Almost daily, advances in STEM subjects capture our admiration and awe for what humanity can accomplish. Higg’s “God particle” is finally discovered; a microchip the size of a finger nail can contain several billion transistors and other electronics; architects can design buildings one-half mile high; one-atom thick “graphene,” the thinnest yet strongest material ever discovered, paves the way for bionic devices connected directly to neurons; entirely new organisms with DNA sequences created on a computer are used to produce food. These accomplishments and the associated “politico-academic” rhetoric about education and research around the globe give us the impression that the future of the world is dependent on the progress of everything STEM.   But it […]