State of the (Scientific) Union

Pres. Obama presents Peter Stang with Nat. Medal of Science
Source: Getty Images

Did folks tune in to watch President Barack Obama present the 2012 State of the Union tonight?

Out of sheer curiosity, I downloaded the text to both the 2011 SoTU (Winning the Future) and the 2012 speech (An America Built to Last). Now, I’m no political pundit or news analyst - I’m a scientist. So, I thought an interesting game might be to see how certain scientific themes grew or shrunk over the past 365 ¼ days.

Here’s the breakdown I tallied:
(# of mentions per word in the text)

Oil – 2011: 2, 2012: 10

Energy – 2011: 9, 2012: 23

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Biotech / Biomed / Biofuel – 2011: 3, 2012, 0

Tech / technology – 2011: 12, 2012: 9

Science / scientist – 2011: 7, 2012: 2

Engineering – 2011: 3, 2012: 1

Research – 2011: 9, 2012: 4

Development – 2011: 1, 2012: 2

Nuclear – 2011: 5, 2012: 3

College / Universities– 2011: 12, 2012: 15

Chemical – 2011: 0, 2012: 1 (Unfortunately, it was used in a negative connotation)

Math – 2011: 3, 2012: 0

Health – 2011: 8, 2012: 5

Is there a take-home message to counting up words and relating them to the direction of the country? Perhaps not. Thematically, the two speeches were different: 2011 was more forward-looking and focused on education, business, and terrorism; while 2012 dealt with global politics, congressional reform, and taxes. 

But there exists notable declines in most science-related topics from last year’s speech to this one. Except, of course, on topics where economics and science often cross – substantial mentions of oil and energy.