THINKING SCIENCE - Policymakers lose sight of engineering's importance

摘要

"SCIENCE, SCIENCE, SCIENCE, and science." That is how Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi described her global-warming legislative agenda on the eve of the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Weeks earlier, when the president-elect had introduced his choices to take on leadership roles in the areas of energy and the environment, again the word science was prominent - but engineering was not. In his inauguration speech, in which he spoke of harnessing "the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories," once more the word science was used freely, but not engineering.