All About the Science

The mindset that has always puzzled me is how certain political types crow about making America number one in the world—yes I paraphrased to avoid throwing up in my mouth-- but refuse to properly fund the only real way to accomplish that goal. Basic or pure scientific research, without any obvious applied applications is the only way to keep America a player on the world stage. The best way to describe pure research is that it lays the foundation for later practical applications. The quickest example I can offer is how it took the combined efforts of diligent scientists over a couple of centuries to discover the underlining principles of electricity before Edison could figure out a way to build a practical light bulb.

The trouble with pure research is that to many it seems to fly off on a tangent chasing some bizarre but useless scientific oddity. In this day and age once information along those lines seeps out to the general public it usually leads to some manly man announcer or hot blond bimbo clone on Fox News whining about taxpayer's money going to waste. Which causes numerous people to call their Milquetoast congressman whose scientific education never goes much beyond figuring out the remote on his home entertainment center to demand cuts in funding to the research agencies responsible for keeping America on the cutting edge of science.

Contrary to the insipid little twit running the Office of Budget and Management, private industry does not spend a lot of money on basic research, so that leaves it to the federal government to pave the way for future accomplishments. You need a couple of examples? The first being the Manhattan Project that produced the atomic bomb. Besides Einstein's Special Relativity—another work of pure research, it took a lot of coordinated effort by government agencies to produce the bomb that ended World War Two. The second is that internet which for years before Al Gore was ever accused, wrongly, of saying he invented it was a way for government laboratories to communicate.

Long story short, the scientific advances that lead to better healthcare, improved lifestyles, faster communications, and even bigger weapons do not appear out of thin air. Someone didn't wake up one morning and say, “I'm going to invent a Blu-Ray player.” If you ignore the electricity angle I already mentioned, in truth the origins of that device can be traced back to Einstein's earlier research that lead to the invention of the laser.

Getting to the heart of the matter the individual now occupying the White House has proposed deep cuts into the amount of money we spend on basic research. Making matters worse, the United States does not spend as much on basic research as compared to China and many other countries which could be compared to us trying to commit a form of suicide. Since discoveries in science always lead to new questions which spur new insights regaining a lead once it is lost is next to impossible. In the simplest words, money spent of pure research is a long term investment the future. While there is no promise of a big return in the form of an earth shattering discovery, without pure research we just stagnant and live off the efforts of others.

The good news though is that while the Congress of the United States has never been enthusiastic supporters of pure research it has taken a surprisingly bipartisan approach to sticking it to Trump and the cuts purposed in his 2018 budget. Yeah, given the current situation, I'm taking what good news I can while realizing the next four years will ultimately hurt the United States in ways our kids will have to work incredibly hard to overcome, if it is even possible.

From iflscience.com:

The threat of Trump’s 2018 budget remains real, but his influence over the 2017 budget haunted plenty of scientists and academics across the country. Any spending bill has to be approved by Congress, however, and it seems that this time, bipartisan agreement between Democrats and (some) Republicans have produced a bill that’s surprisingly pro-science.

Here are the highlights:

• The National Institute of Health (NIH) has had its spending increase by $2 billion to a total of $34 billion. Trump requested this to be cut.

• NASA has been granted $19.7 billion in funding, an increase even on what Obama requested. Of this, $5.8 billion is set aside for science research, including $1.9 billion for the Earth Sciences – something Trump officials said they wanted completely defunded.

• $37 million has been given to NASA’s STEM programs and outreach, with $100 million total going towards educational programs, something Trump also wished, and still wishes, to cut by 2018.

• The National Science Foundation (NSF), the largest federal fund for science and academia, has been given $7.5 billion, a slight increase from 2016’s budget.

• The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has been given $1.09 billion, a slight increase from 2016. Trump wanted to cut this by 10 percent.

• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which faced a 31 percent cut by this year or the next, has only had its funding cut by 1 percent.

• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been given $3.5 billion

• Renewable energies and clean energy research funding have been boosted by $17 million.