According to a 2004 article from The New York Times, "The United States has started to lose its worldwide dominance in critical areas of science and innovation." Our Republican-dominated government hasn't exactly leapt into action. Although, to be fair, the issue of science has never been a high priority for them. They're kept pretty busy running up record deficits, undermining church/state separation, engaging in pre-emptive wars and enriching the wealthy at the expense of the poor. The title of a February 2004 CNN article, "Scientists feel stifled by Bush administration," nicely captures President Bush's feelings for science.
Numerous factors contribute to our slipping science and technology leadership. Most would undoubtedly agree that a robust science education is crucially important for our children to be internationally competitive. Such an education, despite the protestations of theocrats, requires comprehensive instruction in the central, unifying concept of modern biology: evolution. As the eminent geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky observed, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." The gradual and insidious imposition of religious beliefs (creationism) in public science classes represents more than a violation of church/state separation; it's a waste of valuable time. As the National Academy of Sciences bluntly put it: "Creationism, intelligent design and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science."
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