The US is the world’s science superpower — but for how long?

A few things about China science,they are getting better,and the rate they are getting better is accelerating and something that is possibly of much greater significance is that China is implimenting new scientific knowledge into products quickly and of even greater significance those implimentations are across the board and at scale another thing to note is that China scales everything and impliments infrastructure accross the board,and to do this,China's engineering is very good,bridges,roads,ports,mines,power plants,hospitals,railways,factorys,etc ,etc, etc,go up big ,fast/on time,on budget and I think that it's by plan that the main focus in China is still on infrastructure,ie: all the best brains are working on infrastructure,but as that is maturing,the focus will shift towards science,and as we all know,there is a great deal left to learn and our infrastructure isn't that great

True. When I worked for a synthetic organic lab the GTAs, who were Indian, told me they don't trust publications from after 1980.

This is a very good point. And it works across the board. The Vietnam War led to many bright and ambitious young people leaving the US. I know. Many of them were my teachers.

> 3 seems irrelevant with regard to China given the difference in population sizes being compensated for

Not what i am implying. It is the differences in modes of thinking coming from different cultures that leads to breakthroughs, sustaining development and more. They play off of each other's strengths leading to something unique which is not possible in a mono-cultural country. It is hard to quantify directly but can be measured via its effects on Science/Technology/Economy etc.

See the psychologist Richard Nisbett's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_E._Nisbett) works; The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geography_of_Thought) and Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_and_How_to_Get_It) for some insights.

The academic dishonesty is a direct result of the autocratic government. If the government wants to have research that proofs X, they will get research that proofs X. Academics know that there's no use in researching stuff that might show something that disagrees with the government, so they don't even bother.

Idk which news you read about China stamping out academic fraud, but that's basically a red herring. Xi's very public "anti-corruption" campaign has mostly targeted people from opposing factions within the CCP. They will be replaced with people that are just as corrupt, but loyal to Xi.

edit: don't forget that any news coming from China is heavily redacted by the CCP.

In fact, for scientists, whether or not to believe in global climate change is a very clear dividing line. Essentially, the existence of climate change is a scientific consensus, and denying its existence is equivalent to rejecting science...

But I also want to point out that Nature has different political views from scientists: they want more research funding, which makes sense for a publisher that profits from government research funding worldwide.

You're missing the point.

Everything you said could be true, but it does no good for Nature or any other ostensibly neutral and apolitical scientific organisations to make express political endorsements. Scientists and others who regularly read Nature don't need Nature to tell them who to vote for, nor is Nature going to change their view one way or the other; and by the same token, the very people Nature might like to imagine it could persuade to vote for Harris are the very last people who would ever read a Nature feature article about Federal science funding.

But those people - the ones who would never read this kind of article voluntarily and for information's sake - will absolutely latch onto the fact that Nature is making an explicit Harris endorsement and bashing Trump, and this will be irrefutable evidence that science, scientists, and the scientific gatekeepers are all beholden to 'the Left'. Thus, Trump voters will not unreasonably see any and all scientific conclusions as government-sponsored lies and all scientific outputs as somewhere along the spectrum of mind control nanobot devices.

In short there is absolutely no reason for Nature to be expressly partisan, and every reason for it NOT to be. It's bad enough that a sizable portion of the American public think 5G is reading their minds and that the US government is somehow orchestrating hurricanes - giving them actual fact evidence that the industry is biased against them just ensures they'll never listen to anything that industry says (Exhibit A: Vaccines).

There's just no upside to Nature doing this.