Yeah, because hsearles is definitely a moniker for someone who has uniquely identified him or herself. Yes, the him or herself is annoying, but I hope you get the fact that I can’t even identify his or her gender, let alone anything else.

And I think his or her silence speaks loud enough. His argument was so badly thought out that he or she didn’t respond to defend his or her point of view.

So Hsearles, what kind of research do you donate to, since I trust anyone who would ask such a question would be doing his or her fair share?

38: You may be right that there may be an Indian/Chinese drug that saves American lives and that’s just fine. But you failed to understand a simple fact- John is an AMERICAN. I don’t see a good reason why he should care less about America’s competitiveness just because China or India can pick up the slack. The letter is to the American Congress, not to the World Congress. China and India are welcome to provide scientific innovation, but Americans still need to first and foremost care about the decline in science and innovation in their own country. It’s not that hard to appreciate.

1. Respect is not worship. If you have any respect for anyone, I think you might consider respecting the 479 signers for what they have accomplished and more importantly why they accomplished it. And they are working for your children’s betterment, whether you think so or not.

2. If you lack a sense of sacrifice as an academic, perhaps you made poor life choices. Just about everyone I know in academia has that sense of serving their fellow man, and, yes, sacrifice. We are not in this for the money, that’s for sure. We do have some pretty cool toys though.

3. If there are are three PhDs envious of every academic, then it’s because they weren’t as talented or didn’t work as hard, or any number of other reasons. There is no guarantee that if you get a PhD, you get an academic job.

4. If we fail to compete effectively in the global economy, our standard of living will decline, as it has begun to. We enjoy a lot of technology and scientific advances that came from other countries. This is a good thing, yes, but the signer refuse to accept that we should just give up in the U.S.

5. Your original statement, that a bunch of physicists had no business advising members of Congress, was what started the whole flame war. My reply was an effort to communicate that yes, they do, and in the letter here they did so in a very clear and reasoned way.

I was certainly snarky with my reply. You were condescending with yours. How dare lowly “B (#29)” question the worldly and wise intellectuals working to save me in spite of my ignorance. Where was my respect!?

But my arguments still stand. Deleting my comments won’t diminish them. So delete them, dismiss them but keep them here for your readers, or rebut them. Regardless, it won’t harm my opinion of you. As I said already, I don’t see you (or your co-signers) as the self-sacrificing hero working for my children’s betterment. You’re human and you’re allowed to be just as petty as the rest of us.

Somebody on the Internet is wrong!! New Haven is not in Illinois.

“Such cuts will only hurt our competitiveness, especially at a time when emerging economies such as China and India are ramping up their investments in scientific research and education, and are learning to form their own generations of young innovators.”

That’s not a bad thing, that’s WONDERFUL. Since you won’t believe some stranger on the internet, I dug up an article for you.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/01/13/dismal-economics-growth-oped-cx_ata_0116dismal.html

Here is the winning portion:

“Amazingly, there are only about 6 million scientists and engineers in the entire world, nearly a quarter of whom are in the U.S. Poverty means that millions of potentially world-class scientists today spend their lives trying to eke out a subsistence living, rather than leading mankind’s charge into the future. But if the world as a whole were as wealthy as the U.S. and were devoting the same share of population to research and development, there would be more than five times as many scientists and engineers worldwide.”

I look forward to your apology about this “competitiveness” nonsense when a Chinese/Indian drug innovation saves the life of your friend or family member in 30 years.

I’m in academia. Don’t give me that self-sacrificing crap. It’s a great life they have. Many many more PhDs are produced than there are positions in research universities and national laboratories. For every one of them, there are three envious graduates wishing to take their place.

Worshiping teachers, researchers, doctors, etc. is ridiculous. They’re not this century’s version of the greatest generation. They’re just regular people. Physics is your passion and you don’t want to see the money dry up. Simple as that.

A majority in congress believe the earth is 6000 years old, there is no climate change, evolution is a lie and should not be taught in schools and trickle down is sound economic policy. Your sending these congressman a letter?

Ballot box is the only way to fix the mess we are in.

I think you owe the signers of this letter some respect. They have foregone huge corporate salaries, and work for you and the betterment of your children’s lives. Congress could use the advice of people like this.

There is a lot of data which supports the claims of competitiveness and growth. Look around and you’ll find it. A lot of links from this site itself would be a good place to start…

Then why do physicists think they can toss around economic terms like competitiveness and growth when they know nothing about economics?