science policy

The absence of a balanced assessment can feed a public misperception that U.S. science and technology is failing

jorgemata — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:18:32 -0700

Description

Excerpts:

Despite perceptions that the nation is losing its competitive edge, the United States remains the dominant leader in science and technology worldwide, according to a RAND Corporation study issued today.

[...]

"Much of the concern about the United States losing its edge as the world’s leader in science and technology appears to be unfounded," said Titus Galama, co-author of the report and a management scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "But the United States cannot afford to be complacent. Effort is needed to make sure the nation maintains or even extends its standing."

U.S. investments in research and development have not lagged in recent years, but instead have grown at rates similar to what has occurred elsewhere in the world -- growing even faster than what has been seen in Europe and Japan. While China is investing heavily in research and development, it does not yet account for a large share of world innovation and scientific output, which continues to be dominated by the United States, Europe and Japan, according to RAND researchers.

However, other nations are rapidly educating their populations in science and technology. For instance, the European Union and China each are graduating more university-educated scientists and engineers every year than the United States.

Policymakers often receive advice from ad hoc sources. Although their viewpoints are valuable, they should be balanced by more complete and critical assessments of U.S. science and technology, said report co-author James Hosek, a RAND senior economist. The absence of a balanced assessment can feed a public misperception that U.S. science and technology is failing when in fact it remains strong, even preeminent.

"There is a pressing need for ongoing, objective analyses of science and technology performance and the science and technology workforce. We need this information to ensure that decision makers have a rigorous understanding of the issues," Hosek said.

[...]

Among potential weaknesses faced by the United States are the persistent underperformance of older, native-born K-12 students in math and science and the heavy focus of federal research funding on the life sciences versus physical sciences. Another unknown is whether an increasing U.S. reliance on foreign-born workers in science and engineering makes the U.S. vulnerable. In recent years, about 70 percent of the foreign scientists and engineers who receive PhDs from U.S. universities choose to remain here, but the stay rate could fall as research conditions and salaries improve abroad.

Source

U.S. Still Leads the World in Science and Technology; Nation Benefits From Foreign Scientists, Engineers. Rand Corporation, June 12, 2008. http://www.rand.org/news/press/2008/06/12/index.html

The future of regulating science [DRAFT]

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:17:42 -0700

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[work in progress]

Signals

Nature Magazine weighs in on issues surrounding industry/academic collaboration in the life sciences

Legal battles over personal genetic testing begin

Research misconduct may be far more prevalent than suspected

Nature Magazine weighs in on issues surrounding industry/academic collaboration in the life sciences

Katy Armstrong — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:30:53 -0700

Description

Robin Mejia, writing for Nature Magazine, reports on some of the practical and ethical issues surrounding accepting corporate funds to conduct academic research in the life sciences. (1)

"Maintaining scientific integrity in a world where academic research and profit-seeking industry overlap is a challenge for many nations and individual scientists" (2). Restrictive contracts surrounding the publication of study results, and ability to cut funds mid-study the potential to draw the results of industry-backed studies into question. Indeed, Peter Gøtzsche, director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen, Denmark, found that in Denmark most corporations retained the rights to the data uncovered by the studies they sponsored, whereas David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children's Hospital Boston in Massachusetts, has found that corporate-backed studies are more likely to produce results that benefit the corporation than independently funded studies.

These issues are particularly pertinent where and when government funding for research is difficult to obtain.

Although different scientists have diverse perspectives on whether it is ever appropriate to accept corporate funding, Mejia concludes, "Industry funding can provide valuable research support for academics, but such arrangements must be handled with care." (1)

Ethics in Science

Source

1) Robin Mejia, 2008. Taking The Industry Road. Nature 453, 1138-1139
2) Gene Russo, 2008. Prospects. Nature 453, 1137

Public Participation in Science Policy

Darlene Cavalier — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:57:58 -0700

Description

The U.S. government began an unprecedented effort in April 2008 to give vaccine critics a say in shaping how the nation researches safety questions surrounding immunizations.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/world_us/20080412_Government_seeks_input_on_vaccine-safety_questions.html?referrer=delicious

Source

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/world_us/20080412_Government_seeks_input_on_vaccine-safety_questions.html?referrer=delicious

Indigenous peoples, local knowledge, and climate change research and policy

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:50:35 -0700

Description

In a March 2008 report, the International Union for Conservation of Nature argues for an approach to climate change research and policy that incorporates local knowledge of climate and ecosystems, and gives indigenous peoples-- who often are most affected by climate change-- a role in shaping environmental responses and policies. As SciDev.Net reports,

indigenous people usually occupy marginal and remote areas, such as small islands, coastal plains, mountain areas and drylands, where they are exposed to adverse environmental effects....

Indigenous peoples' perspective and knowledge should be considered when making policies on adapting to climate change, the report recommends.

Their adaptation practices include rainwater harvesting, crop and livelihood diversification, and hunting and gathering timed with variations in animal migration and fruiting periods.

The challenge, says the report, is to find how best to combine traditional and scientific knowledge for incorporation into decision making.

Source

http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/indigenous_peoples_climate_change.pdf
http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/news/involve-indigenous-people-in-climate-policy-says-r.html

Overcoming "scientific apartheid"

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:38:05 -0700

Description

SciDev.Net reports on an April address by Bibliotheca Alexandrina Ismail Serageldin warning that "the world risks "scientific apartheid" between rich and poor countries unless research and technology is better used to benefit the poor."

He warned that science seems to be benefiting the rich, with not enough focus on solving the problems of the poor. "We need a little more than knowledge... we need wisdom," he said.

Serageldin called for developed countries to put five per cent of their research and development budgets towards addressing the problems of the poor. He said that even if the research were conducted in Northern universities, this would still contribute greatly.

"Different regions need to address different problems, but all will require the best of science," he said....

Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute, said that the world needs to run on two scientific tracks: putting existing technologies into practice for the poor, whilst simultaneously developing new technologies to address problems.

Addressing the conference by video message on 13 April, he outlined the need for "RDD&D" — research, development, demonstration and diffusion of technology to those who need them most.

What's interesting about this is that it's one of a growing number of calls to develop more thoughtful, locally-oriented, or development-focused approaches to doing research. A growing number of ambitious scientists in the developing world are less interested in emulating the Western model of R&D than in developing their own.

Source

http://www.scidev.net/en/science-and-innovation-policy/world-risks-scientific-apartheid-says-top-african-.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&ut...

The emergence of post-scientific society?

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:03:11 -0700

Description

In a recent article in the NAS Issues, science policy expert Christopher Hill argues that the United States is shifting from a scientific to a post-scientific society. As he explains it,

A post-scientific society will have several key characteristics, the most important of which is that innovation leading to wealth generation and productivity growth will be based principally not on world leadership in fundamental research in the natural sciences and engineering, but on world-leading mastery of the creative powers of, and the basic sciences of, individual human beings, their societies, and their cultures.

Just as the post-industrial society continues to require the products of agriculture and manufacturing for its effective functioning, so too will the post-scientific society continue to require the results of advanced scientific and engineering research. Nevertheless, the leading edge of innovation in the post-scientific society, whether for business, industrial, consumer, or public purposes, will move from the workshop, the laboratory, and the office to the studio, the think tank, the atelier, and cyberspace.

There are growing indications that new innovation-based wealth in the United States is arising from something other than organized research in science and engineering. Companies based on radical innovations, exemplified by network firms such as Google, YouTube, eBay, and Yahoo, create billions in new wealth with only modest contributions from industrial research as it has traditionally been understood. Huge and successful firms like Wal-Mart, FedEx, Dell, Amazon.com, and Cisco have grown to be among the largest in the world, not as much by mastering the intricacies of physics, chemistry, or molecular biology as by structuring human work and organizational practices in radical new ways. The new ideas and concepts that support these post-scientific society companies are every bit as subtle and important as the fundamental natural science and engineering research findings that supported the growth of firms such as General Motors, DuPont, and General Electric in the past half century. But innovation in these two generations of firms is fundamentally different.

The piece is well worth reading, as it has a number of provocative implications for science policy, innovation policy, and education. Essentially, Hill is arguing that a decline in America's monopoly on science-- even if that does happen-- is not to be lamented any more than the shrinking of the agricultural workforce: it doesn't reflect a weakness, but a more fundamental shift to a different kind of economy, in which the sources of value aren't facts, but what you do with them.

Amateur, DIY, and citizen science

Source

http://www.issues.org/24.1/c_hill.html

Reforming the approach to 'demand-driven' research

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 03:34:08 -0800

NOTE: This content was aggregated from RSS feed. Original source is http://www.scidev.net/en/science-and-innovation-policy/reforming-the-approach-to-demand-driven-research.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_scienceandinnovationpolicy

Sci Dev reports on a recent study of demand-based research, "in which research programmes are determined by those who will benefit from their results," in the developing world. It argues for the need, even in these targeted programs, to include "a strong focus on research capacity building."

The evaluators identify three particular problems with the demand-driven approach.

First, there may be situations in which such an approach is not necessarily the best or even the more appropriate solution. This can happen, for example, where the broad socio-political context is unfavourable — as the Dutch discovered in Vietnam and Mali.

Second, rigid adherence to the belief that all significant input should be bottom-up can result in individual programmes becoming isolated from the broader experience of the research community. A lack of dialogue with scientific peers, in both developed and other developing countries, can be damaging.

Third, the evaluators emphasise that the large amount of time required to start research programmes from scratch can hinder the growth of a more strategic and broad-based approach to research support.

German strategies for global science collaboration

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 14:56:44 -0800

Description

Seed Magazine reports on German effort to maintain the country's traditional strengths in scientific and technological research.

German policymakers are developing strategic international science initiatives to market the country as a hub of science and technology. Government-funded, international science programs are intended to lure foreign talent, halt the country's current brain drain, and drive the scientific innovation that the recently revived German economy needs. And on the global issue of climate change, global collaborations are set to play a key role in German policy moves.

One interesting element in the article is that the policies are aimed not so much at building native capabilities or keeping German scientists at home-- either through incentives to stay or restrictions on emigration-- but rather are framed in terms of promoting collaboration and participation in international research networks. As Internationales Buero senior officer Gerold Heinrich put it, "The point is to create a brain circulation." Partly this is a reflection of the sheer magnitude of the brain shortage Germany is facing-- two million skilled workers by 2020-- but it's also a reflection of the success that Germany has had in cooperative ventures to date, and a calculation that the only way to make up the shortfall is through attracting talent from elsewhere. As Demos researcher James Wilsdon puts it, "The only way European countries can compete with the low cost of innovation in Asia is to make international collaboration more central to their way of working."

Source

http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2008/02/on_the_mark.php

Indian government boosts science spending

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:39:43 -0800

NOTE: This content was aggregated from RSS feed. Original source is http://www.scidev.net/en/science-and-innovation-policy/indian-government-boosts-science-spending.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_scienceandinnovationpolicy

Sci Dev reports that

India has increased its science spending by 16 per cent, including a massive rise in funds for manned space missions....

India's new science budget, announced last week (29 February) includes a 16 per cent increase in science spending.

The 2008–09 budget also includes a new fund to attract students to science careers, the establishment of three new Indian Institutes of Technology and a rise in funds for manned space missions.

The total science budget is just over US$6 billion (around 242 billion Indian Rupees), compared with last year's budget of around US$5 billion.

ASU researcher finds direct democracy in science too much of a good thing

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:00:00 -0800

NOTE: This content was aggregated from RSS feed. Original source is http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/asu-arf021408.php

EurekAlert reports:

Publicly funded science in America is accountable to the people and their government representatives. However, this arrangement raises questions regarding the effect such oversight has on science. It is a problem of particular relevance as the nation prepares for the end of the Bush administration, which has taken divisive stances on a number of issues, including stem cell research and global warming. Striking a balance is an essential question for Daniel Sarewitz of Arizona State University....

"While increased democratization in the sciences is certainly desirable, direct democracy — putting it to the public to decide which programs are worthy of funding and which are not — is an absurd way to fund science," Sarewitz says.

"There is a reason that we have representative democracy in this country," he adds. "It is because it is doubtful that people — with the exception of specifically interested parties — have the time to study and investigate in any detail the topics being voted on.'

Another problem with direct democracy, explains Sarewitz, is that it does not give people an opportunity to choose among a variety of science programs.

"Instead, a ‘political advocacy circus’ is created around an issue — the classic example being Proposition 71, the California stem cell research bond issue of three years ago."

"Democratization really means a more open process and institutions that are more transparent," Sarewitz says. "It means expanding the franchise to include public participation in complex decision-making processes."

Structure, Tools, and Platforms of Science

UNH-NOAA ocean mapping expedition yields new insights into arctic depths

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 21:00:00 -0800

NOTE: This content was aggregated from RSS feed. Original source is http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/uonh-uom021108.php

EurekAlert reports on a new U.S. survey of the Arctic seafloor that is likely to have implications for the scramble for territorial and mineral rights in the Arctic:

New Arctic sea floor data released today by the University of New Hampshire and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggests that the foot of the continental slope off Alaska is more than 100 nautical miles farther from the U.S. coast than previously assumed.

The data, gathered during a recent mapping expedition to the Chukchi Cap some 600 nautical miles north of Alaska, could support U.S. rights to natural resources of the sea floor beyond 200 nautical miles from the coast.

Area of Mapping Expeditions: Map showing the area north of Alaska surveyed by NOAA and University of New Hampshire researchers during expeditions in 2003, 2004 and 2007. Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/6833.php?from=108972.

“We found evidence that the foot of the slope was much farther out than we thought,” said Larry Mayer, expedition chief scientist and co-director of the Joint Hydrographic Center at UNH. “That was the big discovery.”

Coastal nations have sovereign rights over the natural resources of their continental shelf, generally recognized to extend 200 nautical miles out from the coast....

The Arctic mapping expedition, conducted between Aug. 17 and Sept. 15, 2007 aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy, employed sophisticated echo sounders to survey this relatively unexplored region, providing much finer-grained data and images than existed previously. The data are available at http://www.ccom.unh.edu.

Taming the data deluge with the new open source iRODS data grid system

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:00:00 -0800

NOTE: This content was aggregated from RSS feed. Original source is http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/uoc--ttd020708.php

EurekAlert reports on an open source project to virtualize the management of scientific data-- something that is often done is a local, and sometimes haphazard, way:

In the Information Age, the freedom to easily generate and share digital forms of information is driving life-changing advances in science and medicine, dramatic expansions in communications, big gains in business productivity, and a new flowering in video, music, and other cultural expressions.

At the same time, the digital data we all love is growing explosively. In 2006, humanity produced 161 exabytes of digital data – that’s 161 billion billion bytes, or 12 stacks of books stretching from the Earth to the Sun -- more data than our capacity to store it.

This deluge of data is bringing with it unprecedented challenges in organizing, accessing, sharing, and preserving digital information. To meet these challenges, the Data-Intensive Computing Environments (DICE) group at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego has released version 1.0 of iRODS, the Integrated Rule-Oriented Data System, a powerful new open-source approach to managing digital data....

The most powerful new feature, for which the Integrated Rule-Oriented Data System is named, is an innovative “rule engine” that lets users easily accomplish complex data management tasks. Users can automate enforcement, or “virtualize” data management policies by applying rules that control the execution of all data access and manipulation operations. Rather than having to hard code these actions or workflows into the software, the user-friendly rules let any group easily customize the iRODS system for their specific data management needs.

For example, when astronomers take new photographs in a sky survey and enter them into a data collection, the researchers can set up iRODS rules to automatically extract descriptive information and record it in the iRODS Metadata Catalog (iCAT), replicate a copy to another repository for backup, create a thumbnail for a Web-based gallery, and run an analysis program to identify related images....

iRODS is funded by NARA and the National Science Foundation (NSF). More information, the iRODS software download, and documentation are available at http://irods.sdsc.edu.

2006 trends in science funding: US, Europe, and Japan are still in the lead... but for how long?

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:12:14 -0800

Description

Nature conducted a survey in 2006 that concluded that while a number of developing countries were growing domestic scientific capability rapidly, "the United States, Japan and western Europe have a commanding lead over the rest of the world."

The world's most advanced economies are losing their scientific edge, some analysts claim. Fearing, that weak research budgets will lead to weak economies, lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic are preparing to pour billions of dollars into research and development....

We measured the total government investment in research, which includes both civil and defence R&D, and, to give a better sense of scale, we also looked at that investment as a proportion of each country's gross domestic product (GDP)....

The United States, in particular, dominates global sciences, spending an astounding US$134 billion on R&D this year alone — more than any other country or region. Much of that money, about 60%, is spent on defence-related R&D, but even when those funds are subtracted, the United States is still the standard by which all other nations measure themselves.

Things may not stay that way, however. Science budgets in the United States, Germany and France, have been stagnant in recent years, whereas budgets in Asian countries such as India and China have been racing upwards. If current trends continue, China is predicted to catch up with European Union spending, at least in terms of GDP share, by 2010.

East and Southeast Asia: Science and Technology

Source

The scientific balance of power: Source: "The scientific balance of power," Nature 439 (9 February 2006), 646-647. doi:10.1038/439646a

AAAS/EurekAlert! build bridges with Middle Eastern science community through journalism fellowships

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:00:00 -0800

NOTE: This content was aggregated from RSS feed. Original source is http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/aaft-abb012808.php

EurekAlert!, the global science news service operated by AAAS, in cooperation with the National Association of Science Writers in the United States and the Arab Science Journalists Association, is happy to announce the recipients of the 2008 AAAS Fellowships for Reporters in Developing Regions, sponsored by Elsevier. The award will allow the four fellowship recipients to cover the latest research and mingle with their fellow science writers from around the world at the AAAS Annual Meeting, Feb. 14-18 in Boston.

Lessons from evolution applied to national security and other threats

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:00:00 -0800

NOTE: This content was aggregated from RSS feed. Original source is http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/du-lfe012808.php

Could lessons learned from Mother Nature help airport security screening checkpoints better protect us from terror threats?

Great apes endangered by human viruses

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:00:00 -0800

NOTE: This content was aggregated from RSS feed. Original source is http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/m-gae012508.php

The opening of gorillas and chimpanzees reserves for tourism is often portrayed as the key to conserving these endangered great apes. There are also however serious concerns that tourism may expose wild apes to infection by virulent human diseases.

New South Korean president to abolish Ministry of Science and Technology

Hyungsub Choi — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 06:45:30 -0800

Description

In the presidential election held last December, the opposing Grand National Party (Han Nara Dang) candidate Lee Myung-bak was elected as South Korea's next president. The result is widely deemed a reflection of the bad evaluation that the incumbent Roh Moo-hyun received.

Lee's election signals the South Korean society's move toward conservatism and emphasis on economic growth, rather than progressivist route of the last ten years.

Last week, Lee announced his government reform plan, which was largely in line with his platform of small government. Significant for science policy was the abolition of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), the functions of which will be folded into the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Industry and Natural Resources. Since its inception during Park Chung-hee era in the 1970s, MOST had been instrumental in setting the national science policy agenda, and served as a model for many developing countries. Does this mean an end of a centrally-planned science policy in South Korea?

Quite understandably, scientists are protesting against this announcement. The Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies (KOFST), a non-governmental organization, is currently organizing forces to revert this decision. Their claim is that, without an independent MOST, funding for basic research will be stifled by pressing concerns on education and industrial affairs. As befitting the most wired nation in the world, there are multiple online signature campaigns sponsored by a number of different science-related organizations.

East and Southeast Asia: Science and Technology

Source

Chosun Ilbo (in Korean).
Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies (http://www.kofst.or.kr/)

Sen. John Kerry to keynote Rice University's Baker Institute conference on climate change

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 21:00:00 -0800

NOTE: This content was aggregated from RSS feed. Original source is http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/ru-sjk012408.php

Sen. John Kerry will keynote Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, the Energy & Environmental Systems Institute and the Shell Center for Sustainability climate change, politics and economics conference Feb. 9.

Why immigration divides America will be tackled at UCSD Economics Roundtable, Feb. 13

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 21:00:00 -0800

NOTE: This content was aggregated from RSS feed. Original source is http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/uoc--wid012308.php

One of the nation's leading authorities on the economics of immigration, University of California, San Diego Professor Gordon Hanson, will speak on the topic "Why Does Immigration Divide America?" when he addresses the UCSD Economics Roundtable on Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2008.

RAND study finds path to diversity success varies

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 21:00:00 -0800

NOTE: This content was aggregated from RSS feed. Original source is http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/rc-rsf012108.php

Companies recognized for exemplary diversity may follow a core set of motives and behaviors, but best practices alone do not always contribute to a high level of diversity, according to a RAND Corporation study released today.

Touch screen voting a hit; critics miss mark on security, study says

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 21:00:00 -0800

NOTE: This content was aggregated from RSS feed. Original source is http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/uom-tsv012308.php

Electronic voting technology, especially touch screen systems, easily pass the tests of voter confidence and satisfaction, but users still make too many mistakes and ask too often for help, says a major new study led by the University of Maryland and conducted with the University of Rochester and the University of Michigan.

Cross ownership has positive effect on local media coverage, MU researcher finds

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 21:00:00 -0800

NOTE: This content was aggregated from RSS feed. Original source is http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/uom-coh012308.php

A study at the University of Missouri found that cross-owned television stations produce a greater percentage of local programming news content when compared to other network-affiliated stations in the same market. Cross-owned stations also show 7 to 10 percent more local news and offer about 25 percent more coverage of local and state politics.

No time before Valentine's Day? You'll pay more for a gift just to avoid a negative outcome

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 21:00:00 -0800

NOTE: This content was aggregated from RSS feed. Original source is http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/uocp-ntb012308.php

With time to spare before Valentine's Day, you consider a number of grand ways to demonstrate your affection. But what if it's the night before and you still don't have a gift? A timely study by researchers from Stanford, Berkeley, and the University of Chicago proves that, when the gift-giving deadline approaches, our perspective shifts from gifts with positive outcomes -- something that will knock your sweetheart off his or her feet -- to gifts that will simply help us avoid a fight.

A good fight may keep you and your marriage healthy