Crisis in The Labs

Beset by a budget squeeze, cases of fraud, relentless activists and a skeptical public, American researchers are under siege

Without scientific progress the national health would deteriorate; without scientific progress we could not hope for improvement in our standard of living or for an increased number of jobs for our citizens; and without scientific progress we could not have maintained our liberties against tyranny.

-- Vannevar Bush, presidential science adviser in Science: The Endless Frontier, 1945

It was the glory of America. In the decades following World War II, U.S. science reigned supreme, earning the envy of the world with one stunning triumph after another. Fostered by the largesse of a government swayed by Vannevar Bush's paean to science, it...

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