Future Tense event re-cap

Yesterday I caught a bit of the Future Tense event, "How to Save America’s Knowledge Enterprise" which was a 5 1/2 hour seminar webcast from DC. Future Tense is a collaboration between Slate magazine, the New America Foundation, and Arizona State University (more specifically, the Consortium for Science, Policy, & Outcomes, who I'm loosely affiliated with).

I would recommend watching parts of the actual video, especially if there are topics of specific interest to you. From the parts I watched, the panel discussions and responses to questions were the most interesting. Much of the discussion was around what and how the government should fund science, which is obviously the essence of science policy. The panelists really grappled with contradictions over basic and applied research, funding long-shots vs. incremental improvements, and citizen participation/education/understanding in/of science. So since I can't think of much else to say right now, here are three related links.

• Forget About the Mythical Lone Inventor in the Garage (Slate). I linked to this yesterday, but its worth re-sharing.
• Can We Save America's R&D System? A Future Tense Event (Slate). A brief recap of the event.
• How Thomas Edison, Mark Zuckerberg and Iron Man are holding back American innovation (Washington Post). Anything that compares Iron Man to science & technology policy has already won me over. I recently watched the Avengers and Iron Man 2, and couldn't help but think about the military-industrial-complex and technology assessments (esp. in Iron Man 2!).