Newsweek just can't bring itself to lay the blame where it belongs for the death of the American competitor to the Large Hadron Collider:
Not long ago the United States seemed certain to stay on top. In the 1980s and early 1990s, 30 kilometers of tunnel was dug in Waxahachie, Texas, south of Dallas, to house the Superconducting Supercollider-a machine that was to be much like the LHC, but bigger and more expensive. President Ronald Reagan, calling the project a "doorway to a new world," agreed to foot the $8.4 billion price tag without help from international partners. Physicists spent years designing experiments in hopes of grants and big discoveries. In 1993, with $2 billion spent and cost estimates swelling to $11 billion, the project came to an abrupt end. The U.S. Congress, worried about budget deficits, pulled the plug.
Isn't it interesting that one of our country's most ambitious scientific projects in a very long time was started by the icon of conservatism Ronald Reagan, but ended up getting killed by a left-wing Democratic congress and President in order to save money for more important things like food stamps and other forms of welfare programs? Meanwhile trolls across the Internet commenting on this story are blaming religious fundamentalists for something that was done by left-wing secularists to make sure that social programs didn't have to get cut.
The article itself is pure alarmism, as Europe's star is starting to burn out over demographic issues. In 20 years, the economy of Europe will be too badly crippled by pension payments to retirees to host a largescale project of this sort. While America may decline, it will remain one of the most viable environments for scientific and engineering work.
People can blame our decline on creationism and other red herrings, but those are just convenient targets. Creationism and other memetic whipping boys of the secular left have nothing to do with the fact that education standards have been steadily declining in the name of equality and making sure that every student feels special, not to mention the fact that most public school teachers have nothing even remotely passing a mastery of their subject area. What can you expect when you have educators educated in education educating students in fields other than education which, at best, they had as a college minor?
Well, maybe this will be the catalyst that will jump-start a research culture gutted by decades of the Left's war on merit.
I'm not counting on it though. It's more fun to blame the fundies who control universities and government these days.