 19 2020, @03:54PM
Really? You already gave a couple examples, cars and the internet where we could guess and get some of it right - particularly when we ask the scientists and engineers rather than the clueless common man.
Inflation is irrelevant. There is no significant cost to science from how many zeros are on your currency. The increased cost of doing anything is not just due to harder problems. It's also due to the public funding model which disengages the cost of a project from the scientific output of a project.
So what on climate research? It's vastly overfunded and overstaffed as is. And you already claimed that "you don't know until the research has been done", so how can you have these judgments about gender research and string theory? Maybe the next trillion dollar industry is hiding in present day gender research, right? /sarc
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday January 19 2020, @06:35AM (2 children)
This is fair, though you should acknowledge there are mouth-breathers on the left who oppose research which may undermine their dogma, just like the right.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @02:43PM (1 child)
The individuals on the left that oppose research are few and far between compared with the right and they mostly don't have any political clout. And they don't generally oppose anywhere near the amount of research that the ones on the right do. What's more, it tends to be based in actual understanding rather than fear of proving something they don't want to be true.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 19 2020, @03:56PM
Sure. I present the Precautionary Principle and its widespread use as a counterexample.