The Unmaking of American Science Policy: The End of the Scientific Era?

Abstract

1995 BEGAN, REP. ROBERT WALKER, CHAIR OF THE HOUSE Science Committee, introduced the Hydrogen Futures Act. Its purpose is to promote the development of hydrogen, obtained from the decomposition of water, as new energy source. It is doubtful if more than two members of Congress understand that this would require the repeal of the First Law of Thermodynamics, one of the pillars of modern science. Before the year ended, Congress had abolished its own Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), created fourteen years ago to provide Congress with objective advice on scientific and technical issues. OTA was sacrificed to demonstrate that in downsizing the federal government Congress would not exempt its own bureaucracy. But it also symbolizes the low regard in which science is held by this Congress. In this century, science has doubled the life span of Americans, freed them from the mind-numbing drudgery that had been the lot of ordinary people for all of history, given them the means to indulge in whatever activity they find rewarding, and put all the knowledge of the world at their fingertips. As the century draws to a close, molecular biology is unraveling the secrets of life itself, and physicists dare to dream of a final theory, a single unifying theory that would make sense of the entire universe.