Harold Evans writes in the BBC about the decline of Science in the United States.

If America were to continue on the present trend of catering to the lobbyists of large conglomerates, it will soon lose its global dominance as a world power. The DMCA proposed by media companies are now choking the innovations of many a technologist. Whereas the scientific ideal is freedom of inquiry, the government is putting more and more restrictions to what are deemed "acceptable investigations." From the repeated instances of the Bush administration refusing to admit scientific evidence into consideration, scientists are beginning to wonder what their purpose in life really is.

As a mathematician, I do not pretend that I can directly benefit the human kind through my intellectual queries. However, much advances on the forefront of mathematical research (especially in my field of PDEs with strong ties to physical systems) propagate slowly through the scientific pool, through first physicists, and then engineers, and eventually something do come out of the research that provides an improvement on the status quo. If the problem of, for example, Navier-Stokes equation can be successfully solved or approximated, the advances to safety and fuel efficiency in the airline industry will be numerous. (The Navier-Stokes equations are the equations that dictate fluid flow, i.e. how air behaves around the wings of airplanes.) But I can understand this frustration in the scientific world with the current administration expressed by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Even though many of us in basic research will never see our research efforts bring to the fruition of some next-generation technology, we all bear in mind the hope that someday, someone will find our research useful: either in deriving from the aforementioned better technology, or in some cases, making informed decisions about the future of the human kind. People in the study of climate science don't do so because they like looking at clouds: they do so to reveal what might be the best course of action for the human kind on this planet. People who study medicine or epidmeiology aren't just concerned with making the next money-making drug (though sometimes the heads of the drug companies seems only interested in making money): they also wish to prolong the viability of the human race. But what if the people leading the course of the country stubbornly shut their ears to the overwhelming research in the scientific community? Like what the current administration does right now in regards to global warming, stem-cell research, environmental issues like lead poisoning, research into renewable energy, etc. What motivation is there for the scientists to better the human understanding of this world?

Perhaps it is without the pressure of the cold war the America faltered. Back in the 1960s, the tension between the Soviets and the US forced NASA to be adventurous, to find short cuts, to do all they can with the minimal of safety concerns to send a man to the moon. Yes. Pioneers would often regard personal safety behind the gratification of discovery on their personal list of priorities. And now, our own astronauts, some of whom even willing to defy the risks of space travel via the now old and perhaps dysfunctional shuttle to perform their trained duties, are being held back on the surface of this little planet because the power circle is not willing to risk a few lives.

There was a time when we look upon those people, who are willing to subject themselves to incalculable risks for the betterment of humankind, as heroes. There was a time when we do not mourn the loss of lives of those heroes, but praised their accomplishments. But now where do we find these feelings? Only in the terrorist-ridden extremist cults of Islam do we find appreciation of martyrdom. Why has the people grown so complacent?

Human beings have stopped evolving. We are not going to grow wings that lets us fly, we are not going to spontaneous evolve defenses against AIDS or Ebola, we are not going to be faster, stronger, or wiser as a species. The invisible hand that guides the evolution of the human kind has let go of its power and offered it to the hands of scientists. We build airplanes, we derive vaccines and medicine, we find ways that better help us survive in this world. Without science, the human kind will only be a stagnant pool. There will be no motion, no innovation, no change. We'll all be just members of a doomsday cult waiting for the rupture. What is the meaning of life in it? If humans stop experimenting with change and vying for improvements, we might as well all convert to nihilism and waste away immediately.

Chiang Kai-Shek (   蔣公) once said:

生命的意義，在創造宇宙繼起之生命；生活的目的，在增進人類全體之生活。

It roughly translates to: "The meaning of life is in the birth of new lives that will succeed us in this universe; the goal of living is in the betterment of living conditions of the entire human kind." And it seems that our fundamental Christian brethren in the White House only believes in the first half of that statement (be fruitful and multiply).