Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Doug, you must be new here

re: Doug, you must be new here
Doug Ellison — (archived)

You've changed your song from the US inventing everything from the atom to the universe - to "the US finances research more than any other country"

Of course it does - it's richer than anyone else. But that wasnt your first point. You point was not about current research, or about the quantity of papers a place produces. I quote "the USA has, by far, done more to bring the world to the 21st century than all other nations combine"

WRONG.

Looking at my personal life - I'm sat here using a computer ( British invention ) on the WWW ( British invention ). The lights are on (British invention) and I might call somebody in a minute ( British Invention ). I'm driving ( german/french invention ) home tonight, but tomorrow, I'm taking a train ( British invention ) to London. Yes - it's an american processor in my laptop, I might be posting to an american server. The light bulbs might be from GE, and the car from ford - but the US did NOT invent/discover these things. Without the US - we would still have all of those things.

"We unleashed democracy on the world" That was the Romans actually. And at the last election - you made a total joke of democracy. The occupation of a foreign nation for 18 months is none too democratic either - but that's wandering off topic a little.

"we have been pulling humanity forward for the past century and a half." - the last year and a half you appear to have been draging it very much backwards. Unless you mean Fast Food, Nuclear Weapons, the Cold War, Claims-Direct Culture and the Cell Phone is 'humanity'

"NAME ONE OTHER COUNTRY that has done one tenth what the US has done to advance humanity's knowledge of the universe - from the subatomic to the cosmological scale- "

I'll name four. UK, Italy, France, Germany - and much of their work was done before your country even existed.

Yes - the USA is bigger and richer than everybody else - so it SHOULD be producing more scientific papers than anyone else. Per CAPITA however, the only fair measure of a nations creativity, you lage behind Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Holland, the UK, Belgium and Austria (

http://www.sciam.com/media/inline/0004B094-F02F-1CCE-B4A8809EC588EEDF_arch1.gif
) and depending where you look - you also lag behind Canada, Australia, and New Zealand ( http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/3fdbaddf28a6491eca256cae0016430e?OpenDocument )

Per capita - your research output is frankly a bit lacking.

Largest, yes, but that is a gauge of nothing. Richest - you should be, your country is larger than Europe. Greatest. Not by a long shot.

Conclusion : The USA is a great country, but in need of a reality check and a whole lot of modesty.

Doug

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