Report of Unscientific America - Book Report/Review Example

The authors in the book, “Unscientific America,” argue, “Even as science is crucial to the fate of twenty-first –century America, it’s under assault from new forces that not even the science-friendly Obama administration can fully address, because they’re as much cultural and economic as directly political in nature.”(xi) A confusing situation has developed in America for which a well thought out long-term solution is needed. The main purpose of the book is to warn all the concerned sections of American society well in time regarding the societal attitudes to the research projects on science and the possible corrective course needed.

The younger generation of America is no more fascinated about the stunning development in the area of science. Does that research benefit humankind in the real sense or will it generate more problems for the society, is the moot question. In support of their contention the authors argue, “The army of young researchers on campuses across the country who do not want to be just scientists, but instead nourish a powerful desire to reach out to the society in which they live, and to which they owe so much.”(xi) The torch of scientific research has been passed on to a new generation.

It now depends what they do with what their predecessors have left, and the conditions in which they left it. Question 2: The writer and the scientist make it an eminent pair to write a book on a subject of this nature. Scientific illiteracy threatens American future. America cannot afford the rift between the world of science and the rest of society. They need to live together in tandem. Science is such a vast subject and one cannot put all its branches in one bracket, and term them as permanently good or bad.

Moreover, there has been a staggering growth of scientific research, even the scientists are baffled by its rapidity of its expansion. For example, global warming was a non-issue a couple of decades ago. Now its implications are on many branches of science, politics, economics, danger to cities located on the coastal areas and a host of other subjects. The journalists are doing overtime writing articles on global warming and allied subjects. I agree with the authors’ assertion that the post-atomic bomb era after World War II, was the golden era for the scientists and they were held in awe and admiration by the political leadership of America.

The important issue about scientific researches and achievements is they create parallel channels of construction and destruction. The political equations changed, top scientists from all over threw world, especially from the European countries, began to immigrate into the US, and grants for scientific research kept on mounting. But when the negative side of it became clear, the damaging consequences were evident, the attitudes turned hostile. Science once dominated over politics, but for this development, fraternity of scientists should not be blamed.

But political control over scientific research is absolutely essential, in the overall interest of national security, and scientist cannot be given a freehand in this area. Question 3: The authors express their ardent love for science and they state, “We need science to reestablish its core relevance to American life, to enjoy the standing and visibility it had in the late 1950s and early 1960s.”(130) But it is difficult for me to agree with the au