SFI Omidyar Fellow Simon DeDeo asks on CNN.com if the excitement surrounding the Curiosity rover's landing on Mars suggests that Americans are "rekindling their romance with science after what seemed like a long and tepid stupor."
Read his opinion piece on CNN.com (August 7, 2012)
"Americans have always been taken with the adventure of the 'final frontier,'" Dedeo writes. "But perhaps this is not enough to explain our intense interest this week in a technological marvel.
"Maybe we saw something deeper in the successful landing of Curiosity. We experienced -- even if vicariously -- a group achieving unambiguous excellence.
"In a nation where a city like Detroit can nearly collapse, where consensus on important policy issues seems far off, where some of the 'best and brightest' minds of finance have built fragile institutions, how is it possible that a large cast of scientists and engineers can pull off such a remarkable task?"
He goes on to suggest that a new era of science is upon us in which we might begin to understand the principles underlying human behaviors.
"As scientists, my colleagues and I are inspired every day to put theories of both nature and human kind to the test, in hopes of answering their whys and hows."
Read his opinion piece on CNN.com (August 7, 2012)
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