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About the Author
Dan Greenberg is a longtime observer of science policy and politics. He is the author of "Science for Sale: The Perils, Rewards, and Delusions of Campus Capitalism" (University of Chicago Press), as well as other books, and has published widely in newspapers and popular and professional magazines.
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Science Policy? No Such Thing
The answer to the question of how the U.S. manages its great scientific resources and potential is that it doesn’t. There’s no explicit science policy to guide the government’s major role, and as for industry, which outspends government 2-1 on R&D — it’s pretty much free to do and spend as it pleases, within safety and environmental laws and regulations.
In the federal sector, the result is a hodgepodge of policies and practices, with priorities influenced by a variety of factors, sensible and otherwise. There are pork-barrel considerations — just try to close a federal laboratory. Then there’s the simplicity of carrying on existing activities, even if they’re ruinously expensive and of scant value by any reasonable measure — such as the International Space Station, which in all its requirements, consumes about half of NASA’s budget. And sometimes, there’s good scientific sense at work, as with the Hubble Space Telescope, and many projects supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
Amidst all this activity, however, are big areas of scientific neglect. The fat years of low oil prices did not inspire a government-supported boom in energy research. Though vitally important, agricultural research gets crumbs, maybe justifiably so. Every effort to raise its quality by putting it on a competitive basis runs into resistance from the historic practice of routinely sending checks to labs at land-grant universities.
Though a majority of serious health problems are at least in part related to personal behavior — such as smoking, alcohol consumption, unsafe driving, and overeating — the behavioral sciences remain a poor relation at NIH, which holds the world’s biggest bankroll for health research.
NIH says it’s doing right by the psychologists and other behavioral and social scientists seeking its research money. NIH says those scientists get about $3 billion a year, roughly 10 percent of the NIH budget. The scientists say that’s a big exaggeration resting on flimsy definitions. There’s no right answer to how much is the right amount for any field of science, but glamour works, too, in allocating money for science. And the glamour today is in studies at the gene level. Improved counseling techniques for unhealthy practices could save many lives, but scientifically, that’s dull stuff.
The executive branch is well equipped with scientific advisory organizations. At the very top, there’s the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, whose director serves as the president’s science adviser. There’s also the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology, whose members are mainly drawn from academe and industry. Neither of these organizations is remotely close to the White House inner circle. And the president’s science adviser, John Marburger, though one of the longest-serving Bush appointees, is a barely visible presence in Washington.
On Capitol Hill, science jurisdictions are scattered among many committees, with no effort at coordination. The fragmentation began long ago, when science budgets were small, and now that they’re big, no committee wants to lose its share. In the House, there’s the Science and Technology Committee, which sounds grand — except that it does not have jurisdiction over medical or defense research, which account for some 75 percent of federal R&D. Energy research exists in a gray zone between that committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee.
What is the science policy of the U.S. government? Basically, it’s to stumble along in the expectation that good luck, smart people, and big spending will more or less take care of things, and when they don’t, we’ll somehow or other get along.
Posted at 02:37:06 PM on January 30, 2008 | All postings by dgreenbergComments
Commenting is closed for this article.
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Dan Greenberg is pretty much correct in pointing out that there is no single, cohesive and coordinated American science policy, and that some important topics and issues are ignored, neglected, and/or underfunded. Dan is also correct to point out that there is a complicated hodgepodge of science policies, practices, and priorities that does not seem to be assembled in any easily accessible form or location. Dan’s implied point, apparently, is that there SHOULD be some unitary national science policy—that we would all, somehow, be better served as scientists or citizens, by some overarching authority that would make the rules and set the scientific agenda for the country. I’m pretty sure I don’t like the idea of a monolithic government-controlled science agency charged with oversight and authority over policy and programs. After all, there ARE some important coordinating forces—consider the National Academy of Sciences and National Research Council, and many scientific organizations. Each of the NIH institutes has its own independent scientific council that regularly examines programs and priorities. As a psychologist, I do not have the same sense (as Dan identifies) that the behavioral and social sciences are inordinately neglected at NIH (or NSF), especially if one considers the array of interdisciplinary connections and collaborations that exist, actually and potentially. I have no doubt that there is room for improvement in stimulating and supporting science, but I think that is probably true at every functional level of organization, from individual initiative to national policy.
— Joe Erwin · Jan 31, 06:23 AM · #
Conside nations with unified central coherent long range science policies—like Japan. They attain broad band internet access to 90% of their population supporting kinds of application yet to be tried in the United States. They select 11 key industries not 30 or 50 and focus national, regional, and local resources on just them. In short, they have the kind of fanatic focus that poverty and snobby central elites give. They always have 11 things to point to superior to anything comparable in the US. However, they lack 250 things the US developed without really intending their development, about 1/10th of which turn out to be revolutionary. Messes outperform ordered marches where uncertainties are high and landscapes are rugged not smooth.
— Richard Tabor Greene · Feb 1, 06:57 AM · #
Policy centralization tends to institutionalize former fads. Greene is right: messes work better.
— C. E. Walcott · Feb 1, 11:24 AM · #
Entrepreneurial, creative, and transformational activity in the sciences is, by definition, inherently “messy” if by that we mean “not centrally controlled.” I’m not sure that’s what we ought to be concerned about. Instead, I find it short-sighted that, as a nation, we fail to engage in a national dialogue about priorities because to do so raises the spectre of centralized control. Debate, dialogue, focus, scrutiny … yes. Centralized control … of course not.
— Robert Myers · Feb 5, 08:12 AM · #