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. "

Comments

That should go along nicely...

[daveschroeder]

...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.

Re:That should go along nicely...

[gsfprez]

In the States, the problem isn't that environmentalists don't want nuclear power, the problem is that they don't trust the Bush administration with it.

that has to be the single most stupid thing i've ever seen on /.

what in the hell does that even mean? Is he going to set off the nukular reactors and blow someone up? Is he going to use them to drill for oil? Is he going to give the reactors to the Saudi's, you know - those evil dirty Arabs who are just so evil... Arabs... evil... Saudis... evil arabs...

the level of hatred against this guy is epic. He is like Hitler in one way - the level of vilification by the world. Except in one case, it was justified.

Re:That should go along nicely...

[jahudabudy]

But they continued on to also say opposition to ANY nuclear project was critical.

Yeah, sometimes (most of the time?) passionate self-righteousness precludes any rational thought. I work on the campus of a liberal arts college, and see a lot of PCU-style protesters. A few years ago, NC was looking to build a waste-disposal site for low-level nuclear waste (generally stuff like rubber gloves used in medical procedures involving radiation or x-ray). I was approached by a protest group that wanted me to sign a petition decrying this horrendous environmental affront. I asked them what they proposed should be done with this waste, they said "Stop producing it." I pointed out that a) chemotherapy patients, dental patients, etc. would object to this "solution", and b) this "solution" would do absolutely nothing for the already existing waste.
I'm not sure which was louder, the howls of rage, or the giant sucking sound as my points were hurled into the intellectual vacuum.

Re:That should go along nicely...

[pete6677]

Many environmentalists are in favor of sensible energy policy, which can include nuclear power when done correctly. A minority of them, however, are simply opposed to ALL forms of power generation. There isn't a method of generation that is unopposed by anyone. Whatever it is, they'll find a reason to hate it. I think this small percentage of hardcore environmentalists are really just anti-society luddites. What better way to shut down industrialized society than to get rid of electrical generation?

Re:That should go along nicely...

[frank_adrian314159]

what in the hell does that even mean? Is he going to set off the nukular reactors and blow someone up?

No. To spell it out for you, nuclear power plants are supposed to be privately held, but publicly regulated. This regulation is essential to insure that the populace is not injured due to lack of plant maintenance or poor operation. The Bush administration has shown itself willing to allow industries off the hook (and actively fighting for them to be kept of the same hoook) for several years now. It is unlikely that their stance on nuclear regulation would be different. As such, most people (even us who support the technology) are quite leery about letting it return under this administration.

And before you give me the old Libertarian saw about how the power companies would be hurting themselves if they let the plants go out of safety compliance, remember that people and companies do a whole lot of things which, in hindsight, appear to be stupid, in order to take "low-risk" gains, only to have said probability turn aginst them. Also, as the Congress' new tort-reform legislation has been signed (and was always limited in practice by actual assets - there's not a lot of value in a busted nuclear plant), there is almost no way for the public to have redress if such an accident did happen. all of these act as factors to say that nukes probably won't be getting approved for at least another 3 years are up. Stop voting for idiots who think it's fine to let companies screw over people without penalty and maybe they'll let the companies have their (somewhat dangerous) toys back.

Re:That should go along nicely...

[mellon]

Look, there are five big issues with nuclear power:

1. The waste is toxic, and not biodegradable, so it remains toxic for longer than the lifespan of any historical civilization.
2. The waste can be used to build nuclear weapons.
3. Reactors can melt down.
4. Reactors can accidentally emit radioactive material into the atmosphere.
5. Reactors wear out, and when they are no longer usable, the entire reactor is itself toxic waste, and remains that way for longer than the life of any known civilization. Tearing down the reactor inevitably releases this waste into the environment - the groundwater, the soil, and the atmosphere.

It's quite possible that all of these problems can be solved. It's also true that in some cases, coal power is worse than nuclear. For example, fly ash from coal contains a certain number of parts per million of uranium, radium and thorium, depending on where it was mined.

But let's be clear. Pebble bed solves the meltdown problem. That's all it solves. It doesn't solve the waste problem.

Theory is that breeder reactors might solve the waste problem - in fact, what they allow you to do is extract about 75 times more energy from the same uranium, which is very cool indeed, and what's left is much less radioactive than what you started with (but it's still radioactive).

Unfortunately, the best example we have of a fast breeder reactor is the Superphenix reactor in France. This was shut down in 1997 because it began to fail in exciting ways, prematurely, particularly due to problems in the liquid sodium (!) cooling system. So this technology, unlike pebble bed reactors, isn't as stable as one would wish.

So we've completely addressed problem (3), and there's the possibility that problems (1) and (2) may be partially addressed by breeder reactor technology at some future time. But they aren't completely addressed even in the future, and aren't addressed at all in the present. Plus, we're still left with the other two problems, which are quite significant.

So you do the math. What's the cost/benefit analysis for coal? For solar? For nuclear? For wind? For some combination of these? If you think the answer is easy, you probably haven't actually done the math.

I think the reason for the wide disparity of opinions on this topic is that (a) people value different things differently, and (b) nobody is really even talking about the same thing.

For example, when someone talks about recycling nuclear fuel with breeder reactors, they're speaking hypothetically, even if they don't know it, because the technology isn't yet mature enough to be able to say that it's actually usable in practice. All current practical experiments have thus far yielded failure, although some have been more successful than others, and we do know that the basic idea does work.

Likewise when someone talks about getting energy from kites, it's also hypothetical, because nobody's actually doing it in production yet. Once again, there have been trials, and we do know that the basic idea does work, but we do not yet know if it can be used in practice, en masse.

Both things are interesting, but when you're discussing energy policy decisions, neither thing is presently relevant, and neither will be until they have demonstrated success in production.

Likewise, for some people, the value of generation techniques that produce no first-order pollution byproducts (i.e., combustion byproducts or fission byproducts) is more attractive than techniques that do produce these byproducts. It's important that we not let ourselves be fooled by the lack of first-order byproducts when the second-order byproducts overwhelm the first-order byproducts (e.g., the debate about the net energy cost to build a solar panel).

But assuming that we are taking these factors into account, it's still possible that even if the generation cost of, for example, solar, in dollars, were more than the generation cost of, for example, nuclear, it might still be better to build solar, because we are not counting certain externalities which, while they don't cost in dollars, do still matter.

Re:That should go along nicely...

[Bastian]

what in the hell does that even mean?

It means to me that, given the Bush administration's current record on international relations and national security, putting up more nuke plants with people like him in power conjures images of scores of nuclear power plants with huge targets painted on the cooling towers, large cash rewards being posted for anyone who can bulls-eye one, and maps showing the locations of all of them along with their bounties.

Let's wait until the country isn't being run by an administration that is hell-bent on giving people all over the world reasons to hate us while being so tunnel-visioned in on playing nepotism games and chasing white whales and ninjas in the bushes that it's incapable of putting up a solid, carefully-planned defense strategy.

He's not evil. He just a causehead who has no fucking clue about anything but does have an incredible knack for making emotional appeals that keep people who are easily influenced thinking he's a well-balanced intellectual. I mean, come on, this is the guy whose idea of the most financially responsible thing to do with Social Security is to prop it up with a $2,000,000,000,000 loan.

The warning signs have been around

[tcd004]

Yep, this has been creeping up on us for awhile, despite warnings from U.S. industry insiders. Both government and private funds for R&D are drying up.

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

Re:The warning signs have been around

[pete6677]

Industry insiders are largely responsible for research cuts. When companies like HP, AT&T, Bell Labs, and many other former research giants cut back their activities to become just another consumer electronics company, it's no surprise that research in the US will be lacking. Until someone is willing to focus on more than next quarter's profits, this will be an ongoing trend.

What do you expect?

[donleyp]

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.

Re:What do you expect?

[Evro]

This is what we get for handing our children's education over to the government.

As opposed to China, where they've handed everything over to the government?

Re:What do you expect?

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Last I checked, the Government was also handling children's education WAY back in our glory days during WWII and the space race.

What is a sin and a shame to me is the "one size fits all" mentality that shapes education. When are we going to finally grow up and realize that not everyone is cut out for college. Of course that would also require a measure of respect for the trades as a legitimate line of work, and not simply something for the "special" kids.

Re:What do you expect?

[donleyp]

There have been lots of great ideas for fixing it, but every single one of them have been shot down by the NEA.

It is a sad state of affairs when the major private organization in our country helping to shape education policy is a teacher's union, who's interest lies with teachers, not students.

Let me refine my point by pointing out that you can track the decline in S&E with the rise in the power of the Department of Education.

Re:What do you expect?

[dillon_rinker]

When are we going to finally grow up and realize that not everyone is cut out for college.

As soon as "elitist" isn't a dirty word. As soon as ethnicity-blind policies become the law of the land. As soon as we recognize that homo sapiens is subject to evolutionary pressures and its various subpopulations are variously adapted to their environments.

Any leftist with a lick of political sense is now branding me a racist. Odd how anti-evolution the left becomes when you discuss apply the principles of evolution to the human race.

Re:What do you expect?

[linzeal]

Get rid of most of the teachers after grade 5 or so and let people who can utilize the vast array of self-tutorials, peer-forums and the sheer power of the internet to learn. My niece is 12 years old and has advanced all the way to precalculus with a mother and father who know only basic arithmitic and has never been in a school or met a teacher. She is self-sufficient and is not some super genius or anything. Teacher-led instruction as the basis for education in a fast paced knowledge driven economy is damaging children before they learn you can learn for yourself, by yourself.

Re:What do you expect?

[ncmathsadist]

Ah, it's the perennial bitchfest on American education. Why don't our schools work like they should? Here's a view from the inside (I teach in a public magnet school).

1. American culture is deeply anti-intellectual. Americans do not value teaching and learning. Look at the behaviour of our largest universities. Americans are interested in their children being credentialed; they for the most part don't give a fig if their children become sentient, civilized adults.

2. Education has a second-rate image as a profession. Americans think that teachers should work "for the love of it". These same people think that a tepid middle relief pitcher should get 3 megabux a year 'cause its important for the home team. There is no star system for teachers. All are yoked in syzygy into rigid pay scales that do not reward performance. Well, Americans are getting what they pay for.

3. Education starts in the home. Are you sending your child to school properly socialized so he can function effectively? Do you read to your chyldren? Does junior know his colors and shapes, or is he educated by the television?? This is probably the biggest source of the achievement gap in schools, tho' it ain't PC to talk about it.

4. Schools STILL function in the industrial revolution model. Your average edhead says "Gee, don't one size fit all....?" Schools are, more often than not, tighly and centrally controlled like factories. Schools push values such as lockstep conformity. "Dont be different! That's bad!" Then their administrations sit and wonder why every kid is doing drugs as a teen. In the 21st century, people need to learn to think for themselves to be effective citizens. (this is a heretical and incendiary idea)

5. It's OK in america to neglect gifted kids. "They will take care of themselves anyway" Uh, wrong. Tragically wrong. This is a topic for a lengthy disquisition. I have been a specialist in the field of gifted education for many years. The misconceptions held by the public on this issue are legion.

It is not a pretty picture. And given our yahooish culture (highest cultural value in America: tits wiggling on a video screen) and the loutishness and selfishness of our business and political establishments, change isn't in the cards any time soon. Remember, it's always fat'n'sassy right until the very moment the roof cafes in. Hello Bejing.......

Re:What do you expect?

[kabocox]

I agree but I'll take your post from a slightly different POV.

1. The US doesn't generally give a sh*t about math or science look at junior high and highschool. What are the 3 most popular groups? Football, cheerleaders and drillteam. I personally would like all sports banned from school except for intermural PE sports.

2. I'm sorry, but in this point I strongly disagree with you. Why? Because I think almost all schools are making far too much money as it is. Note: I said schools not teachers. I honestly think that almost all school admin staff across the country should be fired ASAP. Most teachers can tell you that this would radically increase the money that reaches teachers. I'd honestly like fully itemized bills sent home from school in addition to report cards. That would change the educational landscape.

3. I'm more neutral on this. I agree that any student that has a parent that forces the student to learn will generally outperform those don't. I don't think that teachers should expect any help though. I think teachers should expect any parental help as pure bonus. Honestly parents get pissed at alot of busy work that could be done in class that is assigned as homework that generally happens more in junior high and high school though.

4. At first, I was going to agree. But then I thought about it. For the most part, you are given a rather wide choice of subjects in junior high and high school. My grip is pre-reqs designed in a why that forces a student into a "career" track. If you didn't take geometery early on, there is no way for you to double up and take Cal later on.

5. You know. I hate the term gifted students. I was in gifted and talented for awhile. I decided shortly there after to avoid it like the plague. Why? Because most of the individuals that were admitted were trouble makers: those that would crack jokes, interrupt the teacher to gossip, and would talk or pass notes. I was happy that those students were there. They tested well. Testing is extremely easy to the talented. What is difficult is sitting down and listening. Heck, most school work could be done in 5-10 minutes unless designed to take longer. Gifted and talented folks pass through without a problem. Actually, in alot of respects, I think middle school through high school should be taught in the same manner with the same freedoms as college is now.

I'm not really worried about China. Why? Because they'll cut off contact with the rest of the world once they are 20-30 years ahead of everyone else. In that time frame, the US will re-evaluate alot of things and get its act together. The US only shines when we have a good partner to compete against. China will drive the US forward like no one else could.

Re:What do you expect?

[ChenLing]

I'm sorry, but that is just wrong. I'm from China. I grew up there until age 8 (end of 2nd grade) when I moved to the US (1986) Teachers were the *most* respected profession. Yes, higher level teachers (college vs high school vs whatever) were respected more, but every teacher is highly respected. When I got home from school (this was typical), I did the homework given by my teacher, then the homework given by my mother, then more work because I was expected to do it. At that tender age I could do multiplying and dividing of fractions, long division, decimals, and basic algebra. Calculus is normally a 7th grade subject in China.

Re:Bill Gates on US Education

[Com2Kid]

This nation does not have a history of education or academic excellence. Our WW2 genius was mostly imported, as was much of our cold war research.

We as a nation have been able to attract great minds with promises of "vast tracks of land", but that is about it.

Emulation, not innovation

[winkydink]

China is still very much more a copier of technology than an innovator. Once they become successful innovators, then we have to worry.

Cultural difference

[sczimme]

You may purchase this paper on-line in .pdf format from SSRN.com ($5) for electronic delivery.

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.

Re:Cultural difference

[Coryoth]

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.

There was an interesting Op-Ed piece in AMS Notices this month. Let me quote the relevant passage:

"For the next ten years of a now 28 year business career, I hid my mathematics background. It wasn't shame or embarassment that inspired my actions, as I am quite proud of my achievements in the discipline and feel strongly that mathematics is a major contributor to all of my business accomplishments. No it was the knowledge, based on experience, that talking about mathematics with those not steeped in the discipline would steer a business conversation away from business and onto an entirely different plane.

What was the conversation? I am sure you have had it.
Person 1: Dr. Schaar, I appreciated your comment on education policy and the role that corporations can play in long-range programs. You seem to have a such a deep understanding of what educators want and need. What is your background?
Schaar: I am a mathematician and taught at the university level for several years.
Person 1: Oh, I was never any good at math. Hated the subject actually. I never could figure out how I would use it after school and didn't get along with my teacher...

I do not have to continue. But over the years I began to realise that there was somethign hidden in Person 1's remarks. There was an insinuation that Person 1's non-mastery of mathematics was a non-issue. She was a successful business person in spite of it. So there! Her lack of matery was validated by the business world, and also by her peers, who eagerly confessed their lack of mathematical savvy as if it invited entry into a secret club. These same leaders trumped their abilities in the business world, while downplaying the significance mathematics played in the equation"

From "Mathematics in Public" by Dr. Richard Schaar, AMS Notices August 2005.

I'm sure any other mathematicians here, especially those who have spent time working in the business world, will find that conversation entirely familiar and typical. People take pride in their failure to study and master mathematics. It is all too common. Yet as Dr. Schaar pints out later in the article, mathematics is increasingly necessary skill in the modern compter oriented business world. The skills of logical thought and deduction fostered even by basic mathematics are the foundations for a large amount of IT related tasks, let alone the more advanced mathematics that can be so very benficial in engineering and computer science. Dr. Schaar goes on to describe how he now continues such conversations:

Person 1: Oh, I was never any good at mathematics.
Schaar: Well, that is too bad. Were you any good at reading?

His point is that being good at mathematics, and the logical thought it teaches is as vital in the modern business world as reading. We ought to e taking it far more seriously than we are. I agree.

I'd like to make a further point though, having had exactly such conversation many many times myself. Whenever I probe a little deeper it is almost always the case that the person liked and was good at mathematics at some point, usually very early primary/elementary school, but at some point along the ay they "had a bad teacher", or were given the impression that mathematics was hard, fell a little behind - and once behind the problems compounded at higher and higher levels and they quickly grew to hate the subject. The "bad teacher" is an all too common explanation.

Is it any wonder though? The people who most often go into primary/elementary school teaching are precisely thoe people who never liked and struggled with mathematics at high school. They lack the ability to provide a wealth of ways to look at the problem, and lack any interest or enthusiasm for mathemat

Re:Cultural difference

[Comatose51]

I think those Person 1 are in for a big surprise. My work at a hedge fund has opened my eyes to the importance of mathematics. It's not just the analyst who must know math but also the directors. Most of our directors have their degrees in engineering. The financial world is moving away from shooting from the hips and bravado to disciplined, precise engineering of risks.

What really annoyed in during high school and middle school was the prevalent idea that logic/reason is contrary to creativity. Anyone lacking skills in reasoning/math can compensate to themselves by claiming that they were creative. That's just dandy because there's no good way to measure creativity so they just hide behind that. Random ideas != creativity. From my experience, creativity requires at least a small measure of reasoning. In fact, some of the most creative people I know are very skilled at mathematics and computer science. The two are not exclusive but rather go hand-in-hand.

It wasn't due to a "rapid development"...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Is it just me...

[ultramk]

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-

Re:Is it just me...

[Distinguished Hero]

Japan had a population roughly equal to half that of the US. In order for Japan to surpass the US, the average Japanese citizen would have to be twice as efficient as the average US citizen.

China has a population roughly equal to four times that of the US. In order for China to surpass the US, the average Chinese citizen would have to be one quarter as efficient as the average US citizen.

Now, do you have any reason to believe that the average Chinese citizen cannot be one quarter as efficient as the average American? Now imagine what will happen when the average Chinese citizen is as efficient as the average American. Then, imagine what will happen if/when the average Chinese citizen becomes as efficient as the average Japanese.

Re:Is it just me...

[jafac]

Central Planning isn't what doomed their R&D efforts.

When you instead have competing R&D efforts, and the competing efforts are both profit-driven, you are very likely to end up with duplication of effort, and the efforts tend to be short-sighted.

And when there is differentiation, often the inferior thread will have backers that will purchase the superior thread in an effort to destroy it. (example: nearly every product that came out of Microsoft).

Central Planning has it's down sides, which can be eliminated by introducing a profit motive in competing efforts, but pure profit-driven R&D enterprise isn't optimal either. A balanced approach has a better chance of success. (which is why America has traditionally succeeded at this kind of thing, in the past, by investing public funds into R&D - but America's recent focus on ideological elimination of science, and public funding of anything, is going to put us at a disadvantage, as our efforts are increasingly short-sighted, driven by short-term profits, and use of financial maneuvering to eliminate competition, rather than the "better mousetrap" principle.)

Re:Is it just me...

[Distinguished Hero]

"why is it that people perceive the Japanese as more efficient than Americans?"

Here's an article that describes the situation.
A good quote:
"The paradox was that in the 90s stories on the front pages of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Economist were all about how the Japanese manufacturing industries through trade were driving US manufacturing industries into the ground and virtually wiping them out. And of course that did happen in consumer electronics -- the US basically got out entirely in the consumer electronics business. And the steel industry and the automobile industry came very close to being bankrupt, although not all companies in those industries were in that shape. But the industries themselves as a whole were in very bad shape because of, in large part, competition from Japan, which was able to deliver high quality products at lower costs -- yet the GDP per capita numbers at purchasing power parity exchange rates show that GDP per capita in Japan was roughly 30 percent below the US. So how could this be? And the only way to understand that is to look at the productivity of individual industries in Japan. What we found is that Japan has a dual economy. Yes, it does have some selected manufacturing industries that have high productivity, much higher than the corresponding US industries and in fact they have the highest productivity in their industries of any country in the world. And yet, the traded part of an economy is always a tiny fraction of the total GDP. A rule of thumb is that it's roughly at most 15 percent of the GDP. So what that says is that the standard of living is determined because the productivity of the country is determined by what happens outside these traded goods. Productivity of a country in total -- the average productivity -- is the average productivity of every single worker. So in that sense, every worker is equally important. If you have low productivity in the non traded parts of manufacturing and in the huge domestic service industry -- such as retailing and housing construction and so on -- you are going to have low average productivity even though you may have a handful of industries like automotive and machine tools and steel where you have the highest productivity in the world."

Read the whole thing.

What, us worry?

[gsfprez]

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.

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! /bitterness and dispair

Re:What, us worry?

[gosand]

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?

You mean our Jesus-freak President? Who sold our children's and grandchildren's futures to fund a personal-vendetta war that he has NEVER been able to justify? We will be able to blame the Bush administration for the state of things for a long long time. He has had that huge of a negative impact on our society. We haven't even begun to feel the reprocussions of this misguided fool.

Not that he can be blamed for everything, our society has been trained to be ignorant by the religious right for a while now. Video game that allows you to beat up and kill people? Hmm, OK. Wait, what!? There is a SEX scene in it?!!! AHHHHHHH! RECALL IT! Won't someone think of the children!!!

Re:Bill Gates on US Education

[snorklewacker]

> We as a nation have been able to attract great minds with promises of "vast tracks of land", but that is about it.

sigh

Bah....

[Kenja]

Bah, what has science ever done for us?

(queue monty python and the life of brian style response vs the romans)

You get what you pay for

[FunWithHeadlines]

This is no surprise, but the extension of long-term trends of various sociological effects. When you have a country (USA) that looks down on intelligence (and yes, the culture for the most part does unless you live on the coasts or in academia), and you have huge sections of the country that put religion above science, or at least give it equal time, you have the basis for lower education standards. The geeks fight back, but they are always the minority.

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.

Crown?

[slobber]

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).

Re:The Real Chinese Growth

[Sosarian]

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.

Did you go to private school?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

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.

Let me see if I understand you

[TheConfusedOne]

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.

Not Population.

[SoupIsGood Food]

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

Re:The Real Chinese Growth

[koreth]

until such time as they can get leading foreign scientists to relocate to China

You mean relocate back to China? There are an awful lot of bright Chinese expats working in other countries.

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.

Not all bad

[NineNine]

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!

Re:Bill Gates on US Education

[MightyMartian]

The problem is that the environment in the US is becoming hostile to science. 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."

The US cannot have it both ways. It cannot have the Fundies working against areas of science that flies in the face of their silly Biblical literalism and still foster a healthy scientific community. At some point the states and Congress are going to have to tell the religious anti-science crowd that they do not have the right to trash science education, or the US is going to enter its decline, and this time the rising powers are going to find it in their best interests to keep scientists away from American universities and research.

Re:Bill Gates on US Education

[John Courtland]

Actually, we technically have more "area" than China if you count Alaska (it's very close, US: 9,631,418 sq km vs China: 9,596,960 sq km, source CIA World Fact Book, but that also includes water, which we have more of, check for yourself to see). China does have very little more actual land. However I'm just being a dick and not really participating. :)

All I know, is that it seems to take a MAJOR issue (like a giant war) to really cause a superpower to fall. So, barring the end of the United States by military coup or what not, there will come a point where China will no longer be able to make leaps and bounds vs the US because the time will have come that China becomes a first world nation with first world problems. It's much harder to totally surpass your opponent technologically than to just catch up by taking their ideas and performing a brain drain on their universities and pretending that by making your population smarter, they won't start to demand more and more resources.

What I'm saying, is that it doesn't matter that China is catching up. The problems that happens in all developed nations will happen there. For example: their smarter population will demand increases in pay, pensions, more vacation, etc... Becoming a first world nation is tough, every first world nation is having some sort of major problem. China will have theirs.

Good!!!

[Quiet_Desperation]

All those decades of a culture where intelligence is derided and ridiculed, and vacuous beauty or the ability to do things with a ball are hailed as things to be blindly worshipped are finally coming home to roost.

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.

Every empire has its end

[tulsadano]

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.

Re:Every empire has its end

[jstott]

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...

Because we're even worse at studying history than we are at science?

-JS

Re:Every empire has its end

[Comatose51]

Actually, with the exception of the previous 3-4 centuries, China has been at the forefront of world civilizations. Their level of iron production during the Han dynasty would not be matched by the West until the 17th century. With China churning out 800,000 graduates with technical degrees every year, it looks like they are going to return to the front again, unless they or someone else do something stupid and start a world war.

Re:Bill Gates on US Education

[bigman2003]

Sadly, now the things valued most highly in American institutions (public and private) are things like 'diversity training,' 'empowering employees,' and 'inclusive respect.'

Actually doing a good job has ceased being the primary focus of our workplaces- we now sit around and talk about how wonderful we all are, even the stupid people have something to contribute. We really need to seek out their ideas, because they might give us a new perspective!

Sure, yes, all well and good. But when our kids end up working in some factory making cheap consumer goods for the Chinese- maybe 'sensitivity training' won't seem so important.

(Sorry, I just got behind on my work by a week while sitting through this week-long training course...)

Most Americans are ignorant

[gosand]

American education isn't bad because it's run by the government. It's bad because people don't give a crap about fixing it.

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".

Re:Bill Gates on US Education

[pivo]

The best and brightest from all over the world come to our universities because they are some of the best.

That's true now, but China is busy building it's own versions of these universities. They're already very good in many ways. And with U.S. immigration making it harder to get here, Chinese students will soon have fewer reasons to leave home.

Re:Bill Gates on US Education

[Retric]

Long-term China's growth is going to slow down. Right now it's using predatory monetary policy to fuel rapid economic growth but as Japan learned you can only feed off other nations for so long before your internal system starts to collapse. Japan and China both have rapidly aging populations. Europe's system is practically stagnant. Honestly, Brazil and India look to be the biggest players in 50 years IMO.

America has a tradition of innovation, a stable population, a low population density, huge amounts of capital, a steady influx of immigrants, and a devise society. We also have an insane prison population, high levels of drug use, a week SS program ECT. I don't think we will still have 2x the economy of biggest competitors in 50 years but I think we are in good long-term shape.

PS: Canada and Australia will also become more significant players on the world stage, but I don't see them having the levels of economic growth to catch up with the US in the next 50 years.

Re:Bill Gates on US Education

[maxpublic]

pursuing an agenda of undermining public education

Our educational system was specifically designed to manufacture interchangeable factory drones who followed orders and avoided thinking whenever possible - and it seems to have done it's job well. If anything it's a smashing success.

If you want research and innovation, public education is not the place I'd focus my efforts.

Max

Yeah...but only the U.S. can outlaw evolution

[joelsanda]

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].

Re:Bill Gates on US Education

[spun]

Listen, lad. I've built this education system up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was swamp. The king said I was daft to build a school in a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. An' that's what your gonna get, lad -- the strongest school in these islands.

Re:Bill Gates on US Education

[Buelldozer]

If you truly think that "religious extremists" are the problem you're even more nuts then they are.

The REAL problem is that our society does not LIKE smart people, it prefers jocks.

It starts in grade school with the teasing of the "smart kid" and progresses through High School where large football players with brains the size of walnuts play whack-a-mole with kids half their size and three times their intellect.

When we become adults are we, defined as popular society, more interested in learning about the latest advance in Physics or what Brittney Spears had for breakfest?

Religous extremists are NOT the reason our education system is failing nor are they the reason that we are producing fewer and fewer talented, motivated, and intelligent Scientists and Engineers.

THE answer is all around us, and it is IS us...it's society stupid.

BTW, my father-in-law is a devout Christian and an AWESOME Advanced Placement Physics instructor at the local high school.

No Wonder

[linuxhansl]

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.

Re:Zero Sum Game and Education

[Coryoth]

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.

Re:Bill Gates on US Education

[Vicissidude]

No kidding. Mod parent up!

The average Joe is more interested in the latest sports scores than the latest scientific developments. On top of that, ask the average person on the street who's worth more money, Michael Jordan or Bill Gates, and a surprising amount of people would say Michael Jordan... I mention that because I actually did have that argument with a coworker 7 years ago. She just wouldn't accept that Bill Gates was worth on the order of a thousand times the amount of Jordan.

On top of that, a large number of high school athletes seriously think they can get into professional sports, although they're more likely to win the lottery. They think that's the only way they can "make it". A lot of them skip studying in order to practise their athletics. No one around them tells them they're more likely to become successful by studying and getting a good education rather than hitting the hoops.

So, they hit the steriods and pump up. That's makes them super-aggressive, especially towards the weak nerds - a bunch of losers they perceive as having no chance of "making it".

Re:Zero Sum Game and Education

[kocsonya]

> 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.

Re:Bill Gates on US Education

[Lifewish]

Except that there is so little chance of life occuring the way it is today through Intelligent Design alone. I suppose I developed an 'evolution' belief, but there are WAY too many screwups in nature to support Intelligent Design alone.

You are right, in that it is mostly a political debate, not a scientific debate. He adverted the political side by making us decide for ourselves. Questions rose in my mind on how the complexity of modern life could have possibly been created 'by intelligence' or appeared at the level it's at today. This is the point i'm trying to get at.

(if anyone wishes to debate on why I think we are here because of evolution alone, think of all the physiological idiocies of the human body. the crossover between the windpipe and the oesophagus, and the apparently useless appendix. the remarkable tendency to get back pains due to our badly-designed spinal curvature, and how genetic diversity is comparatively minimal - everything we see around us seems to at least belong to the same family tree. Try to convince me that all of that -- and a ton more -- was produced by a supposedly intelligent Creator (who somehow sprung fully-formed and with high IQ from nowhere, that's another discussion))

Already used my mod points,

[Tetravus]

but I'd mod you up if I could.

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.

Re:A race that is "backward" here isn't so elsewhe

[Numen]

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.

Re:Bill Gates on US Education

[Bowling Moses]

Having followed with morbid curiousity the creation movement in the US for a number of years now, there are several key words that render the actions of your teacher suspect.

First, the "very religious" comment. This wouldn't raise my eyebrows except for the rest, as many very religious persons do not have a problem with the theory of evolution. Unfortunately a very vocal subset do. Also the very religious comment just begs the question of how you know this? Bumping into the teacher out in public or through their actions at school? The latter may be inappropriate depending on the circumstances.

Second: "...tought not to enforce biblical references..." Why should religious references even be mentioned in a science class?

Third: "taught the controversy" WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!There is no scientific controversy as to whether or not evolution occurs or new species appear, or as to the fact that humans and the other great apes share a common ancestor. The scientific debate that occurs is over the exact mechanisms of evolution and their relative importance. These are the real debates in evolution and represent the cutting edge of science. We don't teach the cutting edge in high school science classes, or even most undergraduate classes for that matter. "Teach the controversy" is simply a creationist code word for a religiously motivated attack on evolution that attempts to skirt the establishment clause.

Fourth: And right after that, we've got your statement that the teacher mentioned "both" and didn't point out the great differences between evolution and creationism. Evolution is the bedrock of biology and is the most thoroughly tested theory in science. It's been around for 150 years and isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Creationism on the other hand is either a religious concept (actually several different and often incompatible concepts) or refers to pseudoscience, creationism having been removed from the realm of scientific possibility about 200 years ago and as such has no business in a high school science class.

So how does this hinder science? Well, it hinders science because your teacher wasted your classes' time by introducing unscientific ideas into a science class and removing time from actually teaching established science--the entire *point* of a science class. Worse, not by not highlighting the enormous differences between creationism and evolutionary biology your teacher implicity equated them. This is an attempt by your teacher to put you and your classmates on the path of hurtling American biology backwards two hundred years. Now while I think it'd be great if high school students could demonstrate full knowledge of what the scientific community knows and what current evolutionary biology entails, it looks pretty clear that this was not your teacher's intent.

Mega Rant and Rage

[theolein]

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.

I call BS.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

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

my own observations

[BlightThePower]

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.

Re:observations

[Coryoth]

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.