How to Save America's Knowledge Enterprise From Tight Budgets, Primitive Myths, and the Shadow of Albert Einstein

Science and technology in America have been guided by the same set of ideas for more than half a century. The conventional wisdom is that if we feed more money and more scientists into our existing "knowledge enterprise" complex, society will derive proportionately more benefits. In the face of the global economic downturn, political disarray at the national level, and protracted challenges to the nation's public health, environmental quality, industrial base, and energy system, this simplistic assumption is long overdue for a reckoning. Today's challenges demand new ways of thinking about science and technology, and the government's role in advancing them. The problem, any honest inquiry will suggest, isn't always money, or the number of scientists, but the very way we do science. Part 1 of 6 - '"Just Trust Us": The Postwar Golden Era and Why We Cling to It' featuring Dan Sarewitz, Director, Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes, Arizona State University, Professor of Science and Society, Arizona State University.