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Top Advisory Panel Warns Erosion of U.S. Science
fbg111 writes "From the NYT: A panel of experts convened by the National Academies, the nation's leading science advisory group, called yesterday for an urgent and wide-ranging effort to strengthen scientific competitiveness. The 20-member panel, reporting at the request of a bipartisan group in Congress, said that without such an effort the United States 'could soon lose its privileged position.' It cited many examples of emerging scientific and industrial power abroad and listed 20 steps the United States should take to maintain its global lead."
Considering how the attack on science by religious conservatives has reached a fever pitch, I am not surprised that fewer people are entering the hard sciences as a career. When every scientific discovery is met by screeches and howls by the religious right, the general public is left with the impression that scientists are just another protected minority who are forcing their views on the rest of society. There is little to no discourse on *how* these scientific discoveries are vetted; but even if the scientific method were explained in detail, the public has shown it still wants to believe in magic.
Biology and any other field of science dealing with the age of the Earth are destined to decline in the US. The balance of power has already tipped decidedly to non-US schools in technical training in these fields and will continue. This report will be ignored because Congress owes too much to the religious right to do anything that advances knowledge in human evolution or radiometric dating.
Any student of history knows that Scopes lost his trial. Things haven't changed that much in the US in nearly a century.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
It isn't just science. It literally hurts to be intelligent today. The kid comes into the world, sees what a great big pile of shit it all is, and then is given two choices: work hard to excel at making it an even bigger pile of shit, or smoke pot and listen to music or play games on the computer all day.
It's red pill vs. blue pill, and now that everybody has seen how the trilogy ends, blue pill wins every time. Want to change it? Take the Nazi out of Amerika and put forward a vision of where this country is going to be in twenty years that doesn't involve killing and torturing innocent people around the world.
Really it comes down to this: the propaganda being dished by The New York Times/CNN works well, but only for the retards. The kids you want to see building tomorrow's superweapons can think for themselves, and therefore see this shit for what it is.
And when you think about it, would you really have it any other way?
--
You didn't know.
Copied verbatim from TFA:
If nothing else convinces you of the magnitude of this problem, consider the fact that The New York Times confused "lose" and "loose."
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The free market works. That's why our best and brighest are leaving Science. Dumbsh|ts!
I really don't feel that religion has anything to do with this. Most people, even the so called religions right are NOT anti-science. Actually, I could easily see any person living in the United States become deeply conserned in loosing its posisition as a top technological and scientific country, even those conservatives you speak of.
Realistically, the reason is the almighty dollar. Everything revolves around it, it always has and always will. In the US $$ speaks more than any religious morals.
They force biologists to more rigorously prove the case for evolution. If not for this pressure, they probably never would have even bothered to address irreducible complexity issues. Imagine if creationists hadn't mainstreamed discussion of evolution? Then only a (relatively) tiny cartel of biologists would be analyzing the issue. Thanks to creationists, lots of people are poring over the evidence for evolution.
Imagine if the Bible said something about quantum physics (yeah, yeah, I know you can claim it does, but bear with me here). Wouldn't that speed up the demise of bad theories in that field?
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
Block all U.S. based access to Slashdot. We've seen the effect it has had on our youth. We could cripple our enemies while at the same time bring up the IQ level here.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Seriously, what other country disparages its "intellectual elite"?
Getting 10,000 new teachers into the school system isn't going to help if they have to teach religion in their science classes. Welcome to the US where 1 in 5 people believe the Sun revolves around the Earth.
Our problem isn't that we don't have enough teachers.
Our problem is that being smarter than the average makes those average people hate you. Most of them don't want to know that what they believe is wrong and they'll oppose anyone who tries to tell them differently. Which is why you see the fight to include things like "Intelligent Design" on the same level as tested and verified scientific findings.
How many corporations have scaled back or even eliminated their R&D departments because they won't turn a profit next quarter?
How much money does big oil spend to suppress new technologies?
Overly restrictive patents bar research by all who can't cough up the money to expand on somebody else's work.
Kids are actively discouraged from tinkering for fear of hurting themselves or hurting somebody else's bottom line. Want to experiment with chemistry? Here's some lemon juice and baking soda - but we'll arrest you if you put it into a plastic bottle. Want to play with model rockets? Prove you aren't a terrorist. Want to hack your X-Box and see how circuits work? The FBI'll be knocking on your door. Biology? Take pictures of a worm, but make sure it isn't endangered. Engineering? The city'll come and fine you for not building your treehouse to code.
When you get to college... how many professors actually teach science and how many spend all of their time seeking new grants to ensure the university can afford a new football stadium?
And of the precious little research that actually is happening, how much is classified and never sees the light of day
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
I didnt think American science was limited to abortions and cloning.
Give it up USA, You've already lost. It's inevitable, in one generation or so the american supremacy will have gone the way of the dodo bird.
Seriously, I'm absolutely not one of the US-haters common here, but I can see what way your contry is heading. Things like general education has a huge social inertia or whatever you want to call it. Changing the course of a society takes a huge, concentrated effort over a long period of time. Thats not gonna happen, more like the opposite.
(and spare me the comments about my spelling)
I mean why work hard and study when you see dimwitted athletes on MTV "Cribs" with large houses and expensive cars?
The root of the problem is that we don't value hard work and thirst for knowledge, we value "things." Why is a company going to research a cancer cure unless it can get a patent on it and make a boatlod of money in today's world?
Neo-cons like Bush and their reactionary politics and backwards religious thought is not the reason we are seeing this slow down. DaVinci studied anatomy in spite of the Catholic church's prohibition on using cadavers. I think the fact that neo-cons can dicate scientific policy is a symptom of current enviroment, where anything that is studied has have some sort of financial reward. We even tell our children to go to college, not for personal growth, but so they can get a good job and make lots of money.
insert inflammatory anti-microsoft comment here
...where so many gadgets and inventions appear daily that continue to make science fiction into science fact, it is hard to motivate the younger generations to pursue the sciences. Why make a career out of a subject where you may never see the results of your work with your own eyes, when other fields have tangeble results from their work?
Other problems include:
- poor pay
- an increasing tendancy among scientists to take theory as fact
- increased outsourcing by american business
- unmotivated and/or knowledgable teachers(see poor pay as the reason for that)
- Greater competition by other countries
- The fanatical religious destruction of the scientific community.
You are who you are, let no one tell you different. But, never close your mind to a new point of view.
Now go and look at the history of those countries from the time when they decided that being one of the "intellectual elite" was a bad thing.
... unless they changed their opinion.
To me, it seems that they all declined pretty quickly and either vanished or are still on the bottom of the heap
You got two options people:
Either wise up and realize that being smarter is a good thing
or
Practice sucking up to whatever country will surpass us.
I don't know what the schools in this country are doing these days, confidence building activities I suppose, but they sure as hell aren't teaching the kids how to add, read, and write.
Or in my case... type.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
The MBAs comming out of business school tell me that in the future, the US will just be managers "managing" all the stuff being done overseas - I should be an MBA too, or I'll be obsolete. If that's the stuff they're teaching our business leaders of the future we're just screwed...
Hmm.
I agree wholeheartedly with #2. #1 and #3 are problematic.
#1 fails because teachers are not completely responsible for the results they are expected to achieve. Students must want to learn in order to display testable results. Also see #2 for part of why #1 fails -- re-evaluate your "very little to do with our political climate" with respect to what the teachers are expected to teach each year. Consider that the agenda changes with each administration (all levels from school to county to local to state to federal), so it's hard to find a stable foundation from which to teach anything. Teachers can't teach what they want. They teach what they're paid to teach.
#3 fails because nobody is obliged to be the kind of parent *you* want. Too bad. Find a social structure that everyone agrees on (good luck) or form an educational institution that acknowledges different parents raise different kids.
Changing the course of a society takes a huge, concentrated effort over a long period of time.
This is certainly true, and points out one reason why the U.S. is sliding in science and other countries (primarily in Europe and Asia) are reaching and passing contributions U.S. science has made. By "U.S. science" I mean companies that are essentially headquartered in the U.S. and are supported by U.S. universities. That doesn't matter to science - but it's salient here because we're talking about the state of science in the U.S.
However, I'd argue that globalization has much more to do with this than any degree of disinterest in science. While the Soviets are the sole provider of missions to the I.S.S. the U.S. is also leaps beyond anyone else when it comes to commercial exploration of space.
Back to globalization: The U.S. was dominant in science because the aftermath of WW II, among other things. It was U.S. science and military spending that sustained technological growth that started in WW II and continued through the end of the Cold War.
But with companies becoming less nationalistic it stands to reason other countries will be reaching the mantle of scientific contributions. And that's a great thing - science depends upon money to fuel research and the more diversified that money the more stable its input will be.
So don't get too emotional slamming the U.S. - globalization has a lot to do with other countries gaining economies capable of sustaining the budgets science requires. Just because Europe and Asia are making contributions faster today than yesterday does not mean the U.S. is slowing down - it just means others are contributing more today than yesterday. If U.S. scientific contributions sustain or slow just a bit the 'gap' appears to be very large.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
I don't think you're giving the political climate due consideration. While its effects are largely intangible, there's a creeping contempt for science that's gaining ground at all levels of government. What does your typical individual going to think about the value of science in general when a person no less than the president himself routinely and blithely disregards solid scientific findings in favor of ideological beliefs?
We are watching a slow and painful relegation of science to the role of munitions manufacturer for various political interests. When was the last time you heard a major political figure say, "You know, I always thought that X was the case, but recent studies have led me to believe otherwise"?
Remember, too, that school administrations and school boards are political institutions and have become increasingly politicized over the years.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Years and years ago I read a great article by this title. Consider, that their are a small but finite number of smart students who have the potential to become scientists and engineers. Consider that they are smart enough to look at what is happening in the US. American society rewards people who can a) entertain the masses, b) move money around from one place to another while extracting a portion for themselves, or c) extract money from others via the legal system. Scientists and engineers must spend years in expensive and difficult training to qualify for their fields. Spend many hours a year keeping up with their fields. Work very long hours. Risk unemployment from changing corporate or government priorities. And worry about their career disappearing when industry decides to outsource overseas. So scientist / engineer vs. athlete / entertainer / financier / lawyer. For many smart students it's a no-brainer.
[Insert pithy quote here]
I'll have to agree too. I think a big part of US dominance in science was because we could attract the best foreign talent. We had a high standard of living, many of the world's best universities and research labs, and it was a pretty pleasant place to live, for both citizens and foreigners. I think the quality of local talent has slipped too, but fixing US science education by itself won't make up for the loss of foreign scientists.
I really don't feel that religion has anything to do with this.
You are wrong, as are the people you cite who are "not anti-science." Even if they dispute natural selection and genetics, they of course are pro-science when they are taking an ibuprofen or getting their children vaccinated or getting their yearly flu shot. And no one with a job or an investment portfolio wants to see America lose its technological edge.
But you, like these people, are not drawing the connections between their actions and the results. Science is not just a collection of facts. You cannot just choose to support the knowledge that benefits you (flu vaccines) and fight against the knowledge that disagrees with your beliefs (carbon dated fossils, genetic evolution). Science is first and foremost a PROCESS (not a collection of "facts"), and if you attack the process you are attacking the development of the knowledge that benefits you as well as the knowledge you don't like.
Developing an effective flu vaccine every year is absolutely impossible without basis in the theories of genetic inheritance and natural selection. These theories were not just proposed and voted on by scientists--they have resulted from and withstood investigation from the process of science, conducted by millions of independent scientists over decades.
Attacking the theories in the way that many conservative religious groups have, is to attack the validity of the scientific process itself. It's pretty hard to do a good job educating and encouraging future scientists when the very concept of science is being subverted for religious or political ends.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
When every other country has a cushy tenure system and you're a top scientist who can work anywhere, why would you refuse tenure? You must think top scientists are stupid. Do you really think they like constantly updating their CV and preparing for, and doing, "productivity reviews"? Fornunately, what good scientists like is doing science, not constantly elbowing for position with their peers. That's a part of the whole point of tenure.
The other part is that tenure insulates the scientist from the political fashions. Scientists research what they like, and whether or not it's popular with the current administration, their position is secure. If it weren't for that security, do you really think they'd work here?
#1: Absolutely not. If you think teachers just regurgitating what they're told to teach is a problem today, removing tenure would make it a hundred times worse. Tenure is what allows teachers to exert control over what happens in the classroom and to avoid being bound to someone else's agenda. This is why ID is being legislated into classrooms, because you can't just order them to put it in the curriculum.
And besides, it's incompatible with your point #2. If a kid fails a class, who gets to decide if it was because he couldn't handle it or because the teacher was incompetent?
Should I find a way to phrase it so I can protect their fragile egos? Maybe tell them that they aren't really "wrong"? Isn't that the approach that got us into this situation in the first place?And, in your "experience", does the Sun revolve around the Earth?Again, you're confusing an emotional reaction with a fact.
I don't care if you don't want to hear that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
I don't care if you get upset when I tell you that you are wrong for believing anything other than that.
I don't care if you don't like me for telling you that I don't care.
The criteria should NOT be your feelings, but what the FACTS are.
Let's step back for a second. There's a lot more to science than biology, and especially the small part of biology concerned with the origin of life. Evolution vs. creationism vs. intelligent design has nothing to do with engineering, computer science, chemistry, physics, and all the rest. I mean, when was the last time origin-of-life science significantly grew the nation's GDP? Has attempting to prove evolution ever increased US manufacturing to reduce the trade deficit? Has attempting to prove intelligent design ever resulted in a new breakthrough drug? Seriously, there's more to this than the evolution flame war.
See? So it is political. #2 Kids who aren't in school to learn need to be removed. Yeah, so be it, some kids don't get schooled. If they nor their parents can put forth the effort, then that's too bad. Sure, we'll hear sob stories about how some are going to get left behind. Let me clue you in to a little secret. If you hold back our best and brightest to make sure no one is "left behind" then you're going to DESTROY the best and brightest. Or at least you'll have managed to severely inhibit their potential.
No. This is a good reason for kids to get more individual attention (smaller class size). It's a good reason to divide the kids up into groups based on achievement, like honors classes and "gifted and talented" programs. However, kicking kids out of school outright because they aren't doing well and aren't motivated is just a good way to breed a low-class bunch of thugs who feel like they've never really had a chance.
Kids are kids. Most of them aren't going to see the value of their education at 13, but that's not sufficient reason to toss them out. I know it's not politically correct to separate out the "smart" kids from the "dumb" kids, because "it'll hurt their self esteem," but that's basically what needs to happen. As much as possible, students should be getting help targeted directly to their needs, and they should be allowed to learn at their own pace, even (especially) when that means they're excelling and outpacing the rest of their class. That's when you find rewards for that child, as well as more advanced/challenging work (but don't simply give them MORE work, as it's a disincentive to excel).
Okay... so all the best teachers go to the most affluent areas. The poor kids get terrible teachers who can't hack it in a higher paying position. The crappy school servicing a low-income area can't afford to hire a better teacher, so no rich kids will ever go there. The school keeps limping along with crappy teachers, enjoying a local monopoly, or it closes entirely.
I'm not sure I see how this is good. Not that the current American public education system seems much better, at this point, but it seems like the free-market system isn't the correct solution.
> #1 Tenure needs to be removed. Peer reviews need to be implemented.
> Salaries should be review / performance based. Schooling for teachers
> needs to be DRASTICALLY improved. Remove all the
> buzzword-techno-political crap that's found it's way into teaching
> just TEACH.
Ahh, another armchair quarterback with quick-fix for all the world's ills. Let me guess - neither you nor anyone in your family works in acedemia.
Your first sentence shows that you're really clueless in this subject area. Think, for a minute, about what tenure is FOR (and by the way, tenure is less common now than it used to be, so you can't blame any DECLINE in education quality on tenure). One thing tenure is for is to keep politcal crap *from* affecting teaching and basic research.
And if lack of tenure meant that "bad" employees would be gotten rid of, then that widely-known Scott Adams comic strip some Slashdotters love would be awfully damned dull. The pointy-haired boss doesn't have tenure.
You'll also have to be specific about what you mean by "performance". Do you mean acheivement tests? Do you mean job outcomes? Student surveys? Peer surveys? Some other measure you don't mention? In teaching, it's just a BIT harder to measure performance than it is, say, for a ditchdigger.
> Tenure isn't a good way to prevent political intervention.
Why not?
> Vouchers and more private schools would be a more effective way to have
> schools be politically independant.
In what way? Any why would subsidizing private schools with government money improve them if the *same thing* supposedly doesn't work for public schools?
> allowing parents to send their kids to any school they want.
They can't do that now? (And before you answer, do you really think that the provate schools - where *exclusivity* is a big part of the sell - won't just raise their prices when the vouchers come in?)
Capitalism has a slight case of ADHD, and companies are no longer worth more than the margin of profit you can rake home in between buying it and selling it. Whatever they produce is irrelevant, as are their workers.
Thus, capitalism is killing itself, because it promotes short term goldfish-like behavior. Investors invest in a range of companies, out of which a certain % is doomed beforehand and the loss is regarded as natural.
What does this mean in the long term? well for one thing it stiffles innovation, no incitaments for long term research, those who holds the whip and wrings results out of the peons (scientists and engineers) becomes far more important. In the long term brands are also becoming irrelevant, as the market moves faster and faster and no-one has a personal vested intrest in them they just dont have continuity or stability. Here one day, gone the next.
Ah... You're going to double their pay (or halve the class size) also?
Teachers are LEAVING the profession. After investing years in preparation, they are leaving when they find out the system they are expected to work with. There's no trouble getting rid of the bad ones, they don't want to stick around either.
The feds have designed a "testing" system that guarantees that all schools will fail, because they must do better each year than they did the previous year. This can only be done for a few years, and it's already claimed a huge number of casualties. Some of which are students that nobody wants to take, because they don't want to risk dragging their scores down. In programming something much milder than this is known as a "death march".
Currently the only people even considering becoming teachers either have no alternative, or have blinded themselves as to what they are getting into.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
You'd be surprised. A full professor is pretty well paid at the moment anyway. A lot of them have explicitly chosen to stay in academia because they prefer the assurance of being essentially unsackable rather than a huge pay packet. If tenure was removed, you'd have to radically increase professor's salaries. Yes, tenure sometimes means unproductive dead wood is kept around, but it also means that academics can't get sacked purely because their research discovers conclusions that the university finds unpalatable.
And you think business is capable of funding that kind of thing? For most businesses, if it's not going to produce a marketable product within five years, maybe even three, they're not interested. Business doesn't fund basic research. The few farsighted ones that do are essentially doing so for two reasons - as a bribe to get good researchers to work for them and also do some applied research that will make them money, and philanthropy. Few businesses have ever gotten to directly exploit their basic research (Xerox and AT&T being classic examples of research labs that have made other companies a lot of money). Then there is private philanthropy, but that makes up a miniscule part of research funding and is disproportionately skewed to medical research.
To a certain extent. What if those parents want to teach their kids that their religion demands holy war against infidels?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
The very nature of science is such that you can't predict with any real accuracy which threads of research will prove useful and which ones won't. That's why it's called research and not development. Additionally, what isn't useful now may prove useful much later.
No, science itself should be about figuring out the universe. Period.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
I don't want to post this on a site where most people are seriously dependent on their computers, as so am I, but I have never seen it come up on these issue. I think the reason why science is eroding in the U.S. is the average Americans dependancy on computers. Without the computer, people find that they cannot do their work, live, etc. Modern day American society depends on the computer. Because the computer usually makes lives easier, people start to lose perseverence and creativity. People stop wanting to do hard work. I'm sure someone has told you this in your lifetime, but here it comes again.