Promises.

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Promises.

All government funding for science comes through the Federal budget process where many promises are made. An important aspect of science's context is that while some social and economic problems are not amenable to scientific attack, others might be mitigated as a result of scientific research. For some of the latter promises have been made on behalf of science. For example, promises regarding technological innovation and broad scientific literacy (areas strongly linked to economic competitiveness which attracts Congressional attention). But few scientists are interested in pursuing either of these two areas from basic research into applications that will pay off in the short term. While it may be true that in the long term some fraction of basic research will yield economically valuable technological innovation, if innovation is promised to secure Federal funds, a higher yield of short-term results may be expected. Similarly, production of another generation of PhD researchers will not improve scientific literacy, yet many scientists are still principally interested in training research scientists, and do not encourage their brightest graduates to go into teaching at secondary schools or undergraduate colleges. It would be helpful to understand the context in which promises are made and heard, and to avoid unfulfillable promises.