The Inevitable Decline

"Consciousness is nothing but the physical processes taking place in the brain. ... Consciousness is just another interaction of particles."

This article touches on the decline of science in the US, and the work of some academics to try and gin up some enthusiasm in the American youth.

There's a couple of things causing this.. of course.. the prime being the rise of the religious nutbaggery in the US. They actually despise the "intellectual elite" and embrace the stupid.. as embodied by Sarah Palin.

When a leading academic proposes that what makes up our "soul" is nothing more than yet more adherence to the physics of particles, rather than a magical mystery product of the deity in the sky, it's not particularly difficult to see why the nutbags are so indignant.

The US is probably doomed to lose what we perceive to be it's elite status among nations. It happens to every nation that wants to claim to be better than all the others. It's just the ebb and flow of history, and no reason to be concerned. I'm guessing the Asians get to be the next big kahunas of the world.