Via Facebook, of all things, a message reporting a conversation with Representative Bill Foster (D-Fermilab), talking about the best ways to encourage Congress to take science seriously. First, he addressed what’s been done in the past:
On the effectiveness of the APS letter-writing campaign:
*Recently I sent my chief of staff to a meeting of about 70 House chiefs of staff. He asked, how many of them were aware of the APS letter-writing campaign. Only two others were aware of it.
*These campaigns are a form of spam, and there are lots of groups involved in them. For many small-group issues, the responses aren’t even tallied.
Kind of a downer, as letter-writing campaigns have been a staple of these sorts of efforts for years. He does, however, have a constructive suggestion to offer for going forward:
*The most effective thing you can do is to request a 15-minute appointment to speak to your Representatives about scientific research, in their home district offices. Be insistent, but patient – say that you are willing to speak to them at any time, and will take your place on the schedule. Most people who do this go to complain about gas prices – you’ll be talking about science, and that will probably be a relief to the Representative and may even be interesting to them.
This is a good deal more work than dashing off a quick letter, so I doubt we’ll get many people on the Internet to go for it, but the increased impact may make up for the decreased numbers.
Anyway, it’s soemthing to think about.
I’ll add, as one who does communicate science to the Hill from time to time – his suggestion is spot on. And yes, 15 minutes really means 15 minutes – no “I really have 25 plus question time” delusions that we all get presenting to the AGU or AFS. And, have a single sheet, front and back fact sheet on your topic to leave with the staffer you will actually talk to. Nothing with Acronyms or Jargon, and two pictures or graphs that take no more then 1/4 of each page. Short, simple, and to the point – everything scientists are NOT taught to be.
Actually, the APS also sponsors annual Congressional Visits doing just what Foster recommends. Interested physicists can contact the APS Washington Office for more info.
http://www.aps.org
1) What returned profit does funded science offer politics?
2) What threat does unfunded science offer politics?
3) What power and salary will a retired politician find in science?
The APS is kittens mewing in a box. When the box moves the kittens move with it. Cobble together a monstrous Frowst Beam and do 1111 Constitution Avenue, NW. That’ll get Congresscritters’ attention (and make you all national heroes).
Science (as if it were a monolithic entity) has done a terrible job on selling itself to Congress in recent decades.
After the river of Federal funding approved for education and research, triggered by Sputnik a half-century ago, and from which I benefitted both as a student and then in the space program, things dried up and dwindled away towards the heat death of America.
After Saturn-Apollo, the space-race was seen as over, and so India and China are staking their claims on the Solar System, leavfing us to rot in a useless Space Station which requires Russians to reach.
The Superconducting Supercollider was a last hurrah for American physics, and the plug was pulled after gigabucks, leaving a large circular tunnel in Texas, and the center moving to CERN. Congress-critters were so clueless about our giant accelerator that, after a lengthy explanation of Antimatter, one representative dim-wit asked about how that antiBODY stuff would cure cancer.
I love this country. But it is an ex-Empire, prematurely, and no longer sees the need for basic research, lacking the imperial agenda.
Tell me again why my wife should want to surrender her 2 citizenships of other nations to become a citizen of the USA? She’ll do just fine as a Physics professor with a Green Card, thank you very much.
My View: What’s so wasteful about funding discovery?
By Jonathan David Farley
Published: Friday, Sep. 26, 2008 | Page 17A
Sacramento Bee
I wanted to be an astrophysicist when I was 7. I kept borrowing and re-borrowing a book on stellar evolution from the public library in my hometown of Brockport, N.Y. I still remember the black-and-white picture spanning the book’s front and back covers: a luminescent spiral galaxy. Beautiful.
Of course, I didn’t understand it all: I wondered how they got cameras out there to photograph the Milky Way. My friend Chris was even more confused: When I told him about “white holes,” he laughed hysterically at what he thought was a dirty joke.
I was haunted by Carl Sagan’s exploration of the cosmos, by Vangelis’ mystical music. I remember reading the science fiction novels of Isaac Asimov and seeing, albeit only with my mind’s eye, suns too far to see from Earth, “stars like dust.”
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