We're hearing alarm bells these days about science in the united states. On the one hand, we've been told that in the global economy of today's "flattened" world, we need to bolster innovation and competitiveness and science and engineering research and education. Earlier this year, when President Bush announced his American Competitiveness Initiative, the future appeared brighter for the physical sciences, math, and engineering (although the National Institutes of Health budget remains flat). But other alarms have sounded that the increases may be at the expense of the disciplines that have historically sought to understand how all this hard work actually helps societies deal with these very issues. Last month, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX), chair of a Senate panel that oversees the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), aggressively argued that the agency should limit its funding for the social sciences and focus on the "hard" sciences. Although the committee stopped short of tying NSF's hands, Congress has yet to make a final decision on whether or not competitiveness is just about technology. Congress should think hard about this.
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