Woe is Science

Tom Friedman's New York Times op-ed piece this Sunday upset me. It didn't upset me because I disagreed with him; I agreed with every word. It's just that what he was saying made so much sense, but will likely be completely ignored.
The basic idea was that in the 2005 budget, congress cut the National Science Foundation's budget by about $105 million. So why is this upsetting?
Well let's just say, for the sake of argument, that our country is dependant on a certain quantity, we'll just call it O. And let's also say, that because of O, our country is forced to get into all sorts of political entanglements with countries that we might otherwise have wanted to get involved with.
So, an ideal solution, one with common sense would think, would be to reduce our need of the magical quantity O. Well in order to do this, we need to train and fund our sciences as much as we can so that we can use alternatives.
Oil is certaintly in the top ten list of reasons we invaded Iraq, it's consumption is a significant portion of anthropogenic climate change, and it will continue to get us into more policical troubles. Mr. Friedman goes into a lot more of the political implications of reducing our need for oil, but I'll leave that for you to read.
Another problem of course, is that a major source of science students comes from abroad. Well, thanks to our brilliant immigration and visa system, it's becoming more and more difficult for these students to come to the United States. So, they head to Canada, or the UK, or other European countries whose visa requirements are less stringent. So, with fewer students to draw from, our need for research is even greater.
So once again, our country is faced with quite a difficult problem, and our brilliant government does the exact opposite tact from that of common sense.
Science is fundamental to almost everything we do. From political issues like climate change and stem cell research, to making breakfast, science helps us understand and effects our lives. Most Americans are scientifically ignorant. Of course it's not entirely their fault: science is more and more subdivided and specialized. Even those with some scientific training (like me) can be woefully ignorant about other branches of science. But, it is still acceptable to say, "I don't understand science" or "I don't do math." When those phrases are treated with equal disdain as, "I don't read literature" or "I don't know US history" then we'll at least be heading in the right direction. If we can get future generations excited about it, and make it a priority, then our country will be moving in the right direction as well.