National Science Foundation

“ Implementing the latter, appropriations were authorized for the purpose of rotary-wing and other aircraft research, development, procurement, experimentation, and operation for service testing. [513]
The National Science Foundation was established in 1950 as an independent agency, but within the executive branch of government. ”

“ The foundation does not play a direct role in formulation of national science policy; however, it exercises an important influence on the organization and development of industrial research, both by its scientific activities and by measures which it takes to enhance the coordination and financing of technological research activities undertaken by other bodies. ”

“ The State Research Foundation supports research in natural sciences, social sciences, medicine, agriculture, and veterinary science. The STVF works closely with the DTVF and supports applied research and development. ”

“ The production team of the television series, Bill Nye the Science Guy, the entertaining and innovative hands-on science program for young people, is receiving the NSB's organizational Public Service Award for 1999. ”

“ Mix in a little of their own craziness, and they prove each day how science is inherently tied to everyday life. This award also celebrates the many supplementary materials and educational kits that have made Bill Nye the Science Guy a special forum for advancing the public's understanding and appreciation of science. ”

“ It is thought by some persons who have given special attention to the subject, that the State ought to encourage such research and science in general, by appointing a Minister of Science possessing scientific knowledge and good administrative ability; a Scientific Council to advise our Governments in all important matters relating to science; and by establishing State laboratories for pure scientific inquiry, with discoverers of repute in them wholly engaged in research in their respective subjects. ”

“ The fundamental object in founding State laboratories should be to keep a staff of the most competent men wholly engaged in original research in pure science, and a secondary object might be to train assistants to become investigators. ”

“ Similar research facilities in other departments of physical science have been presented to American universities by the public-spirited men of the United States. But nothing has illustrated so well the possibilities of intelligent public interest in and generosity to science as the rapid rise of organized American science in the last twenty-five years, culminating in the organization of the National Research Council. ”

“ At our old Universities also, physical and chemical knowledge is very much less rewarded than some other subjects, though latterly a considerable improvement has been made in this respect, but even now there is not a University in the kingdom in which a knowledge in scientific research is necessary in order to obtain the highest scientific honour. [8] In these various ways physical and chemical science has been kept very low in our chief seats of learning; and scientific research is greatly neglected by the governing authorities. ”

“ The members of the National Academy of Sciences are elected on account of distinguished services to science, and not on account of their cleverness as administrators or organizers. The National Research Council was to be organized for the purpose of “stimulating research in mathematical, physical, and biological sciences, and in the application of these sciences to engineering, agriculture, medicine, and other useful arts, with the object of increasing knowledge, of strengthening the national defense, and of contributing in other ways to the public welfare.” ”

“ It appears to me that those who really desire the advancement of science cannot too carefully or cautiously weigh the schemes now rife for the endowment of physical research. Unquestionably, the abstract proposition that science is worthy of national support must be admitted as just. ”

“ Physics and chemistry, the two sciences most immediately bound up with modern progress, have received little or no public aid. No laboratory exclusively for research has yet been endowed either by national or private enterprise. ”

“ The Council are of opinion that this Society would be omitting a principal means of the advancement of Science—the end for which all such associations exist—if it neglected the question of the Endowment of Research. To maintain a successful investigator in his labours, even though no results of immediate or obvious utility can be shown to spring out of them, is of interest to the community at large. ”

“ The time is near at hand when this nation will be compelled by the injurious consequences arising from its neglect of scientific research, to acquire a knowledge of the relations of science to national existence and welfare, and to adopt some means of encouraging discovery. The greatest difficulty, probably, which has to be overcome, is not so much how to obtain funds for the purpose, as how to employ them successfully, and especially how to prevent their getting into the hands of unsuitable persons. ”

“ What ought to be the relation of the National Government to science? What, if anything, ought we to do in the way of promoting science? For example, if we have the power, would it be wise for Congress to appropriate money out of the Treasury, to employ naturalists to find out all that is to be known of our American birds? Ornithology is a delightful and useful study; but would it be wise for Congress to make an appropriation for the advancement of that science? ”

“ The great difficulty of determining from what source discoverers should be paid for their labours, arises from the fact that all classes of the community share in the benefit. It is evident they should in some measure be paid from a source towards which all classes either directly or indirectly contribute, and therefore from some public fund. The persons who first use scientific knowledge are the compilers of scientific books, and teachers of science ”

“ That much greater encouragement of it by our Government, by the Universities and the Public, is highly necessary to our commercial prosperity. They have also stated in evidence their opinions as to the best ways in which they consider it may be assisted. The additional fact that all the greatest scientific men who have ever existed have pursued research, and sacrificed much for it, is a practical proof that they also approved of its encouragement.
That research should be promoted is further the opinion of many men learned in politics, literature, art, and science. ”

“ Nothing can be more desirable than that every possible facility and encouragement should be afforded for such researches, and indeed to the pursuits of the enlightened resident or traveller in every department of science, by the representatives of our national authority wherever our power extends. ”

“ Closely allied with the problem of economic ad­justment is the question of scientific research. I de­sire to reiterate my recommendation in a previous message to the National Assembly to consolidate all the agencies of the Government engaged in scientific research into one scientific research institute, using the Bureau of Science as a nucleus for the purpose. The expenses for its operation may be covered with the funds appropriated for the Bureau of Science and the other agencies of the Government dealing in re­search. ”

“ The national institutions for education should, indeed, have farms and workshops; but the foremost object of these should be, not to afford simple employment to young men, but to give them, in connection with their studies in the sciences, what may be called laboratories, where they can see science applied in as practical a manner as possible—laboratories, whether field or shop, where they can see sciences limited by the necessities of practice. ”

“ With these materials, with the systematic study which is being carried on in government laboratories, in experiment stations, in agricultural colleges and universities of the chemistry of the soil and of the food and metabolism of plants, with the industry of the fertilizer chemists, and with the awakening of the farmer to the needs of such knowledge, we can hopefully expect a bountiful food supply for the world's table.
The aid of science is noteworthy in increasing human vitality,—one of the principal factors in national efficiency, and a form of conservation. ”

“ The scope and speed of our discoveries are truly breathtaking, and each day new applications of science and technology enrich our lives in fields as diverse as medicine, communications, engineering, and the arts.
Recognizing the importance of maintaining America's scientific and technological leadership, my Administration is seeking increased funding in areas like biomedical research and in earth and space sciences. ”

“ Far from decreasing the necessity for experiment, each new discovery in the realm of natural science opens the door to additional possibilities. To-day every important college, most cities, many industries, and public institutions maintain experimental laboratories in the various fields of applied knowledge, and employ highly trained experts whose sole duty it is to try things out. ”

“ It has been my wish to state in general terms the aims of the laboratory, to make the advance of physical science more readily available for the needs of the nation and then to illustrate the way in which it is intended to attain those aims: I trust I may have shown that the National Physical Laboratory is an institution which may deservedly claim the cordial support of all who are interested in real progress. ”

“ In addition to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, with its eleven sections covering the entire field of the natural and exact sciences, no less than twenty-five independent societies will meet in affiliation. These national societies include those devoted to mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology, geography, paleontology, physiology, astronomy, bacteriology, zoology, entomology, botany, psychology, philosophy and anthropology. ”

“ Immediately a discovery is effected it is made public, and is afterwards incorporated in the ordinary text books of science, ready for the use of inventors; and in this way such books have become filled with valuable knowledge acquired by researches in past times. All this knowledge (which has cost millions of pounds and a vast amount of intellect and labour) has been given by its discoverers freely to the nation. ”

“ On March 4, 1998, the National Science Policy Study Task Force conducted the first in a series of seven hearings entitled, "National Science Policy Study, Parts I-VII" to examine the common components educators have found that are critical to engaging children in science, and thereby successfully imparting scientific understanding to them. ”

“ Relevant departments of the State Council shall, in accordance with the division of duties, strengthen training of talents in terms of researchers in the basic science of biology and technicians in the field of biology, so as to promote the development of academic disciplines of the basic science of biology and enhance research in the basic science of biology. ”

“ His seminal contributions to evolutionary science are enormous -- and so are his inexhaustible efforts to bring an appreciation of science and understanding of its concepts to the widest possible audiences. ”

“ Such research holds the promise of continuing this progress, protecting the environment, creating jobs, growing the economy through innovative ideas and discoveries, and generally advancing all mankind. (4) People in the United States can benefit when scientific research is conducted and communicated in a transparent manner to better inform citizens about the nature and status of such research. ”

“ Science and scientific research and discoveries are the international agencies by which the riddles and miracles of the universe, in all their magnitude, are solved and explained. Institutions of learning, schools and universities are linked together by the uniformity of fundamental laws governing science and the dissemination of knowledge and discoveries. ”

“ Scientists are needed also in private research foundations, pharmaceutical and drug houses, international organizations, museums, observatories, weather stations, and thousands of other installations. ”

“ But instead of its being true that the scientific work of the country has outgrown the need of the association, is it not rather true that we are in far more urgent need of its unifying agency than even the founders were fifty years ago? We have all the [Pg 469] divisions of science that were then recognized, and half as many more. Physics and chemistry could then be classed in one section without offense, and zoölogy and botany were assigned without protest to a single heading. ”

“ He spread the knowledge in popular lectures throughout the Eastern States, graduated many a student in the sciences, making of some of them professional teachers and geologists, provided all with a journal wherein they could publish their research, organized the first geological society and through his students the first official geological surveys, and by kind words and acts stimulated, fostered, and held together American scientific men for fifty years. Of him it has been truly said that he was “the guardian of American science from its childhood.” ”

“ While in our Society, as in the firmament, one star differed from another star in glory, yet among those ready to contribute to the program or discussion, we might then count many of those reckoned as authorities in their special lines of work and in many different fields.
As the body of scientific men in government service, or local educational institutions, increased with the increasing importance of scientific method and the evolution of the sciences themselves, new bodies sprang into existence, aiming to exploit special provinces of the realm of science. ”