Tuesday, January 20, 2015

2015 State of the (Scientific) Union

(Adapted from last year's post with 2015 data)

Did you watch President Barack Obama present tonight's 2015 State of the Union address?

Source: Whitehouse.gov
I downloaded the text to the 2015 S.o.T.U. (Turning Point), and compared it against the text from 2011 (Winning the Future), 2012 (An America Built to Last), 2013 (Unfinished Tasks / Next Chapter), and 2014 (Opportunity for All).

I’m not a political pundit or a news analyst - I *am* a scientist (see below). So let's see how certain scientific themes grew or shrunk over the past 365 days.

Breakdown (# of each word in full text):

Energy – 2011: 9, 2012: 23, 2013: 18, 2014: 8, 2015: 2
Oil – 2011: 2, 2012: 10, 2013: 5, 2014: 6, 2015: 4
Gas - 2011: 1, 2012: 9, 2013: 7, 2014: 4, 2015: 2
Wind / Solar - 2011: 4, 2012: 3, 2013: 4, 2014: 2, 2015: 3
Nuclear – 2011: 5, 2012: 3, 2013: 3, 2014: 5, 2015: 5
Batteries - 2011: 0, 2012: 2, 2013: 1, 2014: 0, 2015: 0
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Biotech / Biomed / Biofuel – 2011: 3, 2012: 0, 2013: 0, 2014: 0, 2015: 0
Chemical – 2011: 0, 2012: 1, 2013: 0, 2014: 1, 2015: 0
Tech / technology – 2011: 12, 2012: 9, 2013: 8, 2014: 6, 2015: 3
Science / scientist – 2011: 7, 2012: 2, 2013: 4, 2014: 1, 2015: 6
Engineering – 2011: 3, 2012: 1, 2013: 3, 2014: 1, 2015: 0
Math – 2011: 3, 2012: 0, 2013: 2, 2014: 1, 2015: 1
Research – 2011: 9, 2012: 4, 2013: 4, 2014: 4, 2015: 2
Development – 2011: 1, 2012: 2, 2013: 1, 2014: 0, 2015: 2
Carbon – 2011: 0, 2012: 0, 2013: 1, 2014: 3, 2015: 1
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College / Universities– 2011: 12, 2012: 15, 2013: 8, 2014: 12, 2015: 14
Health – 2011: 8, 2012: 5, 2013: 5, 2014: 8, 2015: 8
Internet  2011: 6, 2012: 1, 2013: 1, 2014: 0, 2015: 3
Cyber  2011: 0, 2012: 1, 2013: 2, 2014: 1, 2015: 2
Jobs  2011: 25, 2012: 33, 2013: 32, 2014: 23, 2015: 19

Interesting 2015 one-offs: "I'm not a scientist", universal child care, $0 community college (?), "Google, eBay, and Tesla", Precision Medicine Initiative, solar fuels, Instagram from Space, stopping hackers, opening Cuban relations, Pope Francis' "small steps."

Is there a take-home message here? Does word count relate to the overall direction of the country? Probably not. Each speech is different: 2015 brought middle-class values, international relations, and Presidential legacies; while 2014 spoke to middle-class unemployment, higher ed, and equality issues

Still, I'm saddened that, in a speech many journalists billed as a push for education and technology-based jobs, the time spent on those subjects by this President appears to be dwindling.

Readers: Did I miss anything? Let's discuss it in the comments!

2 comments:

  1. I found it depressing that the most prominent mention of chemistry (broadly speaking) in the SOTU was when President said that he had mourned with families in West, Texas.

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  2. Just pointing out this advertisment with some weird symbolics. Is that actually supposed to be a nucleic acid unit? And if so, what's it got to do with the battery? Or is it some nanoelectric device?
    http://www.lifescience-youngscientists.uzh.ch/events/LSD15homepage/ZLSD_2015_Poster_v20.png

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