Backstage from the media circus, the Obama administration and Senate Democrats have been quietly drumming up support for a new $90 million program to accelerate innovation in educational technology, or ed tech. Called the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Education, or ARPA-Ed, in the president’s 2012 budget, this lean, mean little research agency would create a platform for ed tech innovators to compete to develop cutting-edge learning tools.

On Wednesday, as the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, or HELP, committee moves to overhaul No Child Left Behind, Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) is expected to introduce an amendment that would bring ARPA-Ed to life. If enacted, ARPA-Ed would put competitive grants and contracts in the hands of innovators seeking to develop technologies to revolutionize the way students learn. Because it kindles competition, ARPA-Ed is an interesting Obama initiative that has the potential to reverse the sputtering trajectory of the U.S. education system.

Education challenges

As it stands, the situation in public education is precarious. In December 2010 the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, announced that the United States ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science, and 25th in math among 63 world nations in academic performance. Comparatively, Chinese students in Shanghai ranked first across the board, with Singapore, Korea, and Finland following close behind. This news has fueled concerns on both sides of the political spectrum that the United States is losing its competitive edge amid a crippling educational and economic malaise.

While our students are subject to global competition, U.S. schools are facing mounting pressure at home to conform to the standards set by the No Child Left Behind Act, or NCLB. Schools are scrambling to achieve proficiency in math and reading by 2014, lest they face fiscal penalties. The looming deadline for improved performance—and the fear that it will not be met—has prompted President Obama and his secretary of education, Arne Duncan, to look into restructuring NCLB in a way that will be more consistent with his vision for education. Central to this vision is ARPA-Ed. ARPA-Ed is built on the same model as DARPA, the defense research program responsible for technologies such as the Internet and GPS.

Proponents of ARPA-Ed aim to exploit cutting-edge technology and developmental psychology in education to create a more efficient, individualized, and engaging learning regimen for today’s students. ARPA-Ed would follow its predecessors in adopting a bottom-up, rather than top-down approach to nurturing innovation. Instead of attempting to dictate what the most effective means of instruction might be, ARPA-Ed will reward learning about learning, researching research, and thinking about thinking.

Until now, the strategy for using technology in education has been to bombard schools with gadgets, sometimes at the expense of teachers’ jobs and to the detriment of art and music programs. The Kyrene school district in Arizona, for instance, touts state-of-the-art classrooms, spending $33 million on student laptops, display screens, and accompanying software. Yet despite all its high-tech bells and whistles, Kyrene’s math and reading scores have stagnated since 2005, even as scores in the rest of the state have risen. Further, it is unclear whether some modest improvements can be attributed to better incorporating technology into classrooms or better teachers using said technology. Technology for technology’s sake, it seems, is not a successful approach.

In light of disappointing results, such as in the case of the Kyrene school system, it would appear that a shift in the way we equip our classrooms is in order. A quick survey of the current landscape of public education, with its socioeconomic performance gaps that could be better characterized as canyons, would suggest that our current system isn’t working.

Is technology part of the solution?

Yet there is hope in ARPA-Ed, which holds promise of funding many exciting innovations that could not only produce innovative educational technologies but also transform the way technology is used. Areas of research include:

• Interactive digital tutors that can guide students through curricula and provide constant feedback.
• Adaptive technology that adjusts to students’ learning styles and rates, and improves as the student uses it more.
• Making learning software function more like video games do.

ARPA-Ed would expand upon efforts initiated by the “Digital Promise Center,” which Congress authorized but didn’t fund in 2008. Education Secretary Arne Duncan unveiled the Center in September, acknowledging that the institution represented an “incredibly important turning point.” A major aspect of the so-called “digital promise” is research into digital tutors.

Digital tutors seek to marry the virtual age with psychological principles of learning. One such tenet of learning is that immediate feedback and reinforcement strengthens the association between stimuli. For instance, when an amateur is learning the violin and plays a wrong note, for best results, an instructor should correct the mistake immediately after it is made in order to give the musician the best odds for not repeating the mistake. Hence the revised maxim, “Practice doesn’t make perfect—perfect practice makes perfect.” Yet musical instruction usually only occurs once or twice a week, leaving novices to correct their own mistakes—a difficult feat when you don’t know what you’re doing wrong in the first place. This was exactly the problem researchers at the National University of Singapore confronted when they developed a virtual violin tutor to help kids practice more effectively.

The Navy has also implemented digital tutors to teach recruits to become IT specialist administrators in just seven weeks. A healthy, all-American suspicion of technology—complete with fantasies of a dystopian future where humans are oppressed by Skynet—may inform skepticism as to whether such a program really works, and whether machines are even capable of educating. But Navy researchers found that these computer-trained specialists outperformed their traditionally educated counterparts with up to three years of experience.

New tutoring software will capitalize not only on advantages in immediate feedback but also in the realm of individualizing education. Analytics are already widely used in business to customize the content you see on the Internet. Analyzing online habits is how Amazon manages to recommend merchandise that you really want or how Netflix seems to have a handle on your taste in movies. Companies like Amazon and Netflix collect data from users’ personal choices and incorporate them into algorithms that filter their databases to formulate suggestions for your next rental or purchase.

Research into education software will employ similar tactics to gather information about how a student learns. One test prep company, Knewton, is already leading the pack. In just a few hours, Knewton’s software can collect 150,000 data points on a student—data points like how long it takes a student to answer a question or to learn a lesson, which kinds of modules are mastered more quickly, and where the student is lagging. The highly sophisticated software aggregates this information, determines a student’s unique pattern of learning, and adjusts accordingly. This technique allows for remarkably personalized instruction. Four major universities have already purchased the product for catching up incoming students on college-level math.

Medical schools have also implemented programs for adapted learning, as reported by the NIH. These programs allow for student control of pace and media, though students are quick to maintain that they view the system as a complement to, rather than a replacement for, instructor-based learning.

If ARPA-Ed led to developments in personalized software for students in grade school, the benefits could be substantial, especially due to the plasticity of the young mind. Yet children, as opposed to GRE test takers and medical students, are slightly less inclined to sit in front of a boring slideshow and answer questions about it. That’s where the next ARPA-Ed research area would come in. The National STEM Video Game Challenge aims to make learning more like something kids actually want to do.

Much like sneaking broccoli into the mac n’ cheese, the National STEM Video Game Challenge seeks to trick kids into learning. The 2010 winners of the Developer Prize, Dan Morton and Dan White of Filament Games, created a game to teach kids about the structure and function of pathogens. The game “You Make Me Sick!” compels players to build a virus or bacteria and infect a host. You can play the prototype here.

Engaging and challenging educational games, coupled with personalized curricula, could afford all kids the opportunity to learn skills to prepare them for higher education. Furthermore, integrating computers and other gadgets into classrooms will free up teachers to have more one-on-one time with students and better control disciplinary problems when they arise. A school in South Carolina that implemented iPad technology for all its students reported a noticeable decline in class disruptions.

But the advantages extend beyond the scope of monitoring class behavior and individual children’s performance. Currently, the mainstream model of education—boasting short class periods delineated by bells that signal it is time to herd students to their next room for structured learning—seems ill-equipped to absorb change. Due to images evoked of children on a conveyor belt, scholars have deemed this educational structure the “factory model.” The factory model sets teachers at the center of children’s education, relying on educators to produce material for students to consume, rather than focusing on the needs of the individual learning.

Making the most of technology

Some, like Forbes’s Clayton Christensen, hold that technology in classrooms will be the vehicle by which America’s schools transition from what Christensen termed “teacher-centric” to “child-centric” education. Christensen wrote in 2008 that students suffer from rigidity in the curriculum, which is influenced by state mandates, district regulations, and the expectation that all students will master the same skills to the same proficiency level by the time teachers conclude covering the material. These problems, he argued, must be addressed by shifting the education paradigm to a modular one where learning can be self-directed and tailored to students’ learning styles and paces. In this sense, the new educational technology promised by ARPA-Ed will not simply be an accessory to learning but rather will be crucial to changing the system itself.

Consider, for instance, one contemporary school of thought: the “flip model” of education. Inspired by Salman Khan, founder of the Khan Academy, the central concept behind the flip model is that students listen to lectures for homework and come to class prepared to engage in deeper discussion and analytical activities. The Khan Academy provides clear, concise lectures on a wide breadth of subjects, complete with exercises to test students’ understanding—and most of it is free. All of it is online.

In Lawrenceville, Georgia, some teachers at the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology have traded homework for lectures and use precious class time for dissecting difficult problems and engaging students in group activities like acting out the processes of a cell in a 10th-grade biology class. This line of thought is consistent with emerging research that suggests that even children who prefer to work alone do better when collaborating in groups. Critics of the system, however, are quick to point out that it is rendered useless in the absence of a basic technological framework for online instruction.

Even if ARPA-Ed fosters competition for the best, most exciting educational tools available, implementation in classrooms is another hurdle entirely. Said Bryan Goodwin, spokesman for Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning, “Good teachers can make good use of computers, while bad teachers won’t, and they and their students could wind up becoming distracted by the technology.”

The reality that those who don’t teach well won’t use technology well, either, exacerbates an underlying problem: Integrating technology into schools in such a way that decentralizes the classroom is incongruous with current pedagogical thinking. In fact, some studies suggest that even teachers who are well-versed in new technology tend not to use it in ways that encourage the aforementioned “student-centric” learning.

Like technology, however, the landscape of the teaching profession is evolving.  Programs like Teach for America are plucking talented college graduates from diverse backgrounds and honing their instructional skills in underserved communities. Notably, the Teacher Incentive Fund holds promise for attracting and retaining motivated young teachers in high-poverty schools by compensating better for better results—a concept not novel to most other professions in the United States. Having grown up, rather than having had to keep up, with technology endows this new generation of educators with an advantage.

Efforts on the Hill to close the comparability loophole, by which schools obtain federal funding by  over-representing teachers’ salaries in less affluent districts, should help alleviate the plague of low teachers’ salaries in schools that need good teachers the most. Finally, the age of teachers’ unions eschewing serious discussions about tenure and performance-based pay has come to a close, as leaders meaningfully engage opposition in the shared goal to protect teachers and secure the best opportunities for more students.

The outlook for ARPA-Ed

But ARPA-Ed still faces opposition from the right. Conservative pundits have called the initiative wasteful and “duplicative,” claiming that $90 million is too steep a price to pay, and that the Department of Education already spent $4 billion on teacher retraining. Advocates like Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, would rather see that money funneled to the states than appropriated at the federal level. The assertion that ARPA-Ed is just another teacher retraining piggy bank, however, grossly misrepresents the multifaceted, innovative program.

ARPA-Ed breaks with existing programs in that it focuses on research into learning, not teaching. Moreover, $90 million seems like a steal for educational investments designed to yield breakthroughs that could have positive social returns for decades. To put the figure in perspective, the federal government spent $1.34 billion—15 times the price tag of ARPA-Ed—in 2010 on its “Race to the Top” program, in which states competed for funding by implementing the best reforms, like adopting performance-based pay and promoting charter schools. For six times the cost of ARPA-Ed, we fund adult education; still more money is doled out for federal student aid. As it is, the federal government only spends a fraction of its budget on education, and ARPA-Ed’s cost would be a tiny fraction of that.

America’s children deserve the best education science can bring them. Sen. Bennet’s amendment to create ARPA-Ed would be a step toward escaping our educational malaise and helping our students climb back to the top of the ranks. It is through implementing a program that emphasizes core American values like independent learning, creativity, and the individual work ethic, that we can regain our footing in the international sphere and return to doing what we do best: pushing the boundaries of innovation.

Lauren Simenauer is an intern with Science Progress and a senior at the University of Virginia. She is finishing her degrees in biology and psychology. Sean Pool is the Assistant Editor of Science Progress.

Myriad Genetics, Inc., the owner of the patents, brought the case to Federal Court of Appeals, which overturned the lower court’s decision on July 29 in a 2-1 ruling that has, at least for the time being, reaffirmed the patentability of human genes. Notably, the Obama Administrations Justice Department broke with the Patent and Trademark Office, a co-defendant in the case, in filing an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs claim that the genes should not be patentable.

The Appeals Court also upheld Myriad’s patents on procedures for therapeutic research on BRCA 1 and 2, but agreed with the lower court that Myriad’s processes for “analyzing” and “comparing” the genes are not patentable. Despite this small concession, it does not seem likely that this will make it easier for scientists who are unaffiliated with Myriad to conduct significant research on BRCA 1 and 2.

“[Myriad’s] short sequence claims [on BRCA 1 and 2] will continue to pose problems,” said Arti Rai, the Elvin R. Latty Professor of Law at Duke Law School and an expert in patent law and innovation policy, in an interview with Science Progress. “I’m not sure that the plaintiffs at the end of the day are in a better position,” she said, noting that they will probably run into many of the same patent infringement issues that they have in the past.

Though the full effects of this ruling on the biotechnology industry and the cancer research community remain to be seen, it is by no means the last word on the issue of gene patents. The plaintiffs, a coalition of doctors, patients, breast cancer researchers, research institutions, and medical associations, are expected to ask for an en banc rehearing—in which all of the justices in the court of appeals would sit for the case, instead of a panel of only three—or appeal the case to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court can let the appeals court decision stand, or take up the case and issue its own ruling.

Why were genes patentable in the first place?

Patents for biological materials have long been a contentious issue, and decades of Supreme Court cases have interpreted U.S. patent law, which was written over 200 years ago, to fit the complexities of property in modern biotechnology. Currently, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, or USPTO, can issue patents for genes, animals, bacteria, and plants—as long as they are, according to the Patent Act of 1790, “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.”

Patents for biological materials must also fit the “product of nature doctrine,” a standard that excludes entities that occur in nature from patent eligibility. The doctrine was first used in ex Parte Latimer (1889) when the U.S. Patent Commissioner rejected a patent application for isolated pine needle fibers. It was further developed in Funk Bros. Seed Company vs. Kalo Inoculant Co. (1948) when the Supreme Court ruled that natural phenomena and processes are “free to all men and reserved exclusively to none,” and rejected a patent application for a novel mixture of bacteria and soil.

Genes, bacteria, and animals seem like they should fall in the “product of nature” category, but later Supreme Court decisions have shown that sufficient modification of a naturally occurring entity can make it enough of a “new manufacture or composition of matter” to be eligible for a patent. In Diamond v. Chakrabarty (1980), the Supreme Court permitted a patent for a genetically engineered bacterium. In 1984, the USPTO granted a patent to the creators of the “oncomouse,” a mouse that was engineered to express cancer genes in every cell in its body.

Thanks to the precedents set by these and other cases, the USPTO has issued over 40,000 gene patents to date. Myriad Genetics justified their own gene patents via the argument that isolated forms of BRCA 1 and 2 do not occur in nature, and that such isolation results in the formation of different chemical bond structures within the molecules.

In 2010, the New York district court invalidated the BRCA 1 and 2 patents on the basis that the genes, even when isolated, have not acquired any changes to the fundamental nature of its DNA sequence or the genetic information they contain. The majority opinions of the recent federal appeals court ruling, on the contrary, agreed with Myriad Genetics’ original justification for the patent. They also noted that isolated BRCA 1 and 2 can be modified in the lab to form cDNAs, which can then be used to develop genetic probes and markers—a process for which BRCA 1 and 2 are only useful if they are isolated. The dissenting opinion by Justice William Bryson, however, held that the BRCA 1 and 2 genes on their own should not be patentable because Myriad did not discover the genes or use any novel techniques to isolate them. However, he held that the cDNAs, since they are modified by researchers, are patentable.

Gene patents and scientific progress

While the technicalities of what constitutes a “product of nature” or a “manufacture” seem to spark disagreement in the case of isolated genes, the stakes are high for a decision on gene patentability.  According to the U.S. Constitution, patents are supposed to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts” by giving inventors the exclusive right to exploit their inventions for a limited period of time.

This is true much of the time, as patents encourage innovation and scientific progress by ensuring that inventors can reap the benefits of their work. Plus, a ruling that would invalidate all existing gene patents could potentially have far-reaching negative effects on patent holders and the biotechnology industry in general.

But the plaintiffs in the Myriad case disagree, and argue that gene patents significantly impede, rather than promote, scientific progress. Researchers from Oncormed and the University of Pennsylvania Genetic Diagnostic Laboratory, or GDL, who are plaintiffs in the case, were already conducting research on and offering their own diagnostic genetic testing services for BRCA 1 and 2 when Myriad acquired its patents on the genes and associated research and testing processes. However, these researchers were forced to stop conducting diagnostic testing and therapeutic research in the late 1990s after Myriad sent them cease and desist orders for patent infringement.

Myriad’s vigorous enforcement of their BRCA patents has rendered them the sole provider of genetic testing for BRCA 1 and 2 in the United States. As a result, women who wish to learn of their genetic risk for breast and ovarian cancer cannot turn to other diagnostics providers for confirmatory tests. Nor can patients seek cheaper alternatives to Myriad’s services, whose BRCA tests cost between $250 and $4,000.

In addition to limiting the competition among diagnostic test providers, Myriad’s monopoly on BRCA also allows them to control the progress of BRCA research. Other scientists cannot research potential improvements for BRCA therapeutics or expand scientific understanding of high-risk BRCA gene mutations without infringing Myriad’s patents.

An issue of authority

The federal appeals court opinions acknowledge the question of whether gene patents promote or impede scientific progress, but instead of answering it outright, they defer it to Congress and do not deal with the case beyond the scope of patent law. “If the law is to be changed, and DNA inventions excluded from the broad scope of [patent law] contrary to the settled expectation of the inventing community, the decision must come not from the courts, but from Congress,” wrote Judge Lourie in the court opinion.

While Congress might be in a better position than the judicial system to consider social, economic, and scientific implications of gene patents, they have never been particularly successful in passing legislation concerning patentable subject matter. “These are policy issues to be decided by Congress, but the fact is that Congress is unlikely to act in this area,” said Rai.

If Congress doesn’t speak out on the issue, the Supreme Court has the authority to make its own decision on the patentability of genes. “For better or for worse,” said Rai, “a court decision in this area may end up being the final word.”

As such, the federal appeals court ruling is just another step in what has been, and what will continue to be, a long process of sorting out property in the genome. The final outcome for the genetic research community and gene patent holders remains to be seen.

Michelle Spektor recently completed her internship at Science Progress and will complete her bachelor’s degree at Cornell University this year.

While DARPA’s best known for its research on technologies with national security applications, the agency has a strong track record of producing innovations with transformative civilian applications as well. From the Internet, to GPS, to driverless cars and robotic limbs, DARPA-initiated research has often made big if not revolutionary splashes in the marketplace. To quote Jackson, “we [at DARPA] are that genie in a bottle that will make the impossible inevitable.”

In the fields of synbio and bioengineering, scientists introduce new genetic information into microorganisms to coax them into producing useful products. These fields have already made significant strides in the production of some pretty incredible chemicals and materials with applications in agriculture, industry, pharmaceuticals, and more. Recent accomplishments include using microorganisms to produce the anti-malarial drug artemisinin, renewable petroleum, steel-strong spider silk, and even whole battery electrodes and solar cells.

Research agencies across the federal government have shown increasing interest in funding synthetic biology research in recent years, including $700 million from the Department of Energy between 2006 and 2010, $40 million from the National Science Foundation in 2010, and at least $48 million from the National Institutes of Health between 2005 and 2010. Even the Department of Agriculture has put $2.3 million into synthetic biology research in recent years. DARPA’s past work in synthetic biology includes modifying the genome of the tobacco plant to produce vaccines as well as a program to engineer immortal microorganisms with genetically-coded kill switches.

Despite increasing attention to synthetic biology in federal agencies and the research community, research is “…limited to producing only a small fraction of the vast number of possible chemicals, materials, and living systems that would be enabled by the ability to truly engineer biology,” says the Living Foundries funding announcement. The Living Foundries program hopes to set itself apart from traditional synbio research projects and transcend the “ad hoc, laborious, trial-and-error” efforts of the past by investing in platform research that can support a broad range of applications, bring down cost, and increase scale. This approach to research on the process of biomanufacturing itself rather than on the production of specific and siloed chemical outputs DARPA dubs “engineering biology.”

DARPA’s vision for engineering biology is ambitious. The Living Foundries project proceeds from the assumption that modular genetic parts can be “mixed and matched on demand” to create a broader array of chemicals and materials more efficiently. This is perhaps conceptually similar to the introduction of interchangeable parts that transformed manufacturing in the late 18^th century, except on a genetic level. Lena Groeger of Wired.com likens the rearrangement of “modular genetic parts” at the core of the Living Foundries’ research to the way that children play with Legos.

Potential grant recipients, including 170 businesses and a number of academic and government research teams, attended a daylong event on June 28 where DARPA advertised its vision and goals for the program. Having received proposals from academic and corporate research groups, DARPA is now taking the next step of determining winners. Once funding decisions are made, DARPA plans to have projects running over the next three years and to see tangible results by the end.

At a time of sluggish economic recovery and stiff international competition, DARPA’s decision to invest in research with broad potential applications in medicine, energy, agriculture, and consumer products as well seems wise. The initial stage has been set, and the next few years will show whether the program’s goals come to fruition. If so, American manufacturing may witness a new milestone.

Gaurav Dhiman is a former intern with the Science Progress team and a rising senior majoring in biology and political science at the University of Miami.

But the very fact that American scientists feel the need to aggressively advocate for science conceal a bitter irony that the Times article failed to note: We once had a group of brilliant, influential and politically engaged leaders who were fascinated by science, wanted the country to be the world leader in the pursuit of new knowledge about the natural world, and in some cases even made original contributions.

They were called the founding fathers.

Consider, for example, Benjamin Franklin, after whom one political action group, Ben Franklin’s list, is named. One can draw a line of descent from Isaac Newton, the greatest scientist of his day, to Benjamin Franklin, the greatest scientist of his (and the founder of my university). The list goes on. Thomas Jefferson (founder of my previous employer, the University of Virginia), was famously preoccupied with both astronomy through Newton and political liberalism via John Locke. As a student at King’s College, now Columbia University, Alexander Hamilton was intent on a medical career and attended all the lectures on natural philosophy that he could.

John Adams, John Hancock and James Bowdoin founded the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston. Jefferson and Hamilton, otherwise bitter rivals, made complementary contributions to the innovative foundations of the new country: Jefferson through the patent statute, Hamilton by laying the foundations for history’s most successful capitalist economy. By way of the wildly popular pamphlet Common Sense Thomas Paine was not only the most effective propagandist of the American Revolution, he also closely followed current scientific breakthroughs. In The Age of Reason he declaimed on the size of the earth, the nature of the planetary system, and the scale of the universe. Paine theorized that there must be millions of worlds like ours millions of miles apart.

President Lincoln chartered the National Academy of Sciences just as the modern meanings of the words “science” and “progress” were emerging. Especially in the industrial boom times after the Civil War, moral values were seen as a key consequence of scientific progress. Historian Charles Rosenberg has observed that “[t]he vast majority of nineteenth-century Americans never doubted that human beings had progressed and that this progress — inevitably — subsumed dimensions both moral and material. It was inconceivable to them that the steam engine and morality were not somehow interconnected.” Piety, productivity and, by the end of the nineteenth century, efficiency were all within the same universe of desirable values and consequences of science and progress.

Physics, engineering and chemistry were regnant, and biology was still largely observational rather than experimental, so the great debates about evolution and the origins of life were yet to come. Partly for this reason, conservative religious beliefs were quite compatible with a cohesive moral vision through the late 19th century. Ministers and naturalists could agree on their beliefs about nature. What has changed this American sensibility?

At the turn of the last century the atmosphere shifted due to misconceptions about Darwinism, debates about creationism and, in our time, the advent of experimental biology and modern genetics, which has stimulated political controversies like those over cloning and stem cells. Modern biology has become a cultural wedge. In popular culture, movies like Rise of the Planet the Apes continue a tradition of anxiety about the power of the life sciences that began with “Frankenstein,” with scientists the true villains who, in their fits of hubris, create innocent suffering and creatures who destroy themselves and their creators.

The United States is still by far the biggest producer of new knowledge, but China and other competitors are on the rise. In the 21st century leadership in science is not optional for a nation that proposes to remain a superpower. The new experimental biology will inevitably be part of that new foundation of power and prosperity, but the long-term investments involved require a deep and broad cultural commitment, the kind we’ve had since World War II and that fulfilled the founders’ vision. As I argue in my forthcoming book The Body Politic: The Battle Over Science in America, we need to find ways to include the new biology as part of the American narrative of the 21st century.

Ben would have been the first to sign up for his list. Let’s add all our names to his.

Jonathan D. Moreno is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. This article was also published at the Huffington Post.