Today, David Baltimore (Nobel Laureate and President of Cal Tech) has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal complaining that science funding and respect are not being supported by government as they should be.
But America cannot simply assume its lead in science will continue. In recent years the science community has been starved of the resources it needs. Young, new, energetic scientists are the seed corn of nearly all new scientific development. However, our schools, laboratories and granting agencies all, in one way or another, discourage launching a career in the sciences. There are few grants to live on; and both schools and laboratories have long since lost the sense of joy we remember from our younger days. Science can be exciting and attractive. But convincing bright students to become scientists requires a lot more than we are now providing.
One reason might be this sort of thing in which Wikipedia, a popular source of internet information, is being systematically edited to exclude any evidence of global warming skepticism. The purpose is to enforce the conceit that there is a “scientist consensus” that anthropogenic global warming is an established fact. There is no room for doubt, even among serious climate scientists. Grants are being directed to those willing to toe the line and those who might question the premise are “starved of grants”, much as Dr. Baltimore complains.