Seed: What do you regard as your greatest accomplishment?He went on in this vein, talking about how much of US GDP Bush invested and how that would be a "tough act to follow." The problem is this little thing called fact. From the NRC report in 2007*, quote, "In 2001 (the most recent year for which data are available), U.S. industry spent more on tort litigation than on research and development. Federal funding of research in the physical sciences, as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, was 45 percent less in FY 2004 than in FY 1976." Tough act to follow?
JM: In a job like this, the most important accomplishment is to make sure that this vast machinery of science continues to move forward and produce the kind of results that have made America strong and great and an exciting place to be a scientist. And I believe that history will show that under this administration, science and technology have thrived as well as they could, given the constraints that we work under. Those constraints are very great. Not least of which is having a very unpopular president, very difficult foreign policy, wars, and unpopular policies of various kinds. Those notwithstanding, I'm satisfied that I've done everything that I could to make science work for the nation. I think that future presidents will find it difficult to compile a record as long as this one. In retrospect, it will be seen that this was a tough act to follow.
In part because of Republicans' views on trade and laissez-faire capitalism, science jobs and technology jobs are being exported like never before. From the same report, "The United States is today a net importer of high-technology products. Its trade balance in high-technology manufactured goods shifted from plus $54 billion in 1990 to negative $50 billion in 2001."
Also, the tendency for US students to go into science and technology fields is getting worse and worse, "In South Korea, 38 percent of all undergraduates receive their degrees in natural science or engineering. In France, the figure is 47 percent, in China, 50 percent, and in Singapore, 67 percent. In the United States, the corresponding figure is 15 percent."
I think that the Obama administration faces budget challenges (Bush squandered a surplus and left Obama a $1 TRILLION deficit his first year), but sees things exactly the way the NAS report does:
"Without a renewed effort to bolster the foundations of our competitiveness, we can expect to lose our privileged position. For the first time in generations, the nation’s children could face poorer prospects than their parents and grandparents did. We owe our current prosperity, security, and good health to the investments of past generations, and we are obliged to renew those commitments in education, research, and innovation policies to ensure that the American people continue to benefit from the remarkable opportunities provided by the rapid development of the global economy and its not inconsiderable underpinning in science and technology."We'll wait and see. In the meanwhile, picking Holdren to replace Marburger was a very, very good decision.
One of the tough decisions that our president will have to make is shifting the billions and billions of dollars spent on weapons-technology programs and weapons R&D to creating jobs dealing with improving green technology and combatting climate change. People will say he's "soft" until they realize that our greatest threat is not China challenging us on a battlefield but the gaping hole in our economy that has partly resulted from our energy and technology policies, as well as fair versus free trade agreements.
* National Research Council, 2007, Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.
