Golden Goose

Slowly Strangling America's Golden Goose

Transdyne Corporation

Imagine: You wake up tomorrow and find that America’s judicial system has changed. Now, prosecutors can present secret witness testimony and only provide their own brief excerpts or summaries to the defense; judges are no longer independent, they have been replaced by the prosecutor’s boss. Your first thought, “Now, we will get much needed criminal convictions.” Then, “Ohmygosh! Are we in deep yogurt! We have seen all that before, in the Spanish Inquisition and in virtually every totalitarian regime on Earth, so we know what will happen. Soon people will begin to denounce other people, for a variety of reasons – it’s a great way to get rig of competitors, an annoying mother-in-law, and anyone who rubs you the wrong way. Corruption will set in. And people will become pale-gray, embracing group-think, and shying away from new ideas or actions that might attract attention and invite being denounced.”

This must be a nightmare. It can’t happen in America. Right? No, wrong! It has happened in America. Not in the judicial system, but in the system for administrating government support for science. It began about five decades ago when the administrative framework was set in place. Somebody back then had the bright idea that, if peer reviewers were anonymous and free from accountability, they would be more candid and more truthful. For about five decades, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and other agencies have institutionalized the use of secret reviews and seem to think that all is well. But all is not well! For decades NSF, NASA and other agencies have been doing what no foreign adversary or terrorist organization has been able to do: They have been slowly and imperceptibly undermining American science, driving America toward third-world status in science.

Secret, unaccountable reviews – frequently by one’s competitors – give unfair advantage to reviewers who would falsely berate a competitor’s proposal for research funds. The funding agencies, of course, tacitly assume that all reviewers will be honest. If you are dissatisfied with any aspect of the agency’s handling of your research proposal, you are free to appeal to the program manager’s boss. And you know how eager government officials are to admit and to correct their mistakes. There is no ombudsman involved, and no will or mechanism to report suspected fraud to the Justice Department. The system has been to open to corruption for decades, and remains open to further corruption.

There is a far, far more devastating consequence of secret, unaccountable reviews: Out of fear of being “denounced” in secret reviews, many scientists have become pale-gray, defensive, adopting only the consensus-approved viewpoint and refraining from discussing anything that might be considered a challenge to other’s work or to the funding agency’s programs. Political correctness is the order. And, that is not science at all. Real science is about challenging present perceptions and discovering what is wrong with current thinking.

Science is the mother of technology, which makes our economy robust and our military strong. Science is truly the goose that lays golden eggs. But for decades, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and other agencies have been strangling that goose with maladministration.

For the past three Administrations, I have brought this problem to the attention of senior administration officials. But, to my knowledge, none have taken any positive action or advised their President. That’s not surprising, as it would force those administrators to admit their own malfeasance. And you know…. I’m sure, though, that one day they will correct matters. When? Perhaps, when the unicorns come home to roost and when the Earth stops spinning.

So, if anyone personally knows America’s CEO, please give him a heads-up. He has a problem he doesn’t even know about that is every bit as serious as Al Qaeda. And, don’t think that the problem is just about science. It is a problem that is crippling American education as well. And, it is a problem that can be fixed.

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