latimes.com
Op-Ed
Fixing the economy the scientific way
Worried about the economy? Try investing in scientific research — it can
solve problems and create jobs.
By Meryl Comer and Chris Mooney
December 26, 2010
Advertisement
Here are two facts that might seem unrelated: 1) Most Americans cannot name
a living scientist. 2) Over the last two years, by far the most pressing
problems in the country have been the economy and the cost of healthcare (a
chief concern of President Obama's deficit commission).
What if we told you solving the first will help us fix the second?
Without ramping up our investments in science and research — a matter
barely on the public's radar in a country where 65% of the citizens can't name
a
living scientist and another 18% try but get it wrong — we'll be hobbled in
trying to fix our long-term economic problems. That's because science
creates jobs, and it can also reduce healthcare costs related to the aging of
the
population.
Take jobs first: This has been a theme hammered home by the National
Academy of Sciences. In its two "Gathering Storm" reports released in recent
years, the academy has argued strongly that our future prosperity depends on
investments made now in research and innovation.
The basic premise rests on the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert
Solow, who documented that advances in technology and knowledge drove U.S.
economic growth in the first half of the 20th century. If it was true then,
it's even more so in today's information economy.
Consider the economic reverberations of dramatically increasing the
capacity of the microchip. As the academy unforgettably put it: "It enabled
entrepreneurs to replace tape recorders with iPods, maps with GPS, pay phones
with
cellphones, two-dimensional X-rays with three-dimensional CT scans,
paperbacks with electronic books, slide rules with computers, and much, much
more."
It's dramatic testimony to the economic power of scientific advances. And
yet over the four decades from 1964 to 2004, our government's support of
science declined 60% as a portion of GDP. Meanwhile, other countries aren't
holding back: China is now the world leader in investing in clean energy, which
will surely be one of the industries of the future. Overall, China invested
$34.6 billion in the sector in 2009; the U.S. invested $18.6 billion.
But it's not just that science creates the next jobs. At the same time, it
can also save society a fortune in shared costs that weigh down the federal
budget.
Health economists and demographers, surveying the steady aging of the U.S.
population, are predicting a dramatic rise in the cost of dealing with
neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, which already accounts for $172
billion in total spending annually. That number is projected to climb to more
than $1 trillion by 2050 as legions of baby boomers reach the age of onset
and the population generally ages. Meanwhile, our annual federal Medicare
expenditure on Alzheimer's is projected to increase from $88 billion today to
$627 billion, far exceeding the current total Medicare budget (about $468
billion this year).
There's just one hope here: scientific advances that will slow the
progression of Alzheimer's disease and ultimately uncover a cure. But,
ironically,
the prospects for scientists who seek federal dollars to study the disease
are among the worst in the entire government science infrastructure. The
National Institute on Aging, which supports most of this work, is now turning
down more than 90% of scientifically meritorious research grant proposals due
to an inability to finance them.
As Alzheimer's researcher Sam Gandy of Mount Sinai Medical Center puts it:
"Many well-known Alzheimer's scientists of my generation recognize that we
have reached the end of an era. We can no longer, in good conscience,
recommend that our trainees plan for a career in Alzheimer's research unless
they
can establish their first labs in China, Korea, Europe, Australia or South
America."
So much for heeding the advice of philanthropist Mary Lasker, who used to
remark, "If you think research is expensive, try disease!"
In light of all this, it's scarcely believable that the ascendant
Republicans, in their "Pledge to America," are calling for a reduction in
federal
spending on nondefense-related science research to pre-stimulus levels. The
National Institutes of Health could see its budget dip to $28.5 billion in such
a scenario, a 9.1% decline — and that's just one research agency. Others,
like the National Science Foundation, could also be at risk.
In this context, who stands up for research? Publically funded scientists
and their institutes have to remain politically neutral. Meanwhile, most
Americans don't even know a living scientist's name, and think of Bill Gates
and
Al Gore as scientific role models.
We need to change our culture to honor our scientists — to rescue them from
the funding upheavals that cut short their efforts to bring us life-saving
therapies, treatments and devices that transform our lives and the way we
work. And we need to recognize that the cost of basic science, and the time it
takes, require a sustained government commitment because industry can't be
relied on to fund incremental and high-risk science for its own sake without
any guarantee of a payoff.
As Charles Darwin's great-great grandson Matthew Chapman, a Hollywood
screenwriter, says: "Instead of being derided as geeks or nerds, scientists
should be seen as courageous realists and the last great heroic explorers of
the
unknown. They should get more money, more publicity, better clothes, more
sex and free rehab when the fame goes to their heads."
That's pretty funny — but our problems aren't.
Meryl Comer, president of the Geoffrey Beene Foundation Alzheimer's
Initiative, is executive producer of the Rock Stars of Science campaign
(www.rockstarsofscience.org), Chris Mooney is the coauthor of "Unscientific
America:
How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future
--
Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community
<[email protected]>
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism
Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
