Posted on September 7, 2009
As more and more of the world looks to knowledge, education, and science (click here) as the routes out of poverty and conflict, parts of America seems to be slipping back toward the Dark Ages, when fear of knowledge and science led to an impoverishment of civilization that had lasting effects for centuries.
I’ve recently returned from two weeks in northern Europe and a series of scientific water meetings and discussions with people from over 130 countries. They read the news from the United States with incredulity. America is still seen as the place to come for aspiring students and scientists around the world. Our public universities, despite assaults on budgets, independence, and knowledge, still struggle to maintain their excellence. But my friends and colleagues from overseas are increasingly shocked, as are many of us in the U.S., by the expanding efforts of home-grown extremists to undermine rational discourse, eliminate the use of fact and science in policymaking, and shut down public debate over the vital issues of our times through hate, vitriol, and ad hominem attacks.
Looking through the eyes of my overseas colleagues, what do we see?...
