I started in this racket in the early '70s and when I was president of the Science Fiction Writers of America of which I was like the sixth president I was the first one nobody ever heard of.

Math and science fields are not the only areas where we see the United States lagging behind. Less than 1 percent of American high school students study the critical foreign languages of Arabic Chinese Japanese Korean or Russian combined.

Today over half of China's undergraduate degrees are in math science technology and engineering yet only 16 percent of America's undergraduates pursue these schools.

American high school students trail teenagers from 14 European and Asian countries in reading math and science. We're even trailing France.

In order for America to remain a global leader in innovation and opportunity we must give our children a solid foundation in math and science.

You see I became kind of a drop-out in science after I came back to America.

I became kind of a drop-out in science after I came back to America. I wanted to photograph.

What we see today is an American economy that has boomed because of policies and developments of the 1950s and '60s: the interstate-highway system massive funding for science and technology a public-education system that was the envy of the world and generous immigration policies.

The enlightenment is under threat. So is reason. So is truth. So is science especially in the schools of America.

I love the script and I just thought it was a great role. Like I say it's like this - the script is like this sad funny desperate love song to the lost American man.