Evaluating Advances in Science

The articles in the "Directions in Science" issue make me wish some of those ivory-towered scientists would take time out for a look at the real world. With our homeless population, AIDS, failing schools, crime, government deficits, drugs, corruption in high office, lack of jobs, etc., should we be thinking of compounding our failures in "colonized space cluttering the entire Milky Way with our mismanaged and irresponsible kind? Frances Wosmek, Magnolia, Mass.

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