Many of us do take science seriously. What we categorically refuse to take seriously is watermelon politics (green on the outside, red on the inside) masquerading as science.

Hat tip, Economist’s View:

Economist traces height trends, by Tom Hundley, Chicago Tribune: When John Komlos wants to take the measure of a nation’s economic well-being, he doesn’t check its gross domestic product or consumer price index. He ignores … unemployment figures. Instead, Komlos takes a look at how tall its people have grown.

“Height is a very good overall indicator of how well the human organism thrives in its socioeconomic environment,” he explained.

Komlos, a professor in the economics department at the University of Munich, Germany, has dedicated his professional life to the study of anthropometric history—his own coinage for the academic field that studies the links between a population’s height and general well-being.

What Komlos has learned is that Americans, despite their nation’s prosperity, abundance of food and cutting-edge medical technology, stopped getting taller in the 1950s and have now been passed by their European cousins.

“Americans were head and shoulders above Europeans in the 18th Century, and it stayed that way for two centuries,” he said. “Now it’s the other way around.”

This, according to Komlos, suggests that Europeans eat better, have better access to health care and enjoy a more equitable distribution of national wealth. They will almost certainly live longer than their American counterparts. …

1) Neglect of its physical infrastructure, be it transportation, water systems (the Philadelphia one hasn’t had a major overhaul in 120 years!) bridges etc. If there is no will to invest in ourselves, what does that tell us about our priorities?

2) The overreaching influence of money in politics is reaching worrisome levels. As an example, when a publication like the WSJ write an article like “Is Justice For Sale?”, it should be time for a serious debate, no?
As for the extreme partisanship that is poisoning any attempt to solve problems, we have yet to see the end of it.

3) As Anon @ 1:31 noted: “We are not even bound together by an agreement to take science seriously anymore” For a country that pride itself on creativity and technological innovation…such an attitude cannot bode well for the future. You just CAN’T have technology development without a robust sector in fundamental scientific research. Not going to happen.

4) The financial sector has captured an ever-rising share of the market profits. It is far from clear (at least to me) that it have been used to promote re-investment in the country at large.
A financial sector that has also benefited from extraordinary regulatory leniency and favorable treatment from the politicians. Judging by where we stand now with the so-called sub-prime and credit crisis, one has the right to wonder if such treatment was not ill-advised.

5) The parabolic rise in income inequality has yet to demonstrate any tangible benefits for the population at large. There seems to be a huge dam of isolation, self-serving justification and class isolation (”we deserve everything we got, and then some”) preventing the long-awaited trickle down.

6) The decline of the middle class is not what anyone would expect from a country that pretend to have a policy of economic sustainability and growth. When more and more people feel they do not have a stake in the distribution of wealth , why should they fully participate and contribute?

7) Finally, the CDC publish a very disturbing report showing for the first time in six decades, an increase in mortality AND a decrease in life expectancy, in women from low socioeconomic status across a sample of 1,000 counties. This is very important because such indicators are prime markers of the overall health of the population. Note that this observation is unique to the US among developed countries. Hardly encouraging stuff.

Free trade, yea right.

I think the problem is that the elite currently enjoying the ill-gotten gains from the yoked billions of earth are probably not going to be too keen on changing anything.

The key is getting them to walk away from this current operating basis without blasting large numbers of people or countries to oblivion, financially or physically. I don’t doubt the ability of the avg person to do fine in an equitable sharing of power. In fact, I think it would be better than today.

While I agree that the U.S. is unlikely to join the “third world” anytime soon, its place of unrivalled dominance is at an end. Moreover, most of the “third world” has caught up to the first world (with the exception of Africa). Much of the world’s investment in infrastructure, education, industrialization, etc. is now taking place in Asia. Just compare the gleaming new airports of Asia with most “first world” airports, or the extensive broadband infrastructure of Japan and Korea with most U.S. cities, or the education provided to kids in India vs. the best private schools in the U.S. I suspect that you’ll be surprised by how much the difference has been narrowed (or even reversed) in the past few decades.

But whether you believe the U.S. will descend to the third world, or the third world will ascend to the first, the difference is not merely a difference in degree (i.e. a few more seats at the IMF and the UN). It will be a difference in kind (i.e. fundamental shifts in power and geopolitical balance, necessitating new diplomatic and foreign policy directions). And that is what the Western powers fail to recognize.

“When you look at it that way, you may find a lot more places aren’t as fabulous as billed.”

When you look at it that way, you may find yourself saying “I resemble that.”

When you look at it that way, you may find a lot more places aren’t as fabulous as billed.

anon I would argue the contrary. The erosion of values coming out of the free love (myself) generation has resulted in a general lowering of the bar across virtually every segment of society, whether it is parental controls, education standards, personal standards, professional ethics etc. Call it a race to the bottom or whatever you want. Imperialism turned globalization merley embodies the process. The political defense of the incumbant structures should be expected, whcih is to say not belived.