Last week the NSF Science Indicators report was released, triggering more dramatic calls to action and overstated warnings from commentators about the alleged decline of science in American society. This predictable reaction is part of a decades enduring "fall from grace narrative" about the place of science in American society, a distracting if not harmful myth that I discussed in a co-authored article with Dietram Scheufele published earlier this year.
Since Sputnik, each decade has spawned a novel form of this American jeremiad, whether it be the Cold War race against the Russians,…
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