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US Losing its Scientific Dominance
ScaredSilly writes "The New York Times is reporting that the US is losing its dominance in the sciences. They cite lowering research budgets, increased military spending and 'reverse brain-drain': fewer techies staying in the US after school. I personally think that our comparatively crappy K-12 educational system, and an increased dominance of military research over core scientific research plays a big role. (It's easy to get DARPA, DoD and DoE funding, but difficult to get NSF funding). What do you folks think?"
As long as "the powerful" (whoever they may be) have the attitude that we have a "global economy" and that market forces are the only consideration, similar trends will continue.
The trend of offshoring computer work alone will tend to hurt the U.S. economy over the long haul, while driving people to other (probably non-techical) lines of work.
It's time that policy change to reflect the reality that the U.S. can't afford to lose leadership in science and technology, or it will inevitably become a second-rate power. It should also be remembered that military leadership can change very rapidly these days - one breakthrough could completely shift the balance of power. Military research is as (or more) important than any other kind.
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The article implies that "the rest of the world is catching up" when the EU (to which the US can be compared in terms of population and living standards, although schools/health/workers rights etc. in the US have a long way to go) has been ahead for several years, judging by the graphs.
I stole this
"Reverse Brain Drain"? No, when people you've educated tend to move away, its simply 'Brain Drain'. Canada has been suffering its effects for years to the US. It just so happens that it used to be the US was the beneficiary of brain drain in other countries. That would be the 'reverse'.
This is not a sig.
Be reassured..
Here in France, the government has been accused lately of waging a "war on intelligence" - namely, despising any research that doesn't have short-term results. I know a bunch of really smart people who have 'fled' to the US to get 3-4 times the amount of R&D gear and salary that they could get here.
We used to cope by having smart people 'flee' from Eastern europe for the same reason (in France, they get 3-4 times the funding they'd get back home). Now that Europe just welcomed 10 ex-USSR countries, this hole will get plugged as they (rightfully) catch up with our economy.
The 'public' research model doesn't seem to work so well anymore. This is in sharp contrast of i.e. the pharmaceutical and medical sector which invests billions in R&D and gets even more billions back from the market, but protected by a ton of patents that prevent so-called "developing" countries from affording any sort of medication.
Something in between should be studied - research funded by private companies but with maximum 5-year spans for patents before they become public domain or something. Any corporation with decent marketing skills should be able to recoup R&D several times in such a window. The fact that people can hold on to inventions for 25 years or more is ridiculous.
The NSF grant search website is far more primitive than Fastlane, but if you haven't used it to see who has NSF grants at your institution, it can be revealing. A good way to search is to look for "investigator contains ucla.edu" and "start date after 1-1-2002" to find people at UCLA who have recent grants, though only the PI's email addresses are listed under investigator, so that won't find grants where the UCLA person is a "co-principal investigator." But it's a good start.
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
I think it's just the American way. After all, wasn't part of the drumbeat of the Contract with America 10 years ago to get the "intellectual elite" out of our decision-making process, and to let common sense rule? It's never failed to amaze me how unwilling we are to accept the fact that many of the questions in life don't have simple answers. It is also too often the case that when the facts don't fit the agenda (be it Right or Left), they are challenged. We were this way before 9/11.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
The reason? Why turn away a morons first year tution? :P
So that those of us that did our homework and are actually there to learn don't have to sit in the fucking aisles of the lecture hall!
The Canadian govt's choice to cut OAC classes (Grade 13 in High School) has had the effect of making the first few weeks of every semester a huge pain the ass, with nowhere to sit in your lectures!@
This is particularly true in Math classes.. where *everyone* shows up for the first 2 weeks thinking "this time, I'll go to all my lectures, I'll do the homework, and I'll pass!"..after 4 weeks, there's half the class left. 2 weeks before the end of the term, maybe 25% of the class still attends lectures, but usually it's more like 15%
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Being a "foreign" graduate student in computer science, I know this first hand. Two-third of the graduate students here (Michigan State University) are international. And when you consider the fact that they count us as "American" in the published papers metrics and so forth, then it looks even more bleak. Especialy since most of the Americans I know in grad school are only staying for the masters, and most of the internationals are interested in PhD and research.
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
There is a definite trend of US politics having a detrimental effect on science.
The current issue of Scientific American mentions the censorship and blatant manipulation of facts by the current administration in order to further their political goals.
We have passed a critical point in our progress as a nation. No longer is there economic incentive to build products here as we can outsource the factories and labor to other countries. Ideas follow the means of production. If there is more production in other countries, there will be higher standards of education and higher quality minds in other countries.
We must learn to accept and integrate the new standards of globalization into our society. The question of location of means-of-production should not depend on lowered cost, but rather on benefit to society.
An obvious example would be technology and China. Yes, costs are lower for Americans but the Chinese are destroying their environment. A large element of "recycled technology" recovery occurs in China and most of the toxic products in out technology are released into the local environment. Search Google sometime for the terms "technology toxic byproduct China" and you'll be amazed by the material.
Means-of-production should be located where society can locally benefit via increased employment, etc. Until nanotech duplicators are created, we'll have to live with the status quo.
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> We know Japanese work long hours. We also know they don't work nearly as hard as Americans.
Don't equate working long hours with working hard.
Having worked both in America and Europe I find the Germans work the har4est. They put an enormous amount of effort in while they are at work, but when the whistle blows they go home.
Time magazine had an article in January claiming the exact opposite situation, that US laboratories and departments were the destination for thousands of European scientists. Here are two quotes:
"Some 400,000 European science and technology graduates now live in the U.S. and thousands more leave each year. A survey released in November by the European Commission found that only 13% of European science professionals working abroad currently intend to return home."
""In soccer, if you're great, another team can buy you." Science is the same, and the big buyer is the U.S.: in 2000, the U.S. spent 287 billion [euro] on research and development, 121 billion [euro] more than the E.U."
The full article is here
Time Europe recently had a A article about European scientists emmigrating to the US because it was easier to do science there than in Europe (less bureaucracy in the US, though we're catching up).
Exit, pursued by a bear.
(shrug) They still shouldn't complain. I don't get to go to that state university AT ALL because the engineering program is packed with foreign students. There are a number of slots reserved for state resident students, but they're so few that you need a 1580 SAT and a 4.5GPA out of high school to get in. The university prefers non-resident students BECAUSE they pay more. Fully 1/4 of the students in the engineering school here are Chinese nationals whose tuition is paid by the Chinese government!
So foreign students can complain all they want about the cost of tuition, but they should also realize that that's one of the main reasons the scool let them in at all.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
As a scientist, I have followed this trend with interest. I can't say that getting DARPA funding is easier than NSF funding, since I received multiple NSF awards but was unable to convince DARPA of the value of my ideas (perhaps not surprising since I study ichthyology).
Nonetheless, there are several aspects that do account for at least a major part of the trend.
1) cultural emphasis on academic excellence within the family and community is weaker in the US than say in Japan and Singapore.
2) change in science curricula so that for the most part science is not taught in public schools, but rather "science facts/trivia".
3) Public misperception of what science actually is (ie. hypothesis testing and proof by falsification). Consequently, the public doesn't really know what science is and often confuses it with technology. There is actually no money in science per se, only the potential technological and business spin-offs. This has been especially difficult for pure sciences, such as physics, in which advances are decades from potential commercial application.
4) Lack of priority toward funding science in all grades K-postgraduate in a sustained manner. Many science education "projects" tend to be short term, whereas very few actually extend through many years of a young scientists education.
5) Lack of teachers who are trained in science.
6) In some communities there is outright hostility to certain findings of science (ie the fact of greenhouse warming [hardly a controversy any longer among scientists] or evolution [certainly a fact that forms the basis of all biology, yet we see repeated attempts by some to supplant science with pseudo-scientific or religious views]). In others there is a fear of science (ie cloning research) because it is largely misunderstood.
7) Teaching science is not rewarded to the degree, say as compared to salaries of CEO's such as Ken Lay, who pumping up Enron stock before insider selling and bankrupcy at stockholder, bondholder, and taxpayer expense, even though the worst science teacher in the world has proved themselves vastly more valuable to society than Ken Lay type executives ever will be. The consequences of greed factor should not be underestimated. Unfortunately, we are bombarded by commercialism and the perceived value of wealth.
8) Rising levels of mercury and other pollutants and irritants in US communities that effect cognitive and behavioral performance (and the Bush administration wants to raise the allowable level of mercury in the environment).
9) Relative effect of rising standards abroad are changing percentages. It is more difficult for industrialized nations to improve there standing when other less developed nations are growing faster on a percentage (not necessarily absolute) basis. In some countries even small increases can result in a large percentage change (number of scientists produced/papers published etc).
10) TV watching is much higher in US households than abroad. TV is known to produce attention deficit disorders and other cognitive difficulties, especially in young children whose brain circuitry has not fully developed. Even in adults and older children TV watching encourages passive rather than active thinking. Understanding science and doing mathematical proofs requires prefontal lobe activity.
11) Failure to exercise also contributes, since the brain does not exist separate from the body. A healthy body (particularly at the metabolic level), given adequate nutrition is essential to proper brain function. Kids today are exposed to far more sugar laden foods that lead to obesity and cardio-vascular problems early in life and that effect brain development and function.
12) There has been a rise in infant mortality in the US (with a relatively sharp rise in the past 3 years), reflecting a host of illnesses and including malnutrition that afflict children and their cognitive development. Such illness early in life, can often lead to stunted b
The ever expanding duration of copywrite laws slows the distribution of information. The same with the expansion of patents to cover software containing trade Secrets. According to the constitution the congress shall have the power "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." The longer these rights are extended the longer it takes the discoveries to become public domain. Thus countries that do not abide by our copyright and pattent laws gain an unfair advantage.
I have two boys, and while reading a copy of "Raising Cain" I learned something interesting about male developmental psychology: This kind of treatment during adolescence has been solidly linked to serious anger management issues. For my part, it is something that I wrestle with daily. I have constant violent fantasies about the most ridiculous things. 20 years of martial arts has made it very clear to me that I have to deal with these issues before I hurt someone.
After two years of meditating 40 minutes a day I have made some progress, but the return for the effort is miniscule. Fixing your head when you are over 25 is very difficult. So I would encourage anyone who is a young male reading this to deal with the problem now. Martial arts are good, but please find something ASAP. These dickheads are not only making your life miserable now, but they are also screwing with your future emotional health.
A British physicist predicted it, a British-born American inventor and a German physicist each independently confirmed it, a German inventor used it for a collision detection system for ships in 1904, an Italian demonstrated a low-frequency radar system in 1922, an Englishman and a New Zealander used radar to prove the existance of the ionosphere in 1924 and scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. were the first to use radar to detect aircraft in 1930.
Not so cut and dry me thinks.
Also, keep in mind that teachers don't get vacation like most people. They get a couple of personal days, but no where near the two weeks of paid vacation that is common in other fields.
Without getting into the whole 'Canadians are / are not Americans' debate, a whole 32 foreigners helped with the NASA team that put men on the moon? Well golly, that's gotta be more than half, couldn't have taken more than 64 people total to do the entire couple of dozen space shots from Mercury I to the last Apollo mission.
I'm not sure you deserve a reply, since you didn't take the time to read the entire thread so far, but you're getting your tenses mixed up. Nobody claimed more than half of NASA were non-American born at the height of the space race. I was only giving evidence that not ALL were American. The comment about half was made with reference to the current NASA establishment, and I'm tired of doing the work for everyone else - google it yourself.
Just out of curiosity, where exactly were the Germans living when they were the best rocket scientists during the space race? Rhetorical question of course, they were in AMERICA.
So, you're saying there's just something in the water? Is there something in the air that makes them more industrious? They weren't smart until they came to the U.S.? Or is it that there's a super-abundance of resources, plus, at the time, the correct economic environment to support enough industry to support such a huge social undertaking as a space race?
I respect your optimism, but enough countries will have caught up to the U.S. economically in the next couple decades that these firmly held beliefs you have about your absolute superiority in all things is soon to be shattered. The fact that your school system keeps teaching you that you're all perfect and that you're better than everyone else, without actually comparing the U.S. to any other front-running country in any meaningful way is going to bite you in the ass. You can't win a race if you keep you eye on last place.
I've heard several Americans say, "there's nowhere else I'd rather live", but the fact is, even though that may be true, it's meaningless if you haven't actually looked at the real alternatives. When you say that, you're thinking entirely of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Mexico (parts of which are actually nicer than you think). How many Americans have been to Scandinavia, Iceland, England, Canada, or Australia? The reason Americans think that Canada is "just the U.S. and doesn't count" is because they can't fathom the idea that another sovereign nation is just as great a place to live as the U.S.. Even better in many ways. Then they say that Canada wouldn't be as great a place without the U.S. The fact is that the U.S. wouldn't be as great a place without the rest of the world, now would it? You are a trading nation, just like the rest of the nations in the world, and you would have a much lower standard of living if you did not trade.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
You know, it is the 21st century. I've been to (and lived in, for a while in) India, and I've hardly seen any kind of social order and or casteism. Neither are there any "untouchables" and the like. Its a democracy were people respect each other and get along just fine.
Ill informed posts like this are what reflects badly upon the American culture.
The parent poster made an intelligent and quite insightful and honest remark, and did not say a word about social structure. He merely pointed out the flaws in our system. And rather than pick on him, why don't you see whats wrong with your system and accept the truth for what it is?