For the world to continue to grow and progress, science and technology must continue to play a bigger and bigger role.
Solutions to world hunger, environmental degradation, resource depredation, energy crisis and other pressing concerns will not be solved on a battlefield, but in a laboratory.
The United States is the world's greatest military power. But, according to a recent Rand Corporation study, the U.S. also remains the dominant leader in science and technology worldwide.
Science and technology has been the driving force behind the dominance of U.S. agriculture worldwide.
Decade after decade, the efficiency of the U.S. farmer to feed the world has been measured by the fast pace of science and technological development and the ability of farmers to put those development to its best use.
Society and its many institutions, such as government and religion, many times, has been slow to keep pace to scientific and technological advancements.
Most of the problems nowadays facing the world are not because of science and technology, but politics, superstition, greed and the lust for power.
Technology and science has changed the structure of agriculture. Society has yet to catch up and understand the bigger picture these changes have had on the rural landscape. That's a failure of public policy, not science and technology.
And if science and technology is changing the rural landscape, it will find solution to such problems as large animal confinements, bio-engineering, the food vs. fuel controversy and other societal concerns.
Again, public policy must guide the direction of those innovations. In many cases, the science is not the enemy, but the people who control it. The failures of science and technology are usually the failures of the people implementing those tools of change not for the greater benefit of humankind, but for dubious personal motives.
According to the RAND Corporation study, the United States accounts for 40 percent of the total world's spending on scientific research and development, employs 70 percent of the world's Nobel Prize winners and is home to three-quarters of the world's top 40 universities.
In a time when Americans are confused and frustrated about immigration for economic and other reasons, the inflow of foreign students in the sciences ‹ as well as scientists and engineers from overseas ‹ has helped the United States build and maintain its worldwide lead, even as many other nations increase their spending on research and development, according to the RAND Corporation study.
Continuing this flow of foreign-born talent is critical to helping the United States maintain its lead, the study said.
"Much of the concern about the United States losing its edge as the world's leader in science and technology appears to be unfounded," said Titus Galama, co-author of the report and a management scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "But the United States cannot afford to be complacent. Effort is needed to make sure the nation maintains or even extends its standing."
Galama is right. Science and technology remains the edge to U.S. leadership in the world. It's also important that the U.S. maintains it's science and technology edge because it's still the world's greatest democracy and free market innovator.
According to the study, U.S. investments in research and development have not lagged in recent years, but instead have grown at rates similar to what has occurred elsewhere in the world ‹ growing even faster than what has been seen in Europe and Japan.
"While China is investing heavily in research and development, it does not yet account for a large share of world innovation and scientific output, which continues to be dominated by the United States, Europe and Japan," according to RAND researchers.
But the Rand Corporation study warns that other nations are rapidly educating their populations in science and technology, such as the European Union and China who are graduating more university-educated scientists and engineers every year than the United States.
According to James Hosek, a RAND senior economist and co-author of the study, there is a strong need for complete and critical assessments of U.S.
science and technology. H said the absence of a balanced assessment can feed a public misperception that U.S. science and technology is failing when in fact it remains strong, even preeminent.
"There is a pressing need for ongoing, objective analyses of science and technology performance and the science and technology workforce," Hosek said. "We need this information to ensure that decision makers have a rigorous understanding of the issues."
Among the study's recommendations:
‹Establish a permanent commitment to fund a chartered body that would periodically monitor and analyze U.S. science and technology performance and the condition of the nation's science and engineering workforce.
Make it easier for foreigners who have graduated from U.S. universities with science and engineering degrees to stay indefinitely in the United States.
‹Make it easier for highly skilled labor to immigrate to the United States to ensure the benefits of expanded innovation are captured in the United States and to help the United States remain competitive in research and innovation.
‹Increase the United States' capacity to learn from science centers in Europe, Japan, China, India and other countries.
‹Continue to improve K-12 education in general, and science and technology education in particular.
Among potential weaknesses fa ced by the United States, the study pointed
out, are the persistent underperformance of older, native-born K-12 students in math and science and the heavy focus of federal research funding on the life sciences versus physical sciences.
"Another unknown is whether an increasing U.S. reliance on foreign-born workers in science and engineering makes the U.S. vulnerable," the study said. "In recent years, about 70 percent of the foreign scientists and engineers who receive PhDs from U.S. universities choose to remain here, but the stay rate could fall as research conditions and salaries improve abroad."
