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USA to Pass Science Crown to China
instantgames writes "According to a working paper of the National Bureau of Economic Research, rapid development of a science and technology base by populous Asian countries soon may threaten the economic position of the United States. Not only is the U.S. losing ground in high technology exports, but its very capacity to develop new technologies is declining rapidly with respect to the rest of the world. According to Richard Freeman, the paper's author, the sheer population of Asian countries may allow them to train more scientists and engineers than the U.S. while devoting a smaller share of their economy to science and technology." From the article: "The phenomenal growth of China's industrial base has been widely publicized, but Freeman focuses on what is perhaps the more important long-term indicator of a nation's prosperity - its re-investment in science and technology education.
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Scary stuff, no question. Bill Gates, in a speech to the nation's Governors three months ago, cited some pretty startling takeaways on the state of Science education in the US. NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman had a great piece on it. More on both here: ahref=http://mp.blogs.com/mp/2005/04/fire_aim_read y.htmlrel=url2html-6897http://mp.blogs.com/mp/2005 /04/fire_aim_ready.html>
...with China's commensurate commitment to freedom of speech, human rights, free flows of information among its citizenry, support of protest and political dissent, and so on.
That's not the only critical front on which the US will be competing with China: the US will soon pass the oil/fossil fuel consumption crown to China as well if current trends continue.
Further, China is free to spend for its own growth with little oversight from the populace (such as investing heavily in pebble bed fission reactors, planning to build 30 new reactors by 2020), allowing it to spend money as it sees fit without the same social and political constraints as the US. And even with what little oversight you think we might have in the US, it's far greater than the influence a typical Chinese citizen has. It's too bad that we'll likely never see new nuclear plants built anytime soon here, with all the political baggage.[1] We'll just keep using the quickly diminishing supply of conventional fossil fuels.[2]
[1] An environmental research group came to my door the other day extolling the virtues of environmental law, conservation, anti-pollution law, and etc., as you'd expect. All noble causes, when tempered with economic reality. But they continued on to also say opposition to ANY nuclear project was critical. Could they "count on my support?" In a word, no.
[2] Bush is actually pushing hard for the nuclear plants we're in desperate need of. See the policy speeches here. Contrast this with some typical opponents' opposition to all ongoing nuclear research under the guise of nuclear weapons nonproliferation.
Still, some economists argue that China isn't growing nearly as quickly as it could. How could that be?
One probable cause is that infrastructure for research and development has a long way to go in many developing Asian countries, especially China. Having some history behind your scientific community has its benefits. Thats why, even with our moral and ethical hurdles in the way, we're still winning the "great stem cell race." For now.
(enjoy the plugs for great articles in my favorite magazine)
tcd004
It may mean more tall people, but the future will be ruled by the few. With robots, transhumans, posthumans, and such--large masses of people just aren't needed.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
From an elementary school's billboard in my neighborhood: "Adequate yearly progress, once again!"
This is what we get for handing our children's education over to the government.
Moderators, please don't rate this post as "Funny", because it isn't.
You got any karma man? I really neeed it. Just a little hit! Come on!
China is still very much more a copier of technology than an innovator. Once they become successful innovators, then we have to worry.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
You may purchase this paper on-line in
I didn't buy the paper, but would like to make one point:
As long as the culture in the US continues to denigrate academic achievement and to glorify ignorance, this country will continue to fall behind the rest of the world in research and invention.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
but rather due to capital flight. Our corporations, in an effort to turn a quick buck, intentionally transfered our high-technology manufacturing assets to asia. Our design centers were sure to follow.
It only makes sense that a majority of future developments are going to come to us from Asia as we are no longer the experts -- they are.
Does this remind anyone else of the dire warnings about Japan "taking over" in the '80s and '90s.
This just reeks of fear-mongering. I half-way expect Michael Crichton to write some stupid novel about it.
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
I for one care about science and the advancement of human knowledge far more than any sort of jingoism, and I'm very glad to see people in China getting the opportunities to use their talents better.
So who here spent $5 for the PDF before commenting?
My brother's company in California sent him to China for some work. When he came back after the two week trip, he immediately started learning Mandrin because the speed at which the chip production industry has been picking up scared him enough - that in case they fired him in America, he might be able to find work in China.
As long as American institutions have the research dollers to invest into the universities - I don't think America will lose its research crown.
I think China's simply playing catch up for now. But if my brother's experience is any indicator, then if we dont smarten up and invest even more into our research industry - then we'll be learning Mandrin too..
R&D is one of the reasons why Americans have been ahead of everyone else - even after the manufacturing went to China. If that goes, then it'll truly be a nation of Walmart workers.
_Vishal www.squad9.com
...is to raise taxes and give the schools more money.
I mean hell, that's always worked so well in the past!
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." --Benjamin Franklin
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
While I agree on some part of your argurment it is not entirely based on theft. As well all know all science progress has been due to the result of collaboration on various studies and deriving from it. Once the ideas drain out on western front, necessity will drive the people in Asia to come up with novel ways and new ideas. Besides necessity is the mother of invention. It is a crude cycle and it will never end.
at least our kids know how to be politcally correct, don't have the stress of having to know how to read their own diplomas, are sensitive to every kind of form of sexual proclivity by the time they are in 4th grade, have shitloads of self-esteem, and can be sure that when they or their neighbors with little or no english skills work so hard that they reach the pinnacle of academic achievement - community college - they can be sure that there will be free childcare for them and their 4 kids when the go to class after working the all night shift at McDonalds.
/bitterness and dispair
why are we worrying about science? Thats for nerds that don't watch American Idol. Which is, in and of itself, a sad state of affairs when you look at it...that those people are who we collectively teach our children to idol.
just so long as we can yell and scream and blame every problem in the country on Bush and Judge Roberts, why would you want to fill our kids' heads with crap like science? They won't have room for remembering Nelly lyrics!
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
(queue monty python and the life of brian style response vs the romans)
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
You didn't read carefully. It says they "May be able to produce more engineers" and they "may be able to catch up while spending less money proportionally."
Crap if you ask me. They "may" have been able to do it for years, but they "haven't" done it yet, and they probably "won't" because their ideological restraints are even "worse" than "ours".
This isn't to say that we shouldn't be getting off our asses and fixing some of the problems. Stem cell funding! Patent reform! Copyright reform! We need to provide resources and freedoms to the small innovator companies that historically produce the coolest stuff!
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Now couple that with right-wing attacks on public schooling in general, bleeding the public schools systems dry in order to push private schooling, and things get worse.
Now add in an economy where many of the jobs that really use your brain get offshored, and what's left are service jobs that require not as much education, and you have an increasing pressure not to care about higher education. Just get one of those service jobs and root for your team and have a beer after work and all is well in your world. Right?
Meanwhile India gets the tech jobs, and China is our major creditor, and suddenly all those smart Chinese students think why should they bother coming to xenophobic and dopey America when they can get the good science education and jobs back home. Where the economy is strong, education is encouraged, science is not neutered by religion, and things are moving forward.
I don't quite understand what exactly the "scientific Crown" means, but on the balance I think this is positive news - science is not a zero sum game. What's invented in US works the same in China and vice versa. I don't view it exactly as US falling behind but Asian countries catching up because growth is always faster when you have lots of room to grow but then it slows down. Of course, US needs to do more to invest into and encourage better education to stay competitive. The fact that this is not currently the case is alarming.
It is also good to hear that developing Asian countries are on a way to contribute to progress rather than dig their heels in and do everything in a futile attempt to stop it (as seems to be popular in some Middle East contries now a day).
"You mortals are so obtuse." -Q
It's just a matter of time.
The Hong Kong fashion industry grew out of the factories producing knockoffs of western designers, and now they are one of the fashion capitols of the world.
Haha, I always said the same thing about Japan and China, as you can trace most any anime back to some Chinese legend. Of course there are exceptions, but without China's old legends, Japan's anime industry would be about 15% the size it is now.
This is what we NEED! Not only is engineering tuition usually more expensive than that for liberal arts, but there are plenty of bright kids turning to business and econ so that they can start making six figures right out of college. Money matters to students, and most are not willing to put themselves through the stress of engineering education only to be saddled with loans the first 8 years after school. This bill of course would not eliminate that, but it would defray the costs enough to make engineering much more attractive to freshmen.
ANY bill towards reducing tuition costs is good, especially one towards engineering, math and science majors.
A poster above mentioned that ignorance is glorified, and I hate to admit that it's true in our dear sweet USA. People who get good grades and aspire toward academic achievement are labeled and taunted as "brainiacs" or whatever, while some dope fiend who can snap back at the teacher in some incomprehensible slang-based language is held up as the modern-day hero. I doubt that the same is true in China.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
This is what we get for handing our children's education over to the government.
You say that as if public education is a recent development. American Public Education goes back as far as the American Revolution, and has roots that go back even further. It sounds like you are not aware of this history, so here's a primer. Read and learn.
Abandoning the poor people is bad for the American economy and American democracy. If anything, you can trace the growing ruin of American society to increased privatization and reduced funding of public services such as Public Education.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
I don't know how this got modded insightful.
china's phenomenal growth was and is fueled by foreign (western) investors. i'm not denying ip theft, but that seems like a domestic issue (and maybe some complicated trade issues).
my point is if china's growth is really caused by ip theft than why are the foreign companies setting up shop in china? it seems like a set up for failure. It seems more likely they go to china cause they can get cheaper R&D. And thats the cause of economic growth.
You're saying that America has a freedom and government problem? Is this compared to the enlightened government of China?
One of the main points is that China can in fact force their people to go in the direction that they want without having to deal with things like community interaction. Can you imagine the emminent domain kerfluffle over something the size of the Three Gorges Dam project if it was done here in the US? Heck a highway bypass takes forever here.
And hey, if the populace gets TOO rowdy they can just send in the tanks and mow 'em down.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
A huge part of the problem is the way we compensate employees in the US. Engineers simply are not paid as well as they should be, and executives and managers are over paid. This creates a dis-incentive to enter engineering, or at least creates an incentive to view moving out of engineering and into management as "advancement."
US companies need desparately to eliminate the artificial ceiling on the advancement of pay for engineers. IBM has made some small efforts in that direction by creating the "Distinguished Engineer" title, so that highly skilled engineers can be "promoted" and paid more, without being forced into management. A few other companies have similar initiatives, but that's not nearly enough.
If we want to attract workers to high tech fields, we have to give them a reason to want to do so. And quit wasting multi-million dollar salaries and millions of dollars of bonuses on inept CEOs like Carly Fiorina.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
seriously, what good does this thinking do?
best of luck to all the asians. i hope we do well too. screw this fetish with being #1 in everything.
Well, for one, Europe only ceeded its "science crown " to the USA because of the World Wars. Since then, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Western Europe are science and technology powerhouses. Taiwan is especially instructive, as they speak the same language and have many of the same cultural factors. Despite their miniscule sliver of the total Chinese population, they're way ahead. Population don't mean much if most of your people are living in squalor due to repressive and corrupt government.
The US's open-door policy for researchers from around the globe to study and research in the US had more to do with getting the "crown." The metling-pot mindset, especially popular with educators and institutions, allowed the best and the brightest to come to the US to do their work.
That, and the US is, like, you know, a first world country? Once China and India and Indonesia can get phone and power service to the medievil huts the majority of its population lives in, then I'd worry about the massive population difference.
New Zealand and Finland are good examples of miniscule countries in terms of population that are doing very, very, very well for themselves on the science and technology front. New Zealand is isolated by location, and Finland by language. They still have engineering firms and physicists that are world class.
SoupIsGood Food
In the meantime, most science and math inclined Asians flock to the US for their education, and then later, for their careers. In that way America "brain drains" many other nations. Very few return to their homeland today, because they still consider America the "land of opportunity." And compared to most areas in China's command-economy, it truly is. As for Japan and Korea though, that's another question...
As for the broader point... I'm not sure which ridiculous extreme is actually better for the growth of a technological base: "Copy whatever you want, who cares if the originator doesn't get a dime" as in China, or "Don't write that code, there might be a ludicrous patent you'll have to spend $10 million getting declared invalid" as in the US. Certainly one can point to US industries such as the Hollywood movie business(*) that wouldn't exist today without rampant violation of intellectual property laws in the past.
Personally, I think China is going to give the west a rather solid run for its money in software. Our fervor for ever-stronger intellectual property laws is a legislative gun with which we're taking repeated potshots in the direction of our feet. I've been involved in IP disputes on both sides, and they are almost always big wastes of time and money that don't end up benefitting anyone but the lawyers. To the extent that Chinese companies won't have to suffer from that overhead, they'll be in stronger competitive positions. All of their web sites will have one-click ordering, one can assume.
Finally, the "they're just copying our stuff" point was a pretty common accusation leveled at Japan in the 80s and early 90s, if memory serves. It seems to have proven itself untrue over the years, and I have every expectation the same will be true of China.
(*) The reason the movie studios are in Hollywood is that they didn't want to pay royalties to Edison Labs for use of Edison's patented film production equipment. So the early would-be studio bosses headed west, where they'd be able to strike it rich before the folks on the east coast could track them down to demand payment. For some reason you don't find that little factoid on any of the movie studios' "history of Hollywood" web pages. Reference.
I say that it's not all bad. What we lose in scientific-ness, we more than make up for with our awesome Jesus-osity! We may be dumber, but we're Holier!
Nuclear power is "still in the 60's" when it was OK to run a company, filling up your back lot with industrial waste, until you ran out of space, or went out of business, found somewhere to hide it/dump it, or all of the above. The name of the game in industry is "make our waste someone else's problem" or "make it go away". Dump it into the local river, into the sea, in a pit, or throw it up into the air...and hope nobody notices. This is precisely how current nuclear plants handle their waste; they drop barrel after barrel into concrete bunkers filled with water in their back yard, thinking some day it'll just disappear, or they can fold the company and run, leaving the government with the god-aweful mess (hint: metal containers, water...)
Right now, the US Government believes that the solution to the problem is to make it Nevada's problem (or is it New Mexico, I forget?), but either way, it's just another variant of "throw it somewhere out of sight".
When we have a way to make power and take the waste products and make them harmless in SUBSTANCE (not in CONTAINMENT), give me a buzz and I'll stand outside on the street with a pro-nuclear sign. Until then, I'm not willing to support a technology which will be guaranteed to be a major liability or outright disaster in a few hundred years.
Please help metamoderate.
It's because technology is created by engineers and in China, India, Germany, etc. engineering is the most prestigious field of all.
In the US people only value giant houses, rims, expensive watches, luxury cars w/ wine glasses in tv ads for them. Noone even knows what engineers do, they just admire doctors and lawyers for having lots of dolla bills and bling. Meanwhile, legal and medical cost are far and away the highest in the world.
Visit the engineering building at any university in this country and you wont even find anyone who speaks english -- it's all exactly Chinese and Indian people receiving stipends in addition to free tuition courtesy of US govt grants and then head back to their own countries, contributing nothing to tech in the very country that paid for their education.
The endless raging river of media vomited images of the intelligent person being something that should be made fun of and looked down upon, washing over generation after generation of ill-educated and hyperactive minds, worming its way into every single crevice of the collective coma is appearing as a giant sinkhole after eroding away all support beneath the surface.
And you think this news will stop the stupidization of this society? Dream on. 99% of the population will never even become aware of it. They'll be blithering about red states and blue states and angels and demons and what whore Justin Dumbass Timberlake is fucking this week.
Harsh attitude? Tough shit. I have met parents who were bothered when their children did *too* *well* in school, lest they be considered "brainiacs" or "geeks". People aren't remotely harsh enough on these sorts of memes.
I was tapped out of tolerance on this front years ago. I'm on my way to retire in my early 50's, and then I'm outta this dump. Sit an wallow in your celebrity gossip, sports teams composed of sociopaths who are forgiven every crime by their followers and your endless wasteland of (pseudo)reality television and basing scientific legislation on ancient fairy tales.
You dared to give Bush a compliment. While I am no fan of GWB, I do think we should start building new nukes based on the latest technology. Of course, there is all coal we have which nukes would replace.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
I'm curious why Americans are so shocked that the world preeminence we have enjoyed for a century looks like it will come an end in the next few generations (if we're lucky).
History is in fact rife with empires that rose to politcal, military and cultural dominance and then (for whatever reason) saw it slip away. The English before US. The Spanish before them. The HRE, Romans, Egyptians...
Why on earth do Americans think, "Oh, but the American world dominance will be the one that lasts forever?" Didn't the English believe that in the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries? The Spanish in the fourteenth - seventeenth centuries? ...
It is a fact of history: Cultures rise to dominance and then fade from dominance. America is just fulfilling the eon old historical pattern. Maybe China will be the next in line; Maybe an unified Europe; Maybe India; Maybe a repeat of the middle ages where there was no global power. I don't know. But I do know, that eventually America will fall from its penacle. No doubt about it.
A bit harder to protect than we thought it was, then? Hell, I know a lot of people telling me explicitly that they won't apply for patents because it'll allow corporations to use them, and they will get virtually no money for it. If their idea's totally unheard of, then they'll make the millions, and be fine and dandy.
If we had an open technology interchange, we'd all be making progress at the same rate. Any new technologies invented or discovered could be passed along for the common good, and the people making money could be the various different implementers of the technology. Perhaps the government should get into the Knowledge Farming business; simply churn out enough ideas and let big business implement.
If you wanted to be less radical, simply shorten the length of patent protection, and for certain, disallow patents of stupid, unoriginal things. This is simple enough to do; pay a few college students 10 bucks an hour to go through a stack of patent documents, do a quick google, use common sense and rule against patents. The ones that get past the students go on to supervisors, who make sure patents are being well put down (all they really have to do is check a website, or actually read the patent aloud and laugh their asses off). The ones that nobody can find a problem with, goes on to a small public review (say pull in people like jury duty), pay them a few bucks a day and have them listen to a company explain their patent, why it should be aloud. Make patents a courtable ideal, and there will be much, much less abuse of the system, as they realize they can't pass bullshit on people.
I dunno.. I have strong opinions, but you've got to agree that it's rediculous that we're churning our asses off with new technologies, and meanwhile they're taking all of our exploits, making more of their own, and at a rate that we can't possibly ever hope to keep up with. If we share, we'll both succeed. If we become secretive, nobody will, and really, patents are just the legal way of being secretive (of course, not getting one is "top secret", but not without it's own problems).
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
.. albeit one that was not expressed very diplomatically.
When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, it sent a shock wave through the collective American populace. From coast to coast, people were asking themselves a simple question: "How could this have happened?" There was a sense of general dismay that the Soviets had won this particular leg of the Space Race, and Americans were more or less united in the goal of making sure that it didn't happen again.
As a result of this, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), which set new standards for math and science education and established low-interest loans for college tuition. We recognized a threat, we took it seriously, we invested in our educational system, and the result of that investment was the generation that built the tools with which we won the Cold War.
Fast-forward to Modern America, and not only does it seem that we did not learn from that lesson of the past, but we're also moving in the wrong direction. Test scores are slipping, math and science education are being regarded in some circles as irrelevant (and even as "dirty" in some more extreme circles), and I've even seen the phrase "college-educated" used as a slur. (As if having a college education is a bad thing!)
It is dismissive to suggest that the rising and disturbing trend of religious fanaticism here at home has nothing to do with this trend. No offense intended to anybody's beliefs, but it should be obvious that the "6000 year-old Universe" crowd has far more political clout and organization than they did (say) ten years ago, and it is dangerous to dismiss them as "quaint" or "traditional." When I think "quaint", I think of Norman Rockwell paintings; it is hardly an adjective that I would attach to a movement that (I would contend) is a threat to the national security and the future of the United States.
Of course, it's equally dismissive to suggest that only religious fanaticism is responsible for our nation's disinterest in proper education. We've got a culture that is obsessed with shark bites, missing white women, and celebrity divorces. We've got parents that are more worried about having better landscaping or a bigger SUV than their neighbors than they are about their own children's education.
Personally, I don't care so much about the root causes of the problem as I do about the problem itself, and I'd like to see it fixed. Maybe what we need is a new national committment to math and science education, much like the one that served us so well in the past. Maybe what we need is a National Defense Education Act for the new millennium.
Sadly, however, I have very little faith that such an act would even make it out of committee in today's climate.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
From what I have seen, and it is a lot, private education and quasi-private education such as charter schools, do an apalling job of science and math education. Sure, exceptions can be cited, but the overall level is well below that of public schools. Teaching these subjects requires smart, motivated teachers with the time and resources to do the job. You are more likely to find these in a public school. We have a fine Catholic school system with a high school and two elementary schools in our area, but they don't teach AP anything. There is no math past Algebra II, no third year foreign language, and only one course each in chemistry, physics, and biology, all taught by the same guy.
A lot of the problem is cultural, in my opinion. It's not cool to be smart these days in the US. The President talks like a dumb fucker, and he and his fundamentalist buddies spend a lot of time, energy, and money bashing science. Funding for research is being cut left and right, so its no surprise that the center of science and technology is moving elsewhere. If you want to get your bad heart replaced with a cloned replacement, you're going to find yourself in Chiba, not Chicago.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Well, to be accurate, they just give more of a crap about everything else, like funding an unjustified war. Or taking care of big business. Or any of other 1000 things that the government wastes OUR money on. Everyone gives lip service to bettering education, yet they love to say ignorant things like "well, at least teachers get the summer off".
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
This could all be interpreted in many ways, but at face value, this is hardly surprising.
The United States, at large, pushes ridiculous religious dogma that infiltrates and dillutes science and science education with theology.
This country spends untold billions on its military and and related conflicts, diverting money from education and research.
Certain government entities almost routinely intimidate scientists and alter research findings that don't support a money or dogma-driven agenda.
We have a society that demonizes the educated, and also frequently for religious reasons, blames education for a break-down of morals.
Corporations pander always to the lowest common denominator when it comes to offering products and services rather than depend on a thinking population.
We eat junkfood like there is no tomorrow, effectively eliminating the chance of a healthy lifestyle that is essential to a healthy brain and mind. (Yes, bad food makes you stupid.)
I could go on, but that would just get too boring. Also, none of this would be too hard to defend (I'm not providing refernces because I'm on a cell phone at the moment). Really, when you think about all the nonsense and silly behavor which saturates our society, what do you expect? A population of enlightened thinkers?
Join Tor today!
That North America glorifies cash as the ultimate goal of everything. If you've got 2 phds and are leading breakthrough research for a modest wage, you are considered less of a success then high-school dropouts who are making 6 figure (or more) salaries. Think of all the College drop-outs running amok in the billionaires club, you think for a second they respect the intelligent researchers that make the breakthroughs for their company? Think again, they think they're the smart ones.
I hear all the time on the radio. The talk-show jocks will mention that they didn't go to college and are making a killing, will take calls from people who started a roofing business or whatnot and are raking 250k, and laugh together at the college graduates making 35-60k a year.
Not that this is a new phenomena, the history of science is filled with geniuses that contributed monumentally to science but lived modestly.
USA number one in freedom, ROFLMAO
GDP; last time i saw Luxembourg was number one and number two was Norway.
So what else are USA number one besides arrogance ?
"I Can READ That!" is a gentle introduction to reading Chinese characters, focused on stuff you'd see while traveling in China. Won't really teach you how to say anything, though.
For self-paced learning of conversational Mandarin, nothing beats the Pimsleur language programs. I can say from personal experience that after listening to just the first-level program, you will be able to ask for stuff in restaurants (and drop a few jaws in the process if you don't look Asian!), hold simple conversations with Chinese speakers, and start to make a little sense of the dialogue in Chinese movies and TV shows. There are three levels, each with about 15 hours of material.
If you have a Palm handheld, PlecoDict absolutely rocks for building up your vocabulary of both spoken and written Mandarin. It has a great graduated-interval flashcard mode.
The New Practical Chinese Reader is the latest edition of the textbook that's been used in just about every introductory Chinese language course in the English-speaking world in the last couple of decades. It is available with cassette tapes to help with pronunciation.
For more vocabulary, both spoken and written, Rosetta Stone is good. Its major weakness is that it uses the same vocabulary words for all the languages it covers, and the word list is based on some Western assumptions; some things that take just one word in a typical western language take several in Mandarin, and you find yourself getting a small flood of new words with no clear idea of exactly what each one means on its own. But once you've learned the basic conjunctions and so on, that's not a big deal.
For actually learning how to write (stroke order) there's Easy Chinese Tutor, not a great piece of software but the material is decent and it even comes with a bunch of character tracing sheets you can print out and practice on.
Zhongwen.com has a bunch of good resources.
What I really want, though, is for someone to do the equivalent of Destinos for Mandarin. Maybe in the form of a historical kung-fu soap opera comedy drama fantasy like the awesome Tian Xia Di Yi. I'd pay good money for that!
Not only is the U.S. losing ground in high technology exports, but its very capacity to develop new technologies is declining rapidly with respect to the rest of the world.
So what? In the U.S. we can outlaw evolution. We'll just change science when and if needed.
"Kansas school board's evolution ruling angers science community" [CNN].
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
I blame the overpaid CEOs. For just a small reduction in their ridiculous saleries, they could avoid overseas outsourcing and kept technology jobs here, which is one of the best ways of reinvesting in technology.
...
Very true, but our market system here in the US, as opposed to say, the EU, encourages one or two quarters of forward looking, as compared to the typical five to ten year forward looking planning the rest of the world enjoys.
Sadly, most shareholders aren't even permitted to vote on the CEO/exec salaries, an obvious loophole
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
In no particular order:
1. Funding slashed for public education.
2. Lawyers fighting trivial patent battles (instead of that money being used to innovate).
3. Companies suing their own customers for copyright infringement
4. "Infotainment" instead of informed news. Fox News anybody?
5. Controlfreak-behavior everywhere. Controlling what people with their information, controlling foreigners/terrorists/everything, etc.
6. Manipulated Science Papers to receive funding.
7. Polically motivated resaerch to bring a certain politically favoured outcome.
8. Removing of non-PC topics from school books (like "fanatism", "racial issues", in some cases "evolution theory").
9. Huge defense budget (instead of using the money otherwise).
10. Religious (christian) fundamentalism.
11. Campains to make the US the most disliked country on this planet, even by its allies.
12. etc/etc/etc
Honestly, who is surprised? This maybe what currently the majority of the (US) people want, but these same people should realize that actions have consequences.
Europe isn't much better either.
My son, who is now four, can read "Green Eggs and Ham" and is working on the words in "Red Fish, Blue Fish". I read to him every night religiously, and I am asking him comprehension questions. Although he was slow in learning to speak, he is definitely ready now. Plus, he is learning Korean from his mother.
Except that gifted kids aren't much different from regular kids! All the studies I've seen show that if you challenge a kid, they will rise to the challenge. That means that we shouldn't classify them into "smart" and "dumb". We should be teaching them all as if they were all smart! As far as I can tell, the only factor in whether a kid is ready to learn is whether they are motivated. Kick all the non-motivated kids out, tell their parents to motivate them, and we can challenge the kids we have and give them the best education in the world.
Kids should come into high school ready for college. They should leave high school with what now passes for a four-year degree. There's no reason why we have to wait until they are 19 before we can really start teaching them. You'd be surprised what thse 14- and 15-year-olds are able to comprehend. I've had some seriously deep rational conversations with boys from this age, and these boys are by no means bright. Why aren't we taking 14-year-old kids and showing them Calculus and Physics and how transistors really work? I know they're ready for it because I can teach it to them and I'm not even a professional!
In order to get there, middle school should be what high school is today. The kids should learn to devour technical books. They should wrap up their ability to compose English and to reason with mathematics. They should get a taste of what is coming in high school.
Which means in elementary school it is absolutely critical that they master the basics. If you can't read, you can't get into 3rd grade, plain and simple. If you can't read a thick book and understand it, you can't get out of 6th grade. If you can't add, subtract, divide, multiply, and solve basic algebra problems, you won't see middle school.
Kick out the non-motivated kids, let them know that they had better change their attitude or else life is going to hit them like a semi-truck at 2AM on the interstate. Kids MUST get educated, and fast, or else the U. S. of A. will become a third world company as all the tech companies are forced to leave for India and China.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Here is a counterexample to your arguments.
Ever been to Britain? Indians and Pakistanis occupy the social status that African Americans occupy in the US. They dwell mostly in inner cities. They are poor. They do most of the shit-work. They are derogatorily referred to as "Pakis" by the white mainstream. They form street gangs. The liberals and conservatives debate ad-infinitum about the causes of their backwardness. Of course, the few that break the mould to become professionals/businessmen are considered to be the exceptions that break the rule.
Go to the US. What a difference! Most of the Indians and Pakistanis are well-educated. They are affluent and live in posh suburbs. They may not be accepted by the mainstream, but nobody really considers them inferior in any way. The tech companies are full of them.
If that is not an argument for environment over heredity, I don't know what is.
Magnus.
America is hated largely because we are number one in terms of ... freedom
Freedom, n. Exemption from the stress of authority in a beggarly half dozen of restraint's infinite multitude of methods. A political condition that every nation supposes itself to enjoy in virtual monopoly.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1906)
Almost a century later and just as accurate as ever.
Jedidiah.
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> America is hated largely because we are number one in terms of GDP, freedom, etc. I say let someone else take that spot at the top (at least in GDP) so the rest of the world can hate them for a while.
America is not hated because you have more GDP or freedom than the rest of the world. You are hated because you attack and destroy countries and sovereign governments when your economic interest dictates that, in the name of "liberating" the population (well, the part which you do not kill) while you do not give a hoot about hundreds of thousand dying when there is no money for you in it.
You are hated because you toot around against WMDs whlie you are the largest developers of named WMDs and, in fact, the only one who used nuclear weapons against civilian targets.
You are hated because you refuse to care about the environment because it would hurt your bottom line and the rest of the world suffers from your ignorance. You are hated because you define what "freedom" must mean to the rest of the world: the American Way of Life. Everyone who thinks differently is an enemy of Freedom and Liberty and the enemy of the US of A.
You are hated because you set up dictators when it suits you then try to depose them, with all your military might, when they do not toe the party line any more. Never mind how many people die in both turn and never mind what gets destroyed, as long as weapons sale profits are high enough.
You are not hated but looked down for touting freedom when you had seggregation just 30 years ago, for warning parents that the Origin of Species contains dangerous theories that are not in the Bible, for having a patent system that allows you to patent a way of combing your hair to cover a bald spot, for cranking out movie after movie with no plot but more blood and explosion than a slaghterhouse hit by a Pershing and you call it "culture" but in the same time you have no problem destroying many thousand year old remnants of human history - all in all, that was not American, thus it must have been worthless. You are looked down for being the largest porn manufacturing industry but with an unbelievable hypocricy make nudity a deadly sin. You talk about freedom but ban gay marriages. You talk about women's rights but ban abortus even to an underage rape victim.
The idea that the world envies you is false. It comes from the idea that the US is, by definition, the best. Therefore obviously the world wants to be like the US just evil forces want to stop development and in order to liberate the world in their quest to finally living "our way of life", as your great leader puts it in every speech, you should attack them by economic, political and military needs. The fallacy in the whole ideology is that the rest of the world does not want to live like you. Europe appreciates her own decadent ways you know, with all that culture rubbish and lack of rights to have machine guns but with some rights of not being killed by your fellow citizens. Asia has a culture that is a lot more ancient than even Europe's and they seem to be doing reasonably OK with it, thank you very much. Africa is just too poor to have its priorities around freedom and ideology, they think about the food and water and medication more than their liberty.
Noone would have a problem with the US wanting to lead the world.
The problem is that you do not want to lead, you want to rule.
The problem is that we've now gone from NIMBY to BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone)!
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
The neglect of gifted children is one of the worst things that occurs in the public education system. For those children who are gifted and could succeed, there is no reason to strive. They would be belittled by their peers and given no additional resources. For those children who are gifted and have concomittant special needs (i.e. can finish assigned reading in 1/2 the allotted time and then disrupt the class because they're bored, does the teacher have anything for them to do afterwards?)
You know the saying about the first 80% of an objective being easy to achieve? The next 10% is challenging, the 5% after that very difficult and the final 5% almost impossible. For some reason our schools are attempting to get the final 5% onto par with the first 80% through mainstreaming of students who may never produce average results; simultaneously they are ignoring the 10% of potential high achievers who may require more stimulation to really bloom.
now git to yer bible an stop tawkin abot debvul majick! aint no need to be aksin abut the majic until jaysus is in yr hert and hee tells you to look at the majick!
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Going to call bollocks on that mate.
Walk into any hospital in the UK and count the number of doctors of Asian ethnicity.
Walk into any large IT company in the city and count the number of Asian programmers.
You're talking crap mate.
Asian families aspire for their children to be professionals in the UK pretty much as they do anywhere else on the planet. And they succedd at it. The stereotype of most Indians and Pakistanis is of hard working, family orientated, law abiding and honest people.... you'll find it really hard to find a view of them being backward.
I suggest you visited another country and simply carried your own view with you.
For reference, I now live in Spain (used to work in central London), and the model of the Indian/Pakistani family is exactly the same here in Spain as it is in the UK. It's completely identifiable in every way.
No, then we have to celebrate, because we'll reap the benefits of their innovation. They'll invent ways to make things and provide services better and cheaper than before, and the world will be a better place for it. What nonsense the original article is, whining about us losing a "science crown". The world economy is a collaboration, not a competition! The richer and cleverer people in other countries get, the better off we will be.
I play Nerd-Folk!
In no way do I support eugenics... I'm simply an observer. However, I have to note this:
1) In the west we have a "natural" selection of people where less successful people tend to breed more and sooner (they have more kids earlier in life). If there is any genetic component to success, we are effectively breeding it out.
2) In China, they have an artificial selection where parents can only have 1 child. Those that have 2 are fined for the second, so effectively people with money (sometimes equivalent to success) can breed more. Therefore, China is encouraging the breeding of more successful people.
I admit this is a simplification of the matter. However, I think that several generations down the road, this will turn into an advantage for the Chinese nation.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
...at least not without further details. India has had an extensive caste system for a very long time, which has also discouraged interbreeding, especially with the brahmin elite class.
One might argue that the differences in british vs. american immigrant indians might come from different ratios of caste immigration. I am completely unaware of any data on this, but it does question the strength of your environment over heredity arguement.
---
the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
I'd like to start this off by saying that this isn't the first article to stir up fears of an ascendant Asia vs. a descendant America. Slashdot is full of them. Just take a look at any single article noting a technical achievement anywhere, and I mean anywhere outside the US, be it Europe, China, Brazil or India.
And what is the typical slashdotter's reaction? One of blatant chauvinism, racism and derogatory remarks about backward Chinese spacecraft supposedly copied from the Russians, supposedly socialist Europe supporting a dying dream of having the wrong vision of passenger aircraft future or not even knowing that Brazil has had a working ethanol based gasoline system for more than two decades.
That is the typical reaction. If you ask me, the problem of the US is perhaps one of arrogance based on ignorance. Ignorance on what happens beyond the US' borders. I suppose it comes from 60 years of superpower status and genuine leadership in many areas. It's gone on for so long that people in the US possibly take it for granted.
It's also not the first economic scare the US has had. The Japanese frightened many in the 70's and 80's. And now the outsourcing of jobs to China and India is frightening many more.
So where is the problem? Is it education as so many slashdotters like to believe? Is it the US media that is almost exclusively US centric to the extent that your average slashdotter knows neither the difference between Sweden and Switzerland or between Austria and Australia, and has vague and unsettling notions about the EU being socialist or even communist, let alone about place that have cultures even more remotely removed from the US such as China and India?
I think it's probably a bit of all of that, but that the real problem is that the US population is simply not interested in the rest of the world. It's US consumers that drive the US media. It's US parents that drive the education system. It's the US population that votes in a President who is only semi-literate. It's the US population that votes to supplant science with dogmatic religion and yet rail against another equally dogmatic religion, that being ironically, one of the few foreign affairs that genuinely, even if only out of fear, interests the average US person.
Taking an active interest in our world is step one to rejuvinating the US. IMO.
Not that science matters to you, the rapture is coming anyhow.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The problem is that the environment in the US is becoming hostile to science.
I'm with you there - though "becoming" implies something recent and this trend has been going on for decades. (Trust me. I lived through it.)
The religious extremists, greatly enheartened by a Fundementalist President's second term, are pursuing an agenda of undermining public education to replace science with nonsense like Intelligent Design and "teach the controversy."
But here I call BS.
The downfall of the US educational system predates both Bushes and has nothing to to with religious fundamentalism - unless you chose to label the "progressive" movement fundamentalist.
It it the result of a package of new-age ideologies that have formed into a meme strong enough to infect and unify nearly half the politically-active population of the US - including the entire administrative infrastructure of public school primary and secondary education (along with the professoriate of most of the institutions of "higher" learning, especially in the "liberal arts" part of the curriculum).
Some of the components:
- Look-say reading instruction - turning out functional illiterates.
- "New math", "Rain-forest Math", and other defective math and science teaching practices, turning out functional ilnumerates. (Note that the latter, while neglecting math skills, spends its time on story problems that amount to a political indoctrination course.)
- Bilingual education and "ebonics" - indellibly marking children as underclass via an accent and sabotaging their chance for higher education and employment above the burger-flipping level (at least in the legal economy).
- Self-esteem and "results-based" educational practices replacing grading on performance - removing incentive (actually producing a DISincentive) to learn.
- "Sensitivity" and "diversity" training misused to define gang activity as "black" and "latino" culture - and to require teachers ignore disruptive behavior by young gangsters as they block other kids from what little learning they could otherwise achieve in the dysfunctional institution.
- "Non-violent conflict resolution" that amounts to permitting the bullies to hit first to their heart's content, while drastically punishing anyone who attempts to defend by blocking a blow or hitting back.
- Revisionist history: Ad-Hominem flames of the founders as "Dead White Men" (whose anti-authoritarian principles and teachings can thus be dismissed), characterization of the constitution as "a living document" that can be stretched to allow anything rather than a limit on government, treating historical facts as matters of opinion, utterly failing to cover most of the most important events of the last several centuries, and a list of other misdeeds too long to go into here.
- Teacher retention, promotion, and pay scales based on seniority and tenure (in ELEMENTARY schools!) while totally blocking any consideration of qualification or performance.
- School-of-education curricula that consist entirely of political indoctrination and utterly ignore science, math, biology, and any sience except so-called "social science" (which has less to do with science than "creation science" and "Christian Science".)
And a host of other misdeeds, again too long to post here.
All having the effect of dumbing down the victims of the education system and turning them into a mass of easy-to-control (though not as productive as they might have been) sheep. And virtually all coming out of the ideology of the left.
Yes, there are some religious sects to the right of Joe Stalin who take issue with Darwin and make noise about it at school board meetings - especially when books are being selected. They get all the press - because the press itself is more than happy to turn its spotlight on its own opposition. This lets it blame its own side's destruction of science education on the other side. They've
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Their government represses religion instead of letting religion run everything thinly veiled by the supposed 'separation of church and state'.
... not becuase 'they tried to kill my daddy!'
Their government doesnt force the fables of creationism on kids during SCIENCE classes.
Their government doesnt tell their own scientists to go back and try again when evidence is found supporting the idea of global warming.
Their government doesnt force kids in some schools to recite the lord's prayer regardless of what religion (or lack thereof) they come from.
Their government invades / annexes other countries because of historical ties, to repress sepratism of semi-autonomous regions
Sure, there's a problem here and there with how China does things too, but there's no wonder why they are poised to take over.
Their government owns SO MUCH american debt, they just need to threaten to dump a little of it to send the US dollar plummetting. hmmm wonder why they just de-linked the value of their money from the US dollar peg?
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
The size of China's population is irrelevant. Statistically speaking, yes, there may be more bright people born, but political factors take a much more prominent role. Take 16th century Venice, for example. With 200,000 citizens, it had a technological advantage and military parity with the Ottoman Empire, which had 20 million residents and thousands of times more landmass. The reasons? The tradition of free & rational inquiry, some free market mechanisms, and substantially more individual liberty. The point is, firstly that population size doesnt matter, and secondly, that, as long as the US encourages free thought more than China, it will always come out on top. It is no coincidence that revolutionary R&D (microprocessors, telephones, nuclear power) have come from the West, while evolutionary R&D (the latest in motherboard designs) comes from the East.
I teach in an engineering department in a fairly good european university.
We had a meeting recently where the senior members of the department discussed project work and instructions to students. Their concern was that a pattern was emerging along these lines...
Domestic students would or would not do what they were told by the deadline. They may or may not introduce some ideas of their own in doing this.
European students would tend to deliver but had a tendency to deliver what they wanted deliver rather than what was discussed, this would vary a bit as to whether it was a good thing (innovative, neat ideas, rejecting what on balance became bad advice) or a bad thing (willfully ignoring good advice) depending.
Japanese students tend never to say no, but would sometimes reappear at an advanced point in the project and confess they were stuck. Sometimes this would be a bit too late to do much about it. They'd normally get by though, just on the basis that up until that point they'd have had a damn good go at attacking the problem and there was often on close examination some stuff there that could be re-worked or otherwise given prominence to attract the credit it deserved.
Chinese students, basically, would never so no and always deliver exactly what was requested, even if they staggered in looking like death warmed up.
The bulk of the meeting was discussing how we could get our overseas students to loosen up a little and be more proactive. Its a fine balance obviously recognising the needs of individuals but not being discriminatory. But as one Prof quipped, we could probably kill a Chinese student by giving them an insoluable problem to work on whereas a domestic student would probably turn up and call us names (rightly). Be careful with the off-hand suggestions was the message, be clear about what the goals are and what are side issues. This should help all the above in different ways.
Does this translate into anything nationally? Not sure, but it might be relevant if it says something universal about mentality. Chinese engineers certainly have the work ethic, put it that way.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
Much of the EU really is socialist with Germany coming to mind in particular, featuring strong central government planning of the economy and extensive social safety nets, workers' unions with real power truly representing their membership, and so on.
Uhm, what central planning of the economy???????. Your assumption is more or less what I meant, I think. There is no centrally planned economy in the EU. In fact it's one of the rules of the EU to have free markets. If you're talking about the agricultural subsidies, then I would point out The US' farm subsidies in response. It has nothing to do with centrally planned economies.
Shit, and there I hoped to make a point.
I always liked the way that conversation goes at parties. If there's a follow-up question, it's always "What kind?" and occasionally incredulous. One learns to say "algebra" and change the subject.
I've had more than one conversation run along lines like this:
Person: So what do you do?
Me: I'm a mathematician.
Person: Oh, you're a teacher. What level do you teach?
Me: No, I don't teach at all -
Person: But I thought you said you did math?
Me: Yeah, I do. I'm a research mathematician for a software company.
Person: How do you research math?
At which point it's time to grab the conversation by the scruff of the neck and quickly steer it in another direction because anything more isn't going to be productive.
The exposure to abstract mathematics doesn't reach significance--much less unification--with a BS in math ed.
I agree, and this is an issue. We spend a lot of time teaching people how to do math problems, without actually teaching them any mathematics. In a way it's akin to teaching people about creative writing by nothing but drilling them for years in spelling and formal grammar - yes it's important if you want to be able to do the subject properly, but it fails to really impart the essence of the subject.
That horrible question, when will I ever use this?, becomes a sort of grim reality.
That's an interesting problem, and the answer really is "all the time". We really ought to be teaching philosophy, including some formal logic, and stretching our math ciriculum sideways to meet it. One of the greatest skills that mathematics can impart, even at a very early level (late elementary school) if taught appropriately, is how to think about, deal with, and analyse abstract concepts. It's exercising the mental muscles for logical analysis and critical thinking. If we actually taught mathematics and philosophy from an early age I think we'd be much better off.
I don't think bad teachers are to blame. Boring, maybe, but not resentful.
I think they are, in that they have an attitude that math is both hard, and not of much real practical importance. Whether or not they tell kids that explicitly, it is very much an attitude that kids pick up and learn to imitate.
Jedidiah.
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