Talk:Science and technology in the United States/Archive 1

Untitled
It is difficult to make a fair oversight for science in 4 centuries. But even given taht: the part about space is seriously misleading: Goddard wouldn´t have made it to the moon. One should mention the military background as well as "Operation Paperclip".

Also missing, in my opinion, is the huge brain drain from Europe beginning in the thirties.

POV problems and things missing
Well, I think to note that this is an overwhelmingly optimistic approach of American science goes without saying. But the last section, "Troubling Signs" is just a POV rant about commercial interests and the Bush administration. If it was restructued to be, "Some critics charge..." it might be a bit better. There's a lot missing here about the history of science in the USA, and maybe I'll get around to it, but here's a few things it could use: If anybody wants to contribute on any of that... it'd be great! --Fastfission 00:02, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Science in the 19th century: the effect of the Morrill Land Grant on the American university system (creation of public universities in part to promote agricultural science), development of the American university model (Johns Hopkins and the creation of undergraduate education)
 * Science during the Cold War: science as an ideological angle, the national laboratory system, increased prestige put into scientific education
 * General progress of American science: science in the USA was originally quite poor even though many of the founders were scientists. It was not until the late 1920s that the USA started to even become a place where students could get a world-class scientific education, and really not until after World War II that America surpassed Europe in terms of science.
 * Anti-scientific movements in the USA: Creationism, Luddites, extreme environmentalism, etc.
 * The American Inventor: Edison, Sperry, etc., the "lone inventor" model (and its fallacies).

Title
Fine article; any interesting in changing title to History of science in the United States? jengod 22:44, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)
 * That's probably more accurate. Of course, the main problem will be again distinguishing between "History of science in the United States" and "History of Science in the United States" in its meaning (labeling something as "history of science" risks the same confusion over whether you are talking about the literal history of the science or the discipline called "history of science") that is the bane of the current article on history of science. --Fastfission 23:09, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What's this article about?
First, the text was full of factual errors and unrelated sentences; I removed the most obvious, it still needs a lot of working. Who writes all this stuff - it appeared more like a poor ad by some slobby advertising firm than just a poor article stub. Furthermore, the idea of this article remains a question. Is it.. I believe we need some kind of definition for this article.--Donut2 06:29, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * .."who invented what" in connection to the United States? There is no point to discuss each country separately because the geographical details of scientific and technological development are very complex. Whatever the reader is looking for, it would be better if he went directly to look articles via History of science and History of technology (and yes, those articles need improvement). The only thing this article might possibly be useful for is...
 * ..history of the general framework in the country (legal support, government agencies, cultural phenomenons, etc.)? I believe, this would be better put in article like Science and technology in politics where it would be possible to discuss the trends and various systems in the context of all countries (to get the international pov, which is extremely relevant in science&technology), and then create main articles if some country specific content really bloats.
 * ..something else?


 * Probably the second bullet is roughly the idea. Not only politics, but the evolution of institutions, establishment of disciplines, importance in American culture, etc.  But another main function should eventually be to describe the current state of science and technology in the United States (the relative size and economic importance of different aspects of S & T, political economy of science, etc.).--ragesoss 14:43, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Eventually, as others noted long ago, we'll have to make a distinction between the history and the current state by creating a new article and moveing content, but until we have more editors focused on adding and improving the content, it's not really an issue.--ragesoss 14:46, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

"Troubling signs"
This needs to be changed to a more neutral title such as "the future" or something, with both positive and negative signs mentioned.--Rotten 22:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposed Merger
I had originally tagged this article to be merged with United States technological and industrial history as this article is generally written about history. However, I removed the tag and would like to keep the articles separate because: Madcoverboy 18:50, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) I believe that this article should attempt to convey some of the history of American science and technology, but also the roles of social institutions (universities, government organizations, companies) and policy decisions that have shaped the current landscape.
 * 2) Technological and industrial history should attempt to provide some sort of bridge between this article and the other histories of the US by describing the turning points and emergence of technological systems that shaped American history.

Departments and agencies?
What federal players are there in the field of science and tech? --193.166.137.75 (talk) 09:23, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Dozens. A huge portion of standard "history of science" and "history of technology" courses in the U.S. is devoted just to understanding how all the various agencies fit together (not very well, by the way).  NSF, DARPA, AFOSD, ONR, NIH, just to name a few.  It takes about two months of sustained study to really understand it. --Coolcaesar (talk) 17:05, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Post-Cold-War
There's virtually nothing in this article about anything past the cold war. The US's current attitudes and policies towards science and technology do belong in here. 216.6.128.244 (talk) 12:26, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Early Scientists
The 18th century section puts forth the idea that American revolutionaries were the only men of science, and this is definitely false. Not only are there noteworthy scientists before the Revolution (Like Cotton Mather who was inducted into the Royal Society) but there are also men of science who opposed the war. In Boston alone I can name Dr. John Jeffires & Benjamin Thomson (their acheivments are well described in their respective wikipedia articles). They should not be neglected just because their stories do not fit the narrative. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.245.60.49 (talk) 18:52, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Famous scientists omitted
Joseph Henry was one of the most important U.S. scientists of the early 19th century. Josiah Willard Gibbs was one of the most important U.S. Scientists of the mid to late 19th century.Phmoreno (talk) 17:55, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Should be split up
Non science based technologies should be removed from this article because the amount of technology developed in the U.S. would overwhelm the science based technology, more so in the pre-1870 period than post 1870.Phmoreno (talk) 17:59, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * What are non science technologies? Invasive Spices (talk) 23 November 2022 (UTC)
 * @Invasive Spices: Just so you're aware—Phmoreno was blocked in 2019. DecafPotato (talk) 06:22, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I see. Good to be made aware. Invasive Spices (talk) 6 December 2022 (UTC)