Jonathan Adams, research evaluation director at Thomson Reuters, says that if China continues on this trend it will be the largest producer of scientific knowledge by 2020. So, China will not only hold the greatest share of our debt but it will control much of the scientific growth for the next century.
In the article below, it is noted that “China far outperformed every other nation, with a 64-fold increase in peer-reviewed scientific papers since 1981, with particular strength in chemistry and materials science.”
What concerns me is the blissful disregard of our own leaders to our own lack of support for sciences and lack of priorities. For example, I am a long time supporter of public schools as a critical part of our civic traditions. We decided not to send the kids to private schools for that reason. However, in McLean, classes are now packed with 30 kids and one teacher due to budget shortfalls. Schools in Alexandria and McLean have seen science teachers removed and foreign language courses threatened due to the lack of money. However, Congress continues to spend billions on pork barrel projects and hundreds of billions on the wars. It just raised our debt ceiling to $12.7 trillion, here. This is not going to turn out well.
For the full story, click here.