Thursday, April 20, 2006

Science and Technology in 21st Century Global Affairs

Yesterday I attended a talk by the Science Advisor to the Secretary of State, George Atkinson. He has been in State for five years now, and has an interesting perspective.

Much of his talk was on the Office of the Science Advisor and its programs. The website describes these better than I could. He prefaced the talk by warning the audience that very little of its contents would describe actual U.S. government policy.

He did a good job of explaining the problem of a science advisor in State of providing both scientific input on foreign policy issues and also pushing foreign policy to be more supportive of science.

I thought his most provocative remarks dealt with the need to enhance science in order to promote "liberal" views in the knowledge society. Here he was using the term "liberal" not in the current political sense, but in the sense of historical "liberalism" (defined in Wikipedia as):
a society characterized by freedom of thought for individuals, limitations on power, especially of government and religion, the rule of law, the free exchange of ideas, a market economy that supports private enterprise, and a transparent system of government in which the rights of minorities are guaranteed.

I think I agree. Thinking like a scientist, or even just understanding how scientists think, would seem to promote acceptance of freedom of thought and free exchange of ideas. In today's world, where these are allowed, rule of law, a transparent government, freedom of religion, and respect for the rights of minorities seem also to occur. And indeed, a market economy supporting private enterprise is part of the mix.

Dr. Atkinson suggested that to strengthen governmental support for science education, which is perhaps the best route to all these good things, one may only need to convince five to ten percent of the population that science education is important, and government leaders will respond.

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