If only we were joiners....

Americans are simply not joiners in any real sense of the word. While we have innumerable associations and clubs, we generally identify ourselves not by any affiliation but by our individual characteristics. Our international relationships are highly idiosyncratic and, frankly, selfish. This has caused and continues to cause us significant difficulty.
Nowhere is this rather misguided attitude more unhelpful than in the realm of science. Science is a truly international endeavor, whether we want it to be or not. We persist in often going it alone, even when it is to our demonstrable detriment.
The most glaring example of this shortsightedness is in our refusal to use the metric system.
The metric system is not only used by the other 95% of the world's population (even the Brits use it for science), it is easier to use than our antiquated "system" and is simply much more logical.(What a concept!) Countless headaches and real damage have been caused by this mulish attitude, including the spectacular failure of a Mars probe (to the tune of several billion dollars) based on the failure of an American team to convert measurements to metric. Were we sensible conversion would have been unnecessary.
Science and medicine use the metric system, and it seems a waste of valuable time, not to mention a constant source of irritation and potentially real damage to life, to have to teach students how to convert. But it has to be done. Maybe some day we will realize that Communism is dead. In the meantime, we stumble along thinking we are being heroically independent when we are just being obstinately jingoistic.