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U.S. Science and Engineering Research Flattens
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes "The National Science Foundation is reporting that the number of published U.S. science and engineering articles plateaued in the 1990s, despite continued increases in funding and personnel for research and development. This came after two decades of continued growth. Since then, flattening has occurred in nearly all U.S. research disciplines and types of institutions. In contrast, Asian and EU research had significant increases in this period. They do point to one positive for the US, however: article quality. According to one of the researchers, 'the more often an article is cited by other publications, the higher quality it's believed to have. While citation is not a perfect indicator, U.S. publications are more highly cited than those from other countries.'"
In the US, research has first of all be "pleasant" to whoever funds it. Yes, that's true for most countries, but nowhere else you'll find as much industrial and political influence into research. Try to do a research on, say, climate change and watch the government go crazy over it should you dare to come up with results that point to us as the reason for an increase in temperature.
Add the religious side and you'll see why Europe currently feels an influx of researchers, not only from "poor" countries where they can't get funding, but also a healthy dose of quite capable people from the US who prefer to ponder what their findings mean, not to ponder what they may write should they not want to be censored. It's Reneaissance all over again, where you can find whatever you want, but if you want to remain in the good standing and be respected as a researcher, you better find what government, industry and especially media want to hear, or you'll soon find yourself being attacked and badmouthed, and your reputation ruined.
Would you want to do research in that kind of climate?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Look at:
nuclear weapons/research: Albert Einstein and many other exiles from Europe
computers: John Von Neumann (Hungarian)
rockets and space: America's space and rocket program was kickstarted by a nucleus of German scientists after the war bought here
That is not to say we don't have our own home grown talent - just that science is an international activity and we have been lucky enough to be able to draw the best and brightest, foreign or domestic, to our country.
Whether it remains so in the long run, I am not certain - it requires an open and free country (something we're losing) and enough wealth, of course, as cutting edge science often requires funds scientists usually don't have themselves and hence the US was a good place to find patronage.
I wonder if the higher citation rate of US articles is due to the fact they are written in English and therefore more accessible to a higher percentage of the scientific community? Presumably a lot of a country's scientific publications will be in the language of that country and it would be reasonable to assume that an article published solely in, of example, Russian or German, would be less widely cited outside the Russian or German speaking communities...
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
is flattening American brains!
That'd be why!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
The US will always have it's place at the top table
Why is that? You're chosen by God?
This kind of attitude has been heard many times before going back through history. Ask the Brits. Or the Spanish. Or the French. Or the Chinese. Or the Iranians (yes, they too where once "at the top table"). I could go on, but you get the point I hope...
When my great grandmother was alive the Brits dominated the world as comprehensively as the USA does today.
The US continues to be attractive because it tends to offer the best facilities (laboratories, datasets, computers, funding) in the world. Plus it hosts some of the best researchers in the world. Taken together this of course attracts *other* very good researchers. This in turn results in articles that have a higher citation index than most. So far so good.
I believe that the US cannot realistically expect to continue to lead the world in basic scientific research. As a matter of fact, it has lost that position already in a number of fields. What I believe it *can* expect to do is to continue to lead the world in applying research and turning up with innovative products.
Why? Because part of it is cultural. People here are always willing to go out and build something for themselves, which is the essence of starting a business, and society as a whole is very much geared towards giving new ideas and new businesses a chance, weed out the failures, cherish the successes, and let those who failed try again. That's important. In e.g. Europe failure in a business venture attracts a heavy stigma. Not so in the US. In the US it's also relatively easy to hire people for a startup, and to fire them the minute things go wrong, or even if revenues are lower than expected. And last but not least ... in the US venture capitalists are thoroughly aware that they must sow ten potatoes to reap one truly outstanding venture, three reasonably ones, and perhaps six poor ones. Unless other countries can copy that, the US is at an advantage.
Now both China and India are busily trying to imitate the US in this respect, and especially China has made a lot of headway. But the US still has the lead. And to be honest ... who would want to go the China and learn Chinese when they can also go the to US and use the English they learned in school? Excepting Chinese of course. Ever tried to find your way in China? The US has a big cultural advantage when it comes to competing as a destination of choice.
The undertone of the article is a bit warning of course. Even if one were somehow able to revitalise the US primary and secondary school system *and* make it attractive for Americans to pursue a career in science and/or engineering instead of business management, law, marketing, the military, etc. etc., it would take about two decades for the results to become visible. Personally I would say that the best bet for the US is continue to do what it has traditionally been good at, which is to focus on first attracting and then absorbing those immigrant researchers and turning their research into products.
This is precisely why the US takes such an agressive stance on "Intellectual Property", and does whatever it can to make every country in the world respect US copyrights. It's of strategic importance.
This is also at the heart of the US immigration policy, which runs approximately as follows: "We want those of you if you are the best or one of the best in your field. Those we will welcome to stay, and offer the chance to join the club and become a citizen. Others will be required to enter as illegal immigrants."
It's a bit parasitic, but it works.
The patent system is poison for research publication. I heard a remarkable comment from the EU Commission (DG Research) who were boasting that they were collecting a great patent portfolio, and only had one problem: the tendency of their researchers to publish articles, thus sabotaging the patent collection process. But, they have a solution, namely to educate researchers to publish less.
The horrid irony of it all is that the only valid basis for the patent system is to encourage people to publish in cases where they would otherwise keep precious designs secret.
There is absolutely no justification for patents in areas where people publish spontaneously. Except, of course, greed, and the lust for money above all.
Time for reform of the global patent system.
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This assumes that the quality of research in all papers are average. The only indicator of quality being used is citation. But the visible technological impact is derived from application of research rather than quantity or quality of research. For e.g. the country that first creates a quantum computer is going to obsolete lot of the research that is going on in the silicon world. A 1000 papers on current computer hardware might not be worth the one paper that explores application of quantum computing. How do you measure this and determine quality of research. It is highly likely that these 1000 papers have more citations as well. R&D outfits that are developing applications of quantum computing might not really spend more time on writing research papers for publishing.
O this learning! What a thing it is - William Shakespeare
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The top US academic institutions have the most money of any in the world, by far.
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Money can facilitate research, and hence the top researchers tend to go where the money is (so they can accomplish the most they possibly can).
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The US is a large country, but small compared to the entire world. Japan has almost half as many people as the US. The EU has more. Let's not forget Russia. And then there are China and India.
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Speaking of China and India, education is rapidly increasing there, leading them to actually generate an 'industrialized nation' share of scientists proportional to their population.
Given all these factors, you shouldn't be surprised at all that the faculty at top US academic institutions are diverse. It might have nothing to do with any 'decline' of US capabilities (I'm not saying there isn't such a thing, just that this particular observation doesn't really support it).altruistic ideals (in the main). Young people are very practical when there own self-interest is involved. Students, especially in the USA where, according to Dr Gil Grissom, the degree is worth $1 million and almost costs $1 million, tend to choose course that will provide a cost benefit appropriate to their needs. They need to pass a course and be awarded a degree worth having (in relative terms).
In the past a degree in law was the opportunity to earn high salaries. Now of course there are far too many lawyers and not enough cases to supply them. Science and engineering degrees are not as popular, perhaps because some work involving measurement, assesment and being able to look up a book or a dictionary using all of the letters of the alphabet is a requisite.
Degree courses go through fads, witness the number of marketing graduates in the late 80's early 90's most of whom are not employed with a stone's throw of any marketing activity. Science is presently akin to magic and prospective students are surprised to discover that membership of Slytherin, is not part of the enrolment procedure. Nor are they given a magic wand or a tricorder along with the university calendar. The necessity to provide some evidence of achievement in the form of science papers and test results is a pale shadow to the ease of making an extended exposition on man's obsession with himself in lawyer school. Thank goodness there is no stand alone course concept in Web Design - lecturing staff would be crushed in the stampede as so many students (when asked to express a preference) often suggest that they intend a career in PR (the discipline of mixing a rather tasty Bucks Fizz.) or Web design. When you are paying for your education by working in The Golden Arches or as an exotic dancer, it becomes rather important to you, to choose a career path that you expect to be rewarding, at least in the financial sense if nothing else.
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No. It's because there are few jobs and the pay isn't so good. The employment situation for PhD chemists in the US is miserable and has been steadily getting worse for the last decade. It's because people in the US don't want to work hard enough to get a PhD and work at half the pay for an MBA who worked half as hard to get where he is, whom they suspect is only half as smart. Americans may be lazy but they ain't stupid. The people from outside the US that populate our labs didn't know that when they came. They'll soon be going home, as the wages back home rise.
The education system in the US was watered down starting in the 60's. It became politically incorrect to flunk anyone, so standards were lowered. Just look at the current administration, a product of the 60's. In the US, athletes are idolized whereas those interested in science are labeled GEEKS and outcasts. How much does a good scientist make? How much does a good athlete make? There's the answer.
"The only way we won't leave a child behind is if this bus never leaves."
...they'll find another self-serving dubious metric to avoid facing the truth.
"U. S. research articles consistently rated higher than European articles on the Flesch Reading Ease scale."
"U. S. research articles have been shown to be higher in 'eyeball stickiness.' Readers spend more time per page, go back and read each page more often, and 'click through' to generate more reprint requests than European articles."
"The NAS reported that although U. S. research failed to meet all eighteen of its benchmarks, it had made satisfactory progress toward achieving eight of them."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I love big physics as much as anyone, but I doubt the SSC would have significantly increased publications overall. Sure, they may find out some great fundamental information about the creation of the universe, but overall impact on society would probably be minimal. Unless the SSC could sort out time travel or make some sort of super-duper uber nuke... I doubt that anything practical or useful would come from the SSC (although some of the support technology would be practical and useful, similar to NASA impact).
NSF funding is generally quite difficult to obtain. Researchers often spend most of their time writing proposals. NSF claims high hit rates, but most areas I know of are well under 10% in reality. Assuming you are an average scientist, you have to submit ten proposals to get one funded. Usually that means one or two students for three years. If you double or triple that hit rate, you get more students and typically more publications and results. Even senior folks in my discipline are complaining about NSF hit rates; they had been funded for years and years, but now that had evaporated or diminished.
I did hear a couple of years back that NSF was going to double over the next few years. Hopefully that works out, but they may just spend it all on big physics...
From what I understand of the European systems in general, it is not quite the same. Graduate students in many cases are supported by the state. Money is given directly to the university or the "dean" and then researchers get a portion. This means they can focus more on getting papers out and developing students rather than submitting their 10-15 proposals per year.
I would like to see more industrial support, but industry in general has a much shorter horizon to look at. They want results in 3-6 months in many cases. It may take 3-6 years to get a graduate student to be truly productive. Some researchers do very well with industrial support, but in general it has diminished as well.
And as much as people lament earmarks, they come into play in the academic arena. Often an earmark is not some crazy bridge to nowhere, it is just a line-item specification in a funding bill for something reasonable. "Here DOE, here is a zillion dollars, however you need to spend a million bucks at some school on their favorite research topic." Otherwise, the program managers may just spend all their money however they want, so earmarks can steer money into projects mandated by senators and representatives rather than the government officials. Not ideal necessarily, but not super evil either.
I go to a top 5 engineering school. Even there the emphasis is less and less on the actual science and more on business and so called leadership skills. People are being trained less in hard science and more in corporate ways. If you take an engineering class, from my experience, half the people don't care about being an engineer and want to get their MBA and be a manager and "make money".
Until we get rid of this crap that "The business of America is business" this will not change and we will continue to lose ground on the science front.
Bell Labs was the greatest R&D facility in the world. Unix, Fiber Optics, Telephones, etc are a few that come to mind. We need to bring back the spirit of innovation just for the sake of innovation. This dedication brought in tons of foreign revenue into our economy. I can walk down to a "foreign" Citigo and see people with "foreign" PSPs and "foreign" Toyotas. I try not to buy any foreign products, but it gets hard sometimes. (That's what she said) Head of the Congressional Science Committee stated that, "When I look at my daughter (Age 2 at the time), I see the first generation of Americans that will have a lower standard of living than their parents. That is not the American Dream" (Not sure on the quote)
Actually, this demonstrates a key difference in the educational philosophies of China and many South American countries. In South America, the focus was on the best and the brightest. In China, the focus was on getting everyone the equivalent of a high school education.
Now, obviously there's lots of other factors, but note that China has a huge industrial base now. Basically anyone can work in a factory or business doing ordinary tasks. In South America, the poor continue to be poor and the well educated move to other countries.
I'd like to think there's significant value in teaching nearly everyone to read and write well, basic math skills, and the ability to follow directions. Remember that these immigrant children are going to end up marrying your daughters, working in your office, and taking care of you in your old age. You get a pretty good return on investment spending a few thousand dollars in basic education per kid. Don't let prejudice derail common sense.
According to the report, Japan's article output rose at an average annual rate of 3.1 percent, five times faster than the United States.
The European Union, which passed the U.S. several years ago in total numbers of articles published, posted an average annual growth rate of 2.8 percent during the same period, more than four times faster than the United States.
Law of diminishing returns my ass. And this plateu began to occur in the 90s? Would that be the late 90s? Would that be right before the Fundy/faux-Conservative/Anti-Intellectual revolution in politics occurred in the US? Massive sweeping tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% (most importantly corporations) does tend to dampen scientific development; so does cutting the programs that rely on those tax dollars for funding. Unbridled, shameless bedsharing between corporations and educational institutions resulting in patents instead of universally accessible scientific results also tends to suffocate collaboration (i.e. scientific progress).
If anything, the rapid proliferation of computer, network, and storage technologies should have made the 200X years a blockbuster decade for science and technology in the US. But sadly my friends, when you ignore politics...or live in a country ignorant enough to vote extremists into office...you will see very real effects down the road. The only bright side to having that clown in the whitehouse and his cronies in power is that a great deal of money (read massive debt that you and your children will have the responsibility of paying down over decades) went into defense related research and development. Historically, those technologies will eventually migrate back into civilian hands.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky