Perhaps the field we have truly fallen behind in is history. We forget that in the early 20th century German was the lingua franca of science. Germany was where young scientists went to study, and where top scientists presented, and often had done, their cutting edge work.

U.S. science leadership is not natural and inevitable, but the loss of that leadership may be.

Far from being natural or inevitable, the United States’ science leadership is an offshoot of this country’s preeminence in the system of world governments that emerged after the defeat of Germany in World War II. This system was built on the rewards to science innovation in a vibrant capitalist economy, and on WWII- and Cold War-impelled needs to develop our science and engineering capacity. It uniquely benefited from immigration, especially from Europe in the Nazi era and immediate post-war period. And it could not have happened without the wealth and vision that allowed the United States to not only generously subsidize basic science but also to establish an educational system that was broad-based at the bottom and unparalleled in availability and quality at the top.

If these advantages were not enough, the competition for science leadership was weak thanks to the devastation that Europe suffered in two world wars and the slow rebuilding of European economies in the post-war era. The upshot: U.S. science leadership is not natural and inevitable, but the loss of that leadership may be.

Countries much larger than the United States, most notably India and China, are experiencing economic growth that outstrips ours, and as they grow in wealth they are rapidly improving their educational systems and basic science infrastructures. Moreover, as globalization leads companies born in the United States to move research and production capacity abroad, market demand for trained scientists and engineers is increasing elsewhere while it is being dampened here.

Even if the United States retains a per capita education and investment advantage over India and China, population differences alone mean that the number of trained scientists and engineers in these countries will soon dwarf the number in America, with differences in the quantity and quality of science innovation likely to follow. Added to the Asian challenge is a Europe that can no longer be seen as a set of discrete countries when it comes to science. Rather, cross-border research teams are being encouraged, and European Union-wide funding mechanisms are being established.

In short, several decades from now we may find that we are not the world’s number one country when it comes to science, however measured, but perhaps no. 4 behind China, India, and the EU. We may also find that being in fourth place is not altogether bad. When children in China are vaccinated against polio, they are not worse off because the vaccine was invented in the United States. When an Indian inventor draws on two decades of U.S. government-funded research to achieve a technological breakthrough, her accomplishment will not be lessened because it would not have happened had research in the United States not paved the way.

As the world no. 1 in science, U.S. science investments have had substantial spillover effects, improving the quality of life in other countries and enabling scientific, technological, and medical accomplishments that have benefited people abroad. As other countries improve their science, the progress of American science and the lives of our people will increasingly benefit from educational and infrastructure investments made elsewhere and from research supported by currencies other than the dollar.

Thanks to the preeminence of U.S. science for more than half a century, English is second only to mathematics as the universal language of science.

Acknowledging the inevitable and seeing a bright side does not, however, mean we should regard what is happening as an unalloyed blessing and passively allow American science to slip. There are substantial costs should U.S. science capacity sink absolutely, and real costs even if slippage is only relative. Scientific advances create intellectual property, and wealth creation through intellectual property has become an increasingly important part of the U.S. and world economies. What’s more, the world remains a dangerous place, and it may become more so should countries like China develop expansionist ambitions. Science for security must remain a high national priority, and although we may not be able to keep other nations from catching up, we do not want to be surprised by their achievements or surpassed.

In devising policies to maximize the strength of U.S. science, our nation has two unique resources it must not squander. The first is English. Thanks to the preeminence of U.S. science for more than half a century, English is second only to mathematics as the universal language of science. Scientists around the world speak and write English. This gives American scientists a leg up in communicating with scientists across national boundaries and makes many of the most important writings of foreign scientists easily and immediately accessible to Americans.

Additionally, American students are not dissuaded from pursuing science careers nor do they have their science studies delayed because of the need to master a foreign language. Short of eliminating federal science funding, nothing, I venture to guess, would harm American science as much as a need to read Chinese to keep up with the latest science developments.

One goal of our national science policy should be to maintain English as the global language of science. This might entail subsidies or other incentives to promote the publication of English-language online science journals, aid to enable the acquisition of English-language science materials (including print journals) by universities and libraries abroad, and programs to train foreign scientists in English, either in their own countries, online, or by bringing them to the United States or Britain for science internships or language instruction.

The high subscription price of leading English-language science journals is a particular threat because it means that for financial rather than science reasons market forces are likely to promote a proliferation of lower priced foreign-based journals in languages other than English. These journals, started for reasons of cost, may become science journals of record in their home countries, meaning that cutting-edge overseas research may become less easily or immediately available here. The short-run solution may be U.S. subscription subsidies for foreign scholars and institutions, but the only viable long-term solution is to bring costs down, most likely by electronic distribution that through competition reins in the profit-oriented publishers who now mediate between the creation and distribution of science knowledge.

Students who had planned on doing their advanced science studies in the United States went instead to Europe, Australia, Japan, or Canada.

The United States’ second great advantage is our system of higher education. We are still the preeminent nation when it comes to science training, and we benefit from this in many ways. Foreigners who come to study here learn English, and they build relationships with U.S. scientists that endure after they return home, if they return home. Study here can also lead to an appreciation for the United States and its values, including especially the values of democracy and free inquiry. Perhaps most beneficial of all are the foreign-born scientists who stay to take jobs here or who return periodically to work collaboratively with U.S. scientists. They add to our science workforce and scientific productivity and go a long way to make up for inadequacies in the production of U.S. born scientists.

Ironically, the threat to U.S. science dominance is in part due to our willingness to educate the world. Some of the foreign scientists trained here have returned home to become leading researchers or educators in countries such as India and China, while others have returned to Western Europe and reinvigorated their graduate science education. Thus, our leadership in science education, although not as vulnerable as our overall science leadership, is also ripe for challenge.

Rather than rise to the challenge, however, we have aided the challengers. Short-term political and security concerns have trumped longer-term interests in science strength along with longer-term wealth and security. Responding viscerally to the attacks of 9/11, we made entering this country more difficult for foreigners whatever the reason. One result was that students who had planned on doing their advanced science studies in the United States went instead to Europe, Australia, Japan, or Canada. Or they pursued advanced degrees in their home countries.

More recently, the Iraq war and attitudes toward immigration have made the United States less attractive to educated foreigners. Difficulties in entering the United States have also affected the location of and attendance at scientific conferences as well as the ability of universities and companies to employ foreign researchers. Although the U.S. government has become sensitive to the harms that some of its post 9/11 policies caused and has tried to ameliorate problems, it could be doing much more—including proactively encouraging more foreign students to study science here and making it easier for them to work here when their studies are concluded.

The downside of replenishing our science workforce with the foreign born is that it diminishes pressure on industry and government to stimulate domestic science training. Yet few dispute that improving domestic education must remain a high priority, especially as opportunities for science workers abroad grow sufficiently attractive as to not only lure foreign-born U.S. science workers back to their home countries, but also to entice native-born American scientists to work abroad.

A virtue of science progress is that it cannot help but create free riders.

Essays, and indeed books, can and have been written on what stimulating domestic science training will take, and I shall not attempt to canvass the suggestions that people more knowledgeable than I have made. But I will reiterate one point. We cannot afford to leave undeveloped the talents of minorities and the poor by failing to provide the nutrition, health care, preschool training, and later education that will allow these youth to realize their potential. It is no longer just personal accomplishments we are talking about; it is the national well being.

A virtue of science progress is that it cannot help but create free riders. New discoveries and inventions fuel other new discoveries and inventions and raise everyone’s quality of life. Even if intellectual property laws allow innovators to secure fortunes for themselves, exclusive rights last only for period of time, and rarely can all profits be captured. We, along with other nations, are made better off by new vaccines discovered in Britain, cell phone technologies born in Finland, robotics breakthroughs from Japan, and the development of disease-resistant plant varieties in the United States.

Americans love to rank things, whether it is football teams, law schools, or most livable cities, and we love to identify with or be “Number One.” For many it is a matter of national pride that the United States is acknowledged as the world’s leader in science. Hence it is a matter of great national concern when it appears other nations are catching up or that we may be slipping. But the two ways of reducing disparities in the rankings are quite different.

If other nations are doing better in supporting science and producing more scientific breakthroughs, then we are likely to benefit from their successes. But if our lead is slipping because we are losing capacity and failing to invest in the physical and human capital that produces outstanding science, then there is substantial cause for concern; not only the United States but the world will be worse off as a result. In short, we should focus more on how we are doing and spend less time worrying about whether other nations are catching up to us in science.

If our youth are well-educated in science, if our science workforce has the highly trained staff it needs, if we facilitate the international exchange of scientific knowledge, and if our educational establishments and industry remain fountains of innovation, then we need not worry whether other nations are doing as well or better than we are. We will be strong. But if our lead is lost because we squander our advantages and fail to educate our youth, then slippage in the ranks of nations doing science may indeed signify crisis.

Richard O. Lempert is the Eric Stein Distinguished University Professor of Law and Sociology at The University of Michigan Law School and a Research Professor in the George Washington Institute of Public Policy.

But if the American public’s grasp of scientific knowledge is weak, then its science-related policymaking may be seriously flawed. And when one considers the attention given to science news and the state of science knowledge in this country, it is easy to despair.

Public opinion surveys by The Pew Research Center for People and the Press, which looked at 19 news categories during the years 2000 to 2006, found that only 16 percent of respondents reported following science news closely, tying it with news of other nations for last place in reader interest. It is perhaps good news that the public claims to be almost as uninterested in celebrity scandals and sports, but the 16 percent of respondents with a special interest in science news stories compares unfavorably with the 37 percent of respondents who closely followed news of natural disasters or the 40 percent who followed weather news and the similar proportion who tracked stories relating to money.

In their areas of expertise scientists are particularly well-respected and are trusted to make sound judgments that extend beyond the realm of pure science.

One reason for this low interest in science news may be that it hardly leaps out to the average television viewer, newspaper reader, or web crawler. Looking at how the “newshole” is apportioned, the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that in the most recent quarter science and technology news ranked 19th out of 26 topics in the news time or space devoted to it, occupying about a 1 percent share across all media.

Tests of the public’s science knowledge seem discouragingly consistent with the scant attention given science news. The most recent National Science Foundation Science Indicators report draws on different surveys to tell us that only about 54 percent of Americans realize that antibiotics do not kill viruses, fewer than half know that genetically modified foods are in their neighborhood grocery store, and only 44 percent believe that human beings developed from other animal species (about three-quarters of those responding realize that the theory of evolution says this, but many reject the theory).

Indeed, more people believe that houses can be haunted than accept the theory of the Big Bang, and 29 percent are not certain that the earth revolves around the sun rather than vice versa. This relative lack of interest in and knowledge of science appears to bode ill for scientifically informed public policies. The actual situation is, however, both better and worse than these figures indicate.

It is worse in that much of what qualifies as science news is event coverage rather than science coverage. Some people who say they closely follow stories about climate change may be paying attention only to stories about the threat that polar ice melting poses for the polar bear or walrus population. Others who track climate change stories may mistakenly believe that climate scientists are more or less equally divided about whether human activity has contributed to climate change and that there is no way of knowing which group of scientists is most likely correct.

Neither breed of science-news followers may have learned anything about the science itself from reading the news. In addition, the NSF science knowledge data are likely to be unduly rosy. Since most of the NSF’s survey questions require answers of true, false, or uncertain, some correct answers may be uninformed guesses.

But looked at another way, if 44 percent of American adults (and the proportion is higher in other surveys) accept the theory of evolution, then about 100 million Americans grasp this most basic of scientific paradigms. Even the 16 percent of the population who say they closely follow science stories numbers in the tens of millions. That’s a lot of people.

But what, or more precisely who, informs those 44 percent who grasp the efficacy of the theory of evolution or those 54 percent who know that antibiotics do not kill viruses? There are many sources. Evolution has long been taught in high school biology courses, and not only do doctors explain medications to their patients, but there have also been enough news stories highlighting the limitations of antibiotics so that if those who follow science news tell their families and friends, knowledge will vastly expand.

Particularly important for the prospects of sound science-based policies is the consistent finding that Americans hold scientists in great respect. In a 2004 Harris interactive poll, for example, scientists and physicians received the highest prestige ratings among 22 occupational groups. And scientists and physicians were the only professions rated in the top prestige category by more than half of those responding.

We might, were it possible, get the biggest science bang for our educational buck if we could teach biology to seminarians or physics to news anchors and talk show hosts.

Moreover, in their areas of expertise scientists are particularly well-respected and are trusted to make sound judgments that extend beyond the realm of pure science. Thus, in the United States, scientists are considered more trustworthy than any other group involved in biotechnology issues such as genetically modified foods. Similarly, about 80 percent of the population expresses great trust in nanoscientists—even though most Americans probably have only a dim understanding of the intricacies of nanotechnology, let alone the social and ethical implications of nanotech research and development.

These polling data are important because of what they reveal below the radar of science poll conclusions. Science-knowledge questions and standard inquiries into science news familiarity typically focus on what respondents do and do not know. They shed little light on why respondents do or do not know, and do or do not seek to know, more about science. Thus they miss reasons to hope for sound science-based policies as well as mechanisms for boosting the American public’s basic understanding of science.

We can safely assume that some people do not seek out knowledge because they trust others to make crucial decisions. If the trust is well placed, and technical knowledge is required to decide wisely, then deferring to the more knowledgeable is likely to be a good decision-making strategy. We see this in the investment decisions that have led to many of America’s scientific triumphs; in particular in the public’s willingness to support, through the NSF and other federal agencies, large investments in basic science research that has no obvious or immediate practical payoff.

It is also true that people learn much of what they “know” not from the news or through formal education, but rather from those they interact with. These informal networks may provide accurate or inaccurate information. It seems safe to assume that most people who reject the idea of evolution have learned little about the science that supports evolutionary theory. Rather, they have accepted as “fact” what others have told them, or they simply defer in their judgments to the knowledge claims of others, including, in the case of evolution, the Bible.

But it seems also safe to say that many who report believing in evolutionary theory have as little first-hand knowledge about the science supporting evolution as those who reject it. The difference between the two groups lies not in what they have been taught about evolution or acquired from their own reading, but rather in their network embeddedness: to whom they listen and to whose authority they will defer—often to the point of accepting a conclusion with little understanding of the underlying facts and issues.

From this perspective, it is good news indeed that many people know enough science to correct their neighbors’ misapprehensions and that scientists are widely accorded considerable respect. This means that when scientific consensus is reached on an issue, many will accept the consensus judgment regardless of how well they understand the science. In fact, only an authority as powerful as the perceived word of God is (for some) able to forestall widespread deference to science.

But fairness should mean presenting the actual state of scientific consensus.

One implication of the importance of networks to knowledge is that improving the science education of those people whom others look to for knowledge may be as or more important to the development of sound science-based policies as directly educating the broader public. We might, were it possible, get the biggest science bang for our educational buck if we could teach biology to seminarians or physics to news anchors and talk show hosts. Absent this, we should realize that every person who is well educated in science or who follows science news closely potentially contributes to well-informed science-based policies—not only by expressing his or her own educated preferences but also by affecting the preferences of others.

But as important as it is to educate people generally—and opinion leaders in particular—in science and modes of scientific thought, it is equally important to develop mechanisms to accurately convey degrees of scientific consensus to the public. When people mistakenly think there is scientific uncertainty about an issue, it frees them to act in disregard of science. When they think there is a consensus that does not exist, they may be unduly deferential in accepting policy recommendations.

Businesses have long recognized the power of scientific consensus and have thrown up scientific smokescreens to suggest more uncertainty than exists on issues and so forestall attempts at regulation or changed public preferences. The efforts of big tobacco to create an appearance of controversy on the health effects of tobacco are the best known example, but there have been many others. Politicians also are not above making scientific judgments appear less or more certain than they are when this suits their political agendas.

The ability of businesses and politicians to make science controversies appear more alive than they are is facilitated by the tendency of the media to give significant time or space to both sides of a scientific dispute, perhaps because this may seem to be what fairness requires. But fairness should mean presenting the actual state of scientific consensus. Giving two scientists equal time to offer conflicting views on whether human activity has contributed substantially to global climate change suggests a deep division within the scientific community on the subject. But suppose any such debate were followed by information that 97 percent of scientists polled agreed with one position rather than the other. Imagine if that information preceded the debate.

From the point of view of informed public policy it is fair to ask whether the American science glass is half empty or half full. I lean toward half full, but that hardly matters. Either way the situation can change. We as a nation have much to gain if change is in the direction of a scientifically better informed public and science policies that accept rather than contend with the best thinking that science can offer.

This requires the ability to separate genuine scientific debates from manufactured scientific controversies. A desire that the world be a certain way doesn’t make it so. It is true that even a widely accepted scientific consensus may be mistaken, but scientists do not hasten to arrive at consensus. When they do, we ignore the best current science at our peril.

Science progress, with its implications for ethics, policy, and better living, depends on citizens who can recognize good science or who at least know enough about science to place their trust only in the science judgments of those who do. If this new publication, Science Progress, requires a rationale beyond promoting knowledge for its own sake, this is it.

Richard O. Lempert is the Eric Stein Distinguished University Professor of Law and Sociology at The University of Michigan Law School.