Last week's report by the Council of Canadian Academies on the status of science and technology in our universities, non-profit and government sectors produced interesting headlines.
"Canada ranked fourth in the world for scientific research," proclaimed the Globe and Mail. "Canada sees slide in science: Study," said the headline in the Windsor Star.
Nothing wrong with that. High rankings often make headlines. So do slides.
The study, requested by Industry Minister Christian Paradis, if it was meant to, didn't do much to counter the impression across the land that his government has eviscerated science and truncated technology to save money for other things.
What our researchers excel in - those in the private sector weren't examined - is in producing scientific papers. That's where we come fourth, behind the U.S., Britain and Germany.
A lot of these papers are cited by researchers in other parts of the world, making Canada sixth in that department.
What else? Since 2005, Canada is the only G7 country to increase its output of scientific papers above the world average. Since then, apparently, more researchers have moved to Canada than left it.
After surveying more than 5,000 researchers around the world and 679 in Canada, the CCA came up with six "fields" in which Canada "excels": clinical medicine, historical studies, information and communications technologies, psychological and cognitive sciences, physics and astronomy, visual and performing arts.
Now, I don't know how some of these can be classified as science, but there you are. Neither do I know how the study was able to identify nine sub-fields in which Canada "leads the world in scientific impact," especially "classics."
One might be excused for thinking of the science of poisoning family rivals or the technology of aqueducts.
The scientific "slide" has occurred in natural resources and environmental science and technology, reminding us, at once, of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's declaration that "science" will play at least part of the role in deciding whether the Enbridge pipeline from Alberta will be built.
The report says that "scientific output and impact in these fields were either static or declined" between 2005 and 2010, compared to 1994-2004 - a polite way, I suppose, of describing the Harper Effect.
Even so, the report says, researchers regard Canada as second in the world for agriculture, fish and forestry and fourth in earth and environmental sciences.
But where is our research going? Last spring Science Minister Gary Goodyear announced that innovation has become the "central focus" of his government - "from the research laboratory to the production floor."
Has it, indeed? "Despite producing 4.1 per cent of the world's scientific papers, Canada holds only 1.7 per cent of world patents," said last week's report. In 2010, this country spent almost $5 billion more to access intellectual property from other countries than it received from foreigners to access ours.
Part of the problem may be that few people are interested in the innovative ideas our scientists and classicists are coming up with. Part of the problem may be that getting an idea patented in this country is a bureaucratic obstacle course.
Sometimes, though, I wonder why ours and the world's brightest minds are being turned to silly things.
Last week there were reports that Japanese scientists have developed a device to shut talkative people up by playing their own voice back at them while they're speaking. At Manchester University in England, they've recreated the form of a 300 millionyear-old ancestor of the cockroach.
The stuff that makes and breaks fortunes are new high-tech devices for wasting time, like the game in which Bad Piggies destroy the eggs of Angry Birds. Browsing has replaced study. Any Research worth its salt must be in Motion, although it's going nowhere.
Meanwhile, the Arctic ice is disappearing, coral reefs are collapsing, invasive species are chasing others out and parts of the world are running out of water. Many countries considered "developing" aren't, because extreme weather is leading to crop failures that are leading to malnutrition, poverty and associated disease.
What the rover finds on Mars might be interesting. What humankind loses while frittering time away on Earth surely is more than interesting.
