Recently there has been a spate of articles comparing America's economy to Europe's economy. Many of these have pointed out that the American economy is in far healthier shape than Europe's  (based on different  economic  policies, tax policies,  regulatory approaches, work ethics, degree of state control over various sectors of the economy). One important issue —— citizen control of scientific research —— might have also begun to set our course on a different path than their's; however, we face a risk in the years ahead that this path may be blocked and we may fall into the same sinkhole as the Europeans.
 
An emerging and dangerous trend for Europe is the increasing citizen control over scientific research. This can take various forms: the extreme animal rights advocates that threaten to devastate the medical research industry in England. Similarly, a dangerous manifestation of citizen control over scientific progress is the rise of citizens' consensus conferences on a variety of science issues that grant non—experts a role in making governemnt policy. Denmark has applied this approach to a broad spectrum of scientific and technological issues, inclduing food irradiation, biotechnology, chemical research, genomics, and many other fields of endeavor. These meetings are dominated by anti—technology zealots—similar to America's own Jeremy Zipkin (Rifkin).
 
Since many of these Luddites also are populated in the ranks of Democrats we should be concerned that similar devlopments may occur in America. Already, trial lawyers (such as Vice Presidential contender John Edwards) have used the court system to extort billions from various companies and have probably chilled companies desires to engage in research and development efforts.

What is happening in Europe, and how it has begun to devastate scientific research in the European Union, hold portentious lessons for America.
 
Posted by Ed  8 8 04