I've always stuck with the scientist's party line with this topic and thought "shock and horror, Australia is producing fewer scientists". Incidentally at an ABC Science Week forum last year part of the reason for this 'problem' was that older scientists (at the university level) were making it more difficult for the younguns to move up through the ranks.

Today I'll play the Devil's Advocate and ask, if Australia is producing fewer scientists: so what? Is the state of our nation in peril? Is this a national disaster or simply a jingoistic response that 'we' 'have' to be doing this type of work. Is this just a notion of science within borders and if so if WA is producing less scientists than Tasmania is the state of WA in peril?

Science by it's nature of peer review and collaboration is international and maybe less science in a particular area might (just might) mean less revenue going to that area, but that assumes that the area producing the science will actually have the capital, infrastructure, market demand, political nouse and get up and go to 'do something' with it. Witness the solar break throughs made at The University of New South Wales, but now being commercialised in China. The problem was not with the science but with the follow up. In the end though we'll get to use the cheaper manufactured results of the work as we import them.

There is an almost religious ferment to this topic but, as an economist, I'd ask is Australia currently better off doing 'other' things with it national financial capital?

Despite the above I'm not a luddite, I know that more scientists means more science and breakthroughs but hey, it's in the nature of science to pose challenging questions. Isn't it?

i think the answer is blinding evident: do we want to earn a living at a desk, or at the front end of a rickshaw.

encouraging science is just one reflection of encouraging every ozzie to be as smart, educated, and well-trained as possible.

JH, I think the salient point is that without a strong science base in Australia, we will lack the in-house capacity to advise and guide our society through what will doubtless be challenging times. In the absence of sound, scientifically credible independent advice, public debates on economic, social and environmental issues will all too easily be sidelined by parties with vested interests in particular outcomes that may not be in the public interest.

Climate change is also an example of an issue that poses both challenges and opportunities, other examples might include biotechnology (including stem cell research) and renewable energy. Without a strong scientific base, we are limited in our capacity to capitalise on emerging opportunities. We leave our economy exposed and increasingly difficult to transform and lock ourselves in as technology takers rather than developers of new industries.

I think one of the great problems here is “economic rationalism” or “neo-liberalism”. If we are to have a knowledge economy that increasingly embraces areas of emerging technologies based on new science such as nano and bio tech then it follows that this won’t come from the “market” yet we are always told that markets "know" best. High technology industry comes from government investment not the mythical operation of market forces. This of course flatly contradicts the key tenets of economic theory but it is indeed ironic that in Australia science is suffering because of the sway of the “scientific credentials” of a body of theory that so flatly contradicts empirical reality.

Well said Kveldulv.

"Our national progress will be limited to the speed at which old politicians can absorb new scientific concepts. Frightening thought.

In the 21st century, science needs to drive the political agenda, not vice versa."

Now THAT'S a frightening thought ... particularly given the predominance of foreign corporations and finance capital with our 'Economy' and the narrow, specialist 'education' given to Australian science graduates!

Knowledge deficit looming? ... its already upon us, has been so for decades and the majority of us will continue to pay the increasingly high price of ignorance of the political-economy under which we are forced to labour - Kaputalism!

It's a great idea to establish an independent National Science Council. Let's hope this kite will soar high enough to get noticed and attract the support it deserves from candidates and parties in their forthcoming federal election campaigns.

The combined views of the scientific sector do need to be presented openly, fairly, ethically, objectively and without fear. The coherant policy views from such a scientific forum should, like Treasury, inform all government decision making.

A good starting point for science policy would be to consider providing Australian science students with free tertiary science courses with guranteed employment opportunities at well funded Australian research institutes.

Improving our disappointing scientific knowledge deficit must be a high priority for the next government. To do so, opens the way for scientific breakthroughs and solid foundation research for future venture capital, and Future Fund support, in taking up innovation and new knowledge that has a real wow factor.

These kind of aspirations may seem delusional in the current political climate, where fear and greed seem to be the same tired prime motivators again on offer to voters. Are we that shallow and easily bribed? Surely there are some visionary leaders in the house who could share the dream of our country becoming a world leader in intellectual property and take us towards the UN's millenium goals?

Change can only happen when politicians wake up to the fact that Australia can't rely on mineral exports forever. A diversified trade portfolio needs scientific input across all sectors. A National Science Council can map out the course ahead - if it has real independance, quarrantined from the contaminants of political favouritsm and interferance.

Scientists – we need more of them? Heaven forbid!

More – for what purpose - to propel us faster towards the inevitable troubles on the near horizon ahead?
Make more efficient, our predation upon the natural resources we have come, at last, to realize are finite?
To streamline operations so that predation rates may be increased?
To perhaps refine processes that lead to consumption, in order to increase human numbers - for that sake alone, rather the wellbeing of numbers already existing?

Just how we are going to use scientists? That might be at least as important as how many.
Are they, in general, going to continue on as “Uncle Toms”, and a “yes boss”; being politically correct, easily bludgeoned into bastardizing their work to suit the politics and ethics of their employer at the expense of society’s needs?

It is a tough ask of them to do otherwise – more than is being asked of society generally. But, unless it is otherwise, they will be no more than facilitators of society’s march along its present unsustainable path.

We do have desperate need for dedicated scientists, such as the taxonomists, to explore the details for putting more rungs on society’s ladder of understanding and knowledge. We need them to enhance our ability to continue for a little longer, in some comfort and cohesion, within our environment.

We do need them, and need to give them a leg-up to do what is necessary. We do not need them as slaves in a lunatic society bound to an infinity of expansion

calm down, colin- there's nothing you can do, so relax and enjoy it.

after you other giant brains agree on what we should do, would you please give more thought to the question of actually getting something done?

all the discussion above seems to me to be empty blather- angel on pinhead counting. never any discussion of how to realize policies, because every one in oz not a member of parliament has nothing whatever to say about managing the nation's policies. a nation of eunuchs, most of whom are sensible enough not to talk about sex. not you lot, though.

why aren't you talking about how to get from here to democracy? the policies you want might be attainable if supported by the public. they aren't attainable under pollie rule. is that too hard for you?

Radical proposals Julian. Such stimulation to discourse will soon have you identified as an enemy of the state.
In this brave new innovative Australia where the Minister for Rivers knows more than any scientist or scientific organisation and where everything that moves is made overseas, is it being proposed that we train more scientists to boost our export figures?
However if there is a branch of science that can address the problem of chronic mendacity in politicians and inherited mediocrity in Australian men then I say go for it.
Bruce Haigh

Markob says: "High technology industry comes from government investment not the mythical operation of market forces."

I guess motor vehicles (Ford, GM, Merceds Benz etc), electricity, electronics, computers (IBM, Apple etc) and computer software (Microsoft etc) washing machines and refrigerators were picked as winners by all-knowing, all-benevolent governments?

Markob, the operation of market forces is not mythical, it happens every day. When you chose which car you would buy (I presume you don't live on a desert island) you were making a free market choice. Likewise for everything else you have ever bought. Because consumers like you choose to buy certain things other people then respond by meeting the demand for the very same things. If people don't want or need products they won't buy them and that's the way it should be. People have the right to own personal property and the right to buy and sell as they choose and that's what drives investment and innovation. What people want or need will create a demand and others will try to satisfy that need through manufacturing, invention, research and innovation. There's nothing mysterious or mythical about that process at all.

On the other hand Julian Cribb asserts that "science" needs more money from government. Why? Because there has been "...a 10 per cent decline in general science investment relative to the economy as a whole during the past decade." Now that's a very lazy argument: "We are getting less money so we need to get more."

Cribb needs to go back to the beginnnig and prove to us that government is good at picking winners.

While in general agreement with Julian Cribb's article, I think it is a pity that discussion of our national commitment to science and knowledge creation is almost always argued in economic terms. Is GDP and run-away consumption the only good to which Australians aspire? I don't believe so.

How about a debate on the importance of resourcing the sciences and other areas of knowledge creation in order to enrich the cultural and intellectual life of our communities, to inform the typically abysmal level of public policy discourse, and provide a some counter-balance to frightening depth of uninformed superstition to which so many people turn in search for meaning in a complex and confusing world.

Without such a commitment I fear for the future of our secular democracy.