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Ruminations

Dear Mr. President

A scientist makes his pitch for the science agenda.

By Gregory A. Petsko

President Barack Obama
The White House
Washington, DC

Dear Mr. President:

Let me be the 5,475,296,117th person to congratulate you on your historic victory. The task ahead of you is truly tremendous, and I hesitate to bring additional matters to your attention. But in a recent radio address, you emphasized the important role science is to play in your new administration; one of the things you said was, “It is time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America’s place as the world leader in science and technology.” Therefore, I’d like to weigh in with some thoughts about what your scientific agenda ought to be.

First, you’re absolutely right that, for the past eight years, science has been near the bottom of the national agenda. In many cases, there have been active attempts to discredit it, not just ignore it, when its conclusions didn’t fit a particular ideological objective. It’s heartening that you intend to give science a voice in matters of policy. While I am not so naïve as to suggest that science should be the deciding factor in all such affairs, I have long believed that no sound political decision can be made on many issues without at least listening to the best available scientific advice. I’m not worried about that any more. What I would like to talk about instead is not what science can do for you, but what you can do for science.

There has been a creeping assault on reason in this country, and it threatens to produce a generation of Americans who are not just scientifically illiterate but who, in many cases, may be actively anti-science. That outcome would be disastrous for our competitiveness in a world where Europe and Asia are embracing science and technology as keys to their economic future. One way to help the United States on this issue would be for you to endorse the state- ment that scientific evidence proves that the universe is over ten billion years old, that the earth is several billion years old, and that life on this planet evolved over billions of years by a process of natural selection. There is no controversy about these facts among reputable scientists. It would further help if you would proclaim that both local and federal courts have ruled that the Constitution prohibits the teaching of creationism (or its proxy, “intelligent design”) in public-school science classes, and that the Department of Justice will vigorously challenge states and local school districts that try to circumvent those rulings.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of your hero, Abraham Lincoln, a strong believer in science who created the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Did you know it also marks the bicentennial of the birth of the scientific hero Charles Darwin, and that he was born on exactly the same day as Lincoln? What better way to celebrate these two giants than by affirming the insights evolutionary biology has brought to our understanding of where we came from and how we got to where we are?

The role of science in the fight against global warming is clear to all intelligent people, and you have demonstrated your commitment to that fight by, among other things, appointing outstanding scientists to key positions such as that of secretary of energy. Increased federal support for energy-related research is certain to be a key feature in your plans to meet the climate crisis, and I applaud that. But please don’t forget that the world is facing another crisis as well: the rapidly aging population.

Right now the fastest-growing demographic group in most developed nations, including the United States, is people eighty and older, and by 2050 there will be more than thirty million Americans in that age group. Unless cures or preventive treatments are found, half of them will have Alzheimer’s disease, three million will have Parkinson’s disease, and millions more will suffer from strokes, cancer, and the other “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to,” as Hamlet put it.

Our only hope to keep our economy from collapsing under the burden of that enormous health problem is biomedical research, yet funding for such research has actually declined, relative to inflation, for most of the past eight years. I am not advocating massive increases in biomedical research funding—I know you have other pressing financial needs to worry about—but I am urging you to provide stable, predictable, moderate increases in funding so we can rev up the great engine that is American science and put it to work to stop this coming epidemic of age-related illness.

There’s more I could suggest, but that’s enough for the time being. If you could do just those few things, you would be the most effective president, in terms of support for science, we’ve had in my lifetime. One more thing, though: can you do something about that college football bowl championship system? It’s really stupid.

Sincerely,

Greg A.Petsko

Gregory A. Petsko is the Gyula and Katica Tauber Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry and chair of the Department of Biochemistry at Brandeis. He also serves as an adjunct professor in the Department of Neurology and Center for Neurologic Diseases at Harvard Medical School and Brigham & Women's Hospital.