Science is important for a nation in the modern world. Advancement in science has a major impact on a nation’s power, prosperity, and education. (big “DUH” everybody knows that already)
The United States has Cabinet-level departments for the areas of government work it considers of major importance, right? How come they left out science? Do other countries have Ministries of Science? How is science not considered a top priority for the United States?
Scientists are the Rodney Dangerfields of the world, they don’t get no respect. That’s why so many go bad and dig up dead people and build unholy robots of death, and unleash them upon the normals.
Seriously, I think Dept of Ag and Dept of Int is about as close as we will get, if they ever get staffed by real farmers and ecologists, and not political buddies. Or Health and Human services, is that a cabinet position? That might have doctors.
Why not hitch it on to the Department of Education?
(Does the U.S. even have a Dept. of Education?)
In order to have a Department of Science, we’d have to find a way to fund it. Either the money would have to come from the budgets of other departments, or we’d have to have new/higher taxes. Neither of these options is terribly appealing–well, more taxes may be appealling, but I doubt this is what the gov’t will want to spend it on.
Besides, we have the NSF. They do stuff.
Actually, the two departments that fund the most pure science are probably the Department of Defense (through the Defense Advanced Projects Research Administration) and NASA (which appears to be an independent agency outside of the Cabinet structure).
I’m not sure I like the idea of a Department of Science, actually. I’m not sure what this department would accomplish from a public policy standpoint, nor do I like the idea of an entity which could end up becoming an arbiter of “acceptable truth”. The power to withhold funding is the power to destroy. The current scheme has each department funding studies in various different areas, which means that an individual scientist can shop around (if NASA turns you down, maybe Energy will fund you, or Transportation).
As for one foreign country, check this out.
(The main Hebrew site is much more impressive).
Because it makes sense, and according to Article XXIII of the U.S> Constitution, the Federal Government isn’t allowed to do anything that makes sense.
“If you had demanded that the N.I.H. solve the problem of polio not through independent, investigator-driven discovery research but by means of a centrally directed program, the odds are very strong that you would get the very best iron lungs in the world–portable iron lungs, transistorized iron lungs–but you wouldn’t get the vaccine that eradicated polio.”
Samuel Broder, former director of the National Cancer Institute
Yeah, I stole it from “The West Wing,” but he really did say it and it’s really true.
Alessan: Yes, we have a Department of Education. Conservatives have been trying to dismantle it since it was created.
I’m skeptical of a “Department of Science” too. Essentially cabinet-level agencies are a matter of priority. This is because almost anything you put under jurisdiction of a department will be relevant to other departments, but you’re putting it there because you think it’s more important than what you took it from. Example: Bush thinks the Secret Service is more important to Homeland Security than Treasury, so he wants to put it there. Now, I’m all for the pursuit of eradicating ignorance, but I’d rather have scientists who work at the Pentagon stay there, just like the ones who are working for Agriculture, Interior and others. If we created a Department of Science it would lower the amount of innovation in other departments. Besides, can we count on scientists to lead themselves? 
Yeah, but who knows for how much longer. Conservatives don’t like it, for some reason I don’t fully understand.
We don’t like it because we think its wasteful and poorly organized, overly political for even a Washington department, and we’re suspicious of its traditional Demo ties.
In other words, it don’t work that we see.
I’m sorry, that last post of mine was so off topic it isn’t funny. Delete as needed.
The White House has had, for many years, a Science Advisor, which kinda sorta amounts to a little Department of Science in and of itself. I’m not sure the Bush administration has one, but the Clinton administration did - and he works for us now as our science advisor. 
I won’t debate the importance of science and education but why do we need a Dept. of Science? We’ve got plenty of advanced weapons, advanced medicine, new construction material, advanced computers and machinery, and no signs that I can see of technology slowing down. Whatever system we have now seems to be working fairly well.
Marc
Isn’t that the problem though? Science impacts everything, so everybody has to have their own science departments. It’s the only way to ensure that each “area” can set its own priorities. What might be nice would be to have a mechanism where all these various science areas could maintain constant, open lines of communication to ensure that effort is not being duplicated and to allow for the quick sharing of new discoveries.
The Department of Interior employs a virtual army of biologists and geologists. The Department of Energy is the domain of government physicists. The National Security Agency encourages advances in high-end mathematics & computer science. Even the Department of Commerce has scientists, namely meteorologists.
Could these functions be lumped together into a single cabinet-level department (a la the Homeland Security reshuffling)? Possibly, but I doubt it. Especially the Energy guys. They do top-secret research, which makes DoE a security agency more than an academic facilitator.
Hmm… Most of my research (molecular physics) is funded by the DoD in one way or another, but we also get money from DoE and the NSF. I don’t see what benefits centralizing all of this would bring us, as each department has different needs.
As for grem’s concern about
we do sort of have that in the form of scientific publications, conferences, and the like. We’re not totally ignorant of what our fellow scientists are doing, even if they get their funding somewhere else. Also, it makes sense to me to have an effort being duplicated; if you only have one group of scientists working on a specific problem, your chances of getting a timely solution are lower than if you have two groups, after all.
How about a department that doesn’t have scientists of its own, but rather focuses coordinating scientific efforts in the different branches of government? That coordinates between scientists from the public, private and academic spheres? That deals in scientific leaison between the U.S. and the rest of the world? And most important - is in charge of government grants to universities and other non-profit facilities?
As I see it, when other government departments hire scientists, they do it for relatively short-term, clearly-defined goal. The Department of Education and Science would be in charge of long-term, academic reseach - Big Picture stuff.
I suspect that the democratic (almost anarchic) collection of science-funding oragnizations is our best bet, in the long run.
I really don’t want Dubya appeasing his perceived constituency by appointing a YEC Secretary of Science.
All right, maybe you folks are right that it’s better off the way it is now. Interesting that Alessan came up with a country that has implemented this idea. It would be interesting to compare the results that brings with the results gained by our American approach. Call it metascience.
I guess I may have been thinking of Jor-El’s planet Krypton, which was governed by the “Science Council” — rule by the brightest minds instead of by politicians or leaders. A modernistic update of Plato’s Republic?