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Scottish Enlightenment, U.S. Stone Age?
By Todd Seavey
Despite the occasional exciting biotech newsflash out of Asia, most of the science research and development money on this planet is still in two places, roughly speaking: the U.S. and Europe. So, much of the near-future progress of science is likely to depend on which of these two regions seems most hospitable to such inquiry.
For most of the twentieth century, the U.S. had an edge conferred, I would argue, more by its wealth and relative absence of regulations than by our love of the scientific worldview per se. Europe has long looked with some bafflement at our relatively strong religiosity, but we coasted along just fine nonetheless, the U.S. seen as the Europeans' more capitalistic cousin.
However, with Europe's public sectors perhaps grown about as big they are likely to get (witness yesterday's defeat in the French presidential elections of Socialist candidate Segolene Royal), and the U.S. now dominated by not one but two major parties who embrace "big government," the economic differences between the U.S. and Europe may come to seem less significant in the twenty-first century, compared to the transatlantic differences of the twentieth or nineteenth. That means subtle cultural differences -- especially ones that might serve as cues to long-term shifts in regulatory regimes -- may come to matter more and more to scientists and investors looking for hospitable locations for research.
For those who'd like to see the U.S. remain a leader in innovation (though there is an argument to be made, of course, that such nationalism should not be a scientific concern in the grand, global scheme of things), it is unwise to take for granted that the past century's pattern of U.S. dominance will hold -- especially if that pattern was built on differential economic regimes that are decreasingly relevant.
Show of Hands: Who Cares More About Politics Than Science?
What sort of signals, then, might scare biotech investors overseas? Little coincidences like three U.S. major-party presidential candidates raising their hands to show their disbelief in evolution just days before Scotland announced a plan to build a huge life sciences research park -- the Edinburgh BioQuarter -- in the Scottish capital city. I was on a junket to Scotland two months ago to tour its nanotech industry (more about that another time), and it was immediately obvious how the Scots, despite their professed Labourite tendencies (and pride in producing a disproportionate number of the UK's left-leaning political leaders, including Tony Blair) are gung-ho entrepreneurs, who often speak pugnaciously of "punching above our weight," that is, being a tiny nation of about five million inhabitants that has nonetheless produced a disproportionate number of scientific innovations. The nation that gave us Dolly the Sheep is keen to make further earthshaking advances, and its government is eagerly backing them with public-private partnerships like the coming BioQuarter.
Contrast that attitude with the rejection of Darwinism -- the very basis of modern biology -- by Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, and Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas in last Thursday's Republican presidential candidates debate. Debate co-host Jim Vandehei asked, "I'm curious, is there anybody on the stage that does not agree -- [that is, not] believe in evolution?" and those three candidates raised their hands.
Reassuring Constituents, Alarming Futurists
It's easy enough to dismiss this sort of thing as a purely religious-cultural matter when these men are in campaign mode but more troubling when one wonders how they would handle issues like stem cell research, cloning, and science education if elected to an even higher office than the ones they already (somehow) occupy. They have no doubt calculated that their religious constituents are watching and reacting to certain issues and buzzwords that have, regrettably, become symbols for faith or opposition to it -- but scientists and future innovators are watching, too, and some of them (less accepting of cynical, coalitional political strategizing than these three candidates' advisors might be) must be a bit nervous about those raised hands.
It makes me nervous even though other candidates -- particularly Giuliani, McCain, and Romney (not to mention the as-yet-undeclared Fred Thompson), seem far more likely to get the party's eventual nomination (the least regulation-prone, least-authoritarian candidate, Ron Paul, attracted some attention Thursday simply by being so different from the pack, but that may prove to have been his finest hour and his last shot at the spotlight, given organizers' apparent plans to start restricting the GOP debates to candidates polling at at least 1% of likely voters' support). Indeed, it was perhaps the most unscientific raising of hands since tobacco execs notoriously raised their hands to swear to Congress back in 1994 that they believe nicotine is not addictive.
As it happens, I just wrote a short item for a UK website praising the invention of vaccines as perhaps the greatest innovation in the history of public health. The story of vaccines began with Edward Jenner's research in Great Britain but largely continued in the U.S. thanks to a favorable research -- and investment -- environment that made the modern pharmaceutical industry possible. If the next great biological discovery occurs overseas, will those wishing to capitalize on it still look to the U.S. as the most fertile ground or decide that nowadays their own homelands are becoming safer and more science-friendly bets?
Todd Seavey is Director of Publications at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org) and editor of HealthFactsAndFears.com.
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