US science chief warns: 'China will eat our lunch'

[n2doc]

Sunday, 20 February 2011
By Steve Connor, Science Editor, in Washington

China is in pole position to overtake the United States as the premier nation for scientific and technological innovation, and will do so if Americans fail to raise their game, President Barrack Obama's own science adviser has told The Independent on Sunday.

John Holdren, the director of the White House office of science and technology policy, explained that the US faces a similar technological challenge to the one it faced half a century ago when the USSR launched the world's first satellite – to the surprise of the Americans.

He warned that the United States faces another "Sputnik moment", but this time the adversary is China, which is investing heavily in scientific research and development. Chinese schoolchildren are now consistently outperforming USpupils in science and mathematics.

"Everybody is looking at China and saying, if we don't lift our game, China is going to eat our lunch economically because the amount they are investing in science, technology and innovation, while it has not yet reached anything like our level, is rising very quickly," Dr Holdren said.


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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/us-science-chief-warns-china-will-eat-our-lunch-2219974.html

[FSogol]

1. Possibly, but they'll be hungry 2 hours later.

:woohoo:

[RKP5637]

2. +1, n/t

[Tesha]

3. It's already a fait accompli and far too late to complain about it now.

America has been anti-science since at least Reagan.
Scientists are just pointy-headed elite intellectuals
who think they're smarter than us, don't you know?

Tesha

[FreakinDJ]

4. When the Consumer Nations pay all your Tax Revenue ...

You can do a lot of things like R&D, or Free Education for Gifted Students, or build entire Citys

[msongs]

5. let's build more bombers insteading of spending money on schools ok, Obama admin? nt

[Raster]

6. Done!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x459540

[WatsonT]

12. We built bombers

during the cold war largely to compete with the soviets who seemed intent on a military showdown. At least publicly.

The chinese, while hardly peaceful, seem more interested in beating us economically/technologically rather than through outright conflict.

Will we have a sputnik moment in this new coldish war that leads to us actively trying to compete with them in those areas where they have decided to beat us: technology and economics, with less of an emphasis on military might?

Not certain yet. But I am hopeful.

We seem to do well when competing against someone of relatively our size and strength. Without that we become complacent and lazy. This might be a great thing in the long run for us, and the chinese, and the world in general.

[BlueJazz]

7. This news is so depressing. We should all just go to McDonald's and have a nice hamburger.

[Kablooie]

8. With us cutting down everything we are handing the keys of Power to China.

With Republican blessings.

Face it, the GOP is determined to make the US a second rate power under the thumb of foreign interests.

Unless the rest of us get pretty damn mad and do something pretty drastic pretty soon, say goodbye to prosperity for 90% of the United States.

[eridani]

9. How about more stable career paths for scientists?

You know, where you don't go $100K into debt and knock around doing postdocs for another 10 years?

[Ganja Ninja]

10. That's OK we're winning the race to the rapture.

:crazy: :banghead:

[WatsonT]

11. And maybe like sputnik

that will spur a rethinking of education here and greater emphasis on math and science.

It's natural to get complacent when at the top and relatively unchallenged.

Perhaps the competition will be good for us.

[callous taoboy]

13. One thing for sure: China isn't DECREASING their education spending.