US Republican Senator Makes a Case for "Nurturing the Next Einsteins". (February 18, 2005)

    Lamar Alexander (64) is the junior US Senator from Tennessee having been installed in 2003. He is currently chair of the Senate Subcommittees on Energy and on Education and Early Childhood Development and in fact has an interesting CV. In 1991 President George H.W. Bush named him the United States Secretary of Education. At the time, he was president of the University of Tennessee. Previously he had been Governor of Tennessee from 1979 to 1987.

In the editorial in the February 18, 2005 issue of  Science Lamar Alexander makes an impassioned plea for the support of the physical sciences and engineering. And while he neglects to mention mathematics per se he should have.

Writing as much for the general public as for Science's usual readership Senator Alexander says:

...we must ask ourselves if we as a nation are doing what it takes to spark new scientific revolutions. Are we nurturing the next Einsteins? Regrettably, the answer is no. The lack of federal investment in basic research and restrictive immigration policies are eroding America's leadership in the sciences... Our future economic competitiveness and quality of life depend on our ability to stay ahead of the scientific and technological curve. ...The National Academy of Sciences (citing the work of Nobel Laureate Robert Solow) estimates that nearly half of our nation's economic growth since that time can be attributed to advances in science and technology. ...[I]n recent years investment has shifted away from research in the physical sciences and engineering to the life sciences. The irony is that advances in the life and medical sciences will be impossible without their physical and engineering counterparts. I agree with the recommendation of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology that the funding levels for the physical sciences and engineering be brought to parity with that for the life sciences, which has more than doubled over the past decade.

Senator Alexander then cites the decline in interest by young Americans in pursuing studies in the physical sciences and engineering as a trend that must be reversed as well as reversing the decline in interest of foreign students to undertake studies in the US and then remain to swell the ranks of physical scientists and engineers. He points out, "Close to one-third of U.S. doctoral degrees in science and engineering are awarded to foreign nationals. Nearly 40% of the current engineering faculty members at U.S. universities are foreign born," and concludes with the admonition, "The quest for new frontiers is a hallmark of the American spirit. It is a national imperative we cannot afford to ignore."

Are Australia's imperatives so different (agreed we have a population 7% that of the US) that we can continue to ignore the continued deterioration of the foundations of our basic research infrastructure?