NSF’s budget peaked at 2004 and has been flat, or decreased slightly, since.

Also, comparison of relative size of NSF to other agencies: http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/totalp09.pdf

Some credit to the GW Bush administration for the COMPETES act and raising the NSF budget is indeed due, however.

The NSF is only one federal funding agency, and a relatively minor one compared to, say, NIH. Plus, budget alone doesn’t take into consideration how many people were applying to those programs.

As far as what it means: for humanity to return to health on the planet requires ALL our functions as human beings to work together, without one aspect (e.g. faith) supplanting the others. Full function of heart, intellect, faith, and energy is the way to foster a more healthy society and a more healthy planet. I hope this is another step in that direction.

One could do engineering or finance, or go to school for an extra 5 years to be a post-doc for another 3, before moving to god-knows-where to start another job that still pays less.

Complaining about NASA not getting more funding is like complaining about the DoD not getting more funding. Yes, they both do science, but it is a small portion of their mission.

“Science is what humans do”

to be a bit silly. This statement would make anyone not in science feel like crap. As pointed out by the “Disgruntled grad student”, it really does reflect the complete disconnect of most scientists with average people. Science is what a “TINY” fraction of humans do. Even our cavemen ancestors who looked up in the sky and wondered what it all means, were an incredibly tiny fraction of the population. Most of humanity is more focused on relationships: family, friends, love, etc…relationships is what “most” humans do. Even most of science is driven by our need to impress our fellow colleagues about smart we are…i.e. even science is driven by relationships.

Most scientists lack empathy towards people who are struggling to survive and living paycheck to paycheck. By being outraged that such people don’t support particle physics research shows a complete lack of understanding that while science may be great it is the farthest thing from their minds and understandably so!

We need more speeches like Obama and less scoffing towards “average” people from scientists with the “science is what humans do” nonsense. Such scoffing is getting really predictable and cliche so please stop it! These remarks are not directed at the author of this blog but rather to the scientific community in general.

But since we’re a long way from Athens, as said above, you gotta pander a little. It’s just the ugly reality. Look at any grant application in the life sciences, and if it doesn’t have something like cancer or AIDS or swine flu stuck in there somewhere you’re dealing with a radical.