The American Daunting. (pt. 1)

We are in a time of financial crisis. I am aware this will not come to any of you with shock. The forecast for the unemployment rate in the U.S. is going to stay at a steady average of 10% for the remainder of this year. The current rate has doubled in the last two years to it's present percentage. On the bright side, Even with a -2.60% growth rate, we continue to stand as the largest economy with a GDP of 22.91% of the world's economy according to the World Bank. Other then it's free market system, one major factor that stimulates the growth of our nation and pushes it above all others is our spirit of innovation.

Students with a craving to learn come from all over the world into the U.S. to be educated in our Universities and study in a diverse range of fields. Around fifty percent of graduate students are immigrants that have been our back bone and becoming more needed in our economy. They are the innovators that are developing new technologies for the U.S. which are producing new jobs in the country. As we are nearing an environmental catastrophe with global climate change and the rapid decline of bio-diversity, we are in need of a green revolution. We need these students more then ever to produce more sustainable products to not only protect life on our planet but to keep the American dream attainable. Science and engineering are what drive our innovation and keep us ahead in the global market system and other developing countries like Brazil, Russia India and China know this. The problem is that naturally born students studying in these fields from the U.S. are in decline. Science, being the underpinning result for innovation, has been under a steady attack by lobbyist groups establishing counter scientific studies to protect their corporations from financial disasters or from religious/spiritual groups who are afraid that human morality is at stake. (I am aware that the decline in the sciences are not wholly attributed to these outside influences but they are of my main concern for this article.)

There is a large consensus on anthropogenic global warming among scientists across the globe. Just look at the articles from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the Intergovernmental Arctic Council and many more. There are even 32 different National Science Academies from different countries that came together in 2001 in a joint effort to declare and confirm anthropogenic global warming. All these groups, plus many more are urging governments and it's people to take steps into reducing their carbon footprint. Yet despite all the evidences laid out and the global consensus among the science communities, only 51% of the American population is considered alarmed or concerned about climate change.

This year was the 150th anniversary for the publication of On The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin. He has been considered one of the greatest scientists and thinkers of all time by many in the biological sciences. When one really looks into the science behind evolution, the evidence is enormous. There is more combined evidence for evolution then the majority of well-accepted scientific theories through out the U. S. population. Many try to belittle evolution by saying it is only a theory while not truly grasping what theory actually means in scientific terms. According to Biology-Online, a scientific theory is, "A well tested concept that explains a wide range/of lots of observations." Indeed, the theory of evolution has done just that. For over 150 years since Darwin published his theories, evolution has been tried and tested and has come out stronger every time. Go to any Museum of Natural History and see the numerous amounts of intermediate fossils from many of the species known today. When we discovered the genome and DNA it backed up evolution as well as all biological advances since Darwin'e time. All biological observations from hundreds of thousands of naturalists to scientists around the globe have not discovered one vital mechanism that could not fit into the evolutionary theory. Most biological scientists have been calling it a fact and many other are beginning to heed the call in the scientific community to do the same. However with the plethora of evidence supporting the theory of evolution only 39% of Americans say they accept it as true. If it is merely cause it is considered a theory then maybe some should gander at a short list of other well accepted theories like cell theory, germ theory, atomic theory, circuit theory; even the theory of gravity, and electricity.

Lately, when you turn on the television, to what I have deemed as the science channels (History, Discovery, Animal Planet, Nat Geo and the Science Channel) you will notice a flood of pseudo-scientific shows bombarding the air waves. I see more on Bigfoot, aliens, the Loch Ness Monster, and paranormal investigations then I do about history and science. (though I can grasp why the History channel might show some of these since they have been a major part of human history). If they were only on some of the time it really wouldn't bother me. My problem is that these are supposed to be shows about scientific advancements, new discoveries in science and mainly just simply shows about science. These pseudo-scientific issues have a channel, it if called Sci Fi. Consider you've become interested in science and decide to flip on the science channel to be informed on physics, biology or geology only find paranormal investigators tripping over each other walking through dark corridors, holding instruments that can collectively cause some of the other instruments to not work properly chasing around their own imaginations. Now I am not saying there is not any ghosts, though I really do not believe there are, I am saying their instruments are about as flawed as the science they are attributing it to. Ghosts or not, what they are doing is not science. One can not carry around instruments meant to find ghosts when no one even knows what they are physically made of, why they would even show up on instruments, or just simply explain how one is possible to even fit in the scientific model of the universe.

I have selected these three topics, anthropogenic climate change, evolution and pseudoscience because I will have a blog explaining what little I have touched on above in more detail later on.