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State of US Science Report Shows Disturbing Trends

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the from-a-head-start-to-no-child-left-behind-in-the-blink-of-an-eye dept.

coondoggie writes to mention that the National Science Board is concerned about certain indicators in the science and engineering fields for the United States. "For example, US schools continue to lag behind internationally in science and math education. On the other hand, the US is the largest, single, R&D-performing nation in the world pumping some $340 billion into future-related technologies. The US also leads the world in patent development."

18 of 574 comments (clear)

  1. Patent Devlopment? by Serenissima · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Are we saying that Patent Trolling is the same thing as Developing?

    --
    Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. But light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
  2. free market needs competition by jgarra23 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is a natural cycle of markets. (or greed, or laziness or whatever...) now the US is resting on their laurels, reaping the benefits of engineers past and eventually will pay dearly economically for this culture's unwillingness to churn out better engineers.... and 70 years from now you'll probably see another surge of ingenuity and wonder in western-hemisphere technology.

  3. Patenting? by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Patenting the obvious, since 1994" :-)

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
  4. In other news... by Philotechnia · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...a creationist museum in Texas is closing

    Mod US science +1!

  5. Re:Sooo... by cozziewozzie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...we spending the most money, on the dumbest researchers?


    Hardly, as many of the world's brightest researchers end up in the US.

    A more interesting question is how much all that patent business is increasing the costs of R&D in the US and the West in general. Because one of the unlucky consequences of patents is that once a wheel is patented, it has to be reinvented 20 times, carefully treading around the patent each time.
  6. Hypocrisy by Raul654 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It seems to me to be the height of hypocrisy that business leaders (Gates and company) complain about a lack of scientifically/technologically trained Americans, and thus we need to increase H1-B visas. These same leaders then turn around and support republican candidates who don't believe in evolution and want to water down the science curriculum by introducing Intelligent Design.

    --


    To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
    --E.C. Stanton
  7. I don't get it... by Lurker2288 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wait, you mean in a nation where whole chunks of the population teach their kids that the world was created by an invisible sky daddy in six days isn't leading the pack in science education? We'd better pray harder!

    1. Re:I don't get it... by HungSoLow · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I agree that the parent / community plays an integral role in intellectual development. That being said, if a community does not place great importance on truth and consistently uses baseless arguments to critique well-founded theories in science (evolution, big bang, etc..) then why would any child in this environment that develops into an adult want a career in science?

      You're right, parents and strong communities are critical - but it's distortion of truth by said people that is the REAL problem.

    2. Re:I don't get it... by tknn · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That is why countries like Finland, which has a higher divorce rate than the US, top the rankings? Stop pushing your "morality" based agenda without facts to back it up.

    3. Re:I don't get it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't know what America you grew up in, but in my part of America, I knew plenty of kids who were raised in single parent households and did just fine. "Strong communities" and "two-parent families" are and have always been myths perpetrated by religious and social organizations as tools to increase their power.

      Religious organizations benefit when everybody is dropping by on their pre-determined day and putting money in the collection plate. Their monetary power increases. Their social power increases too because maybe, just maybe some of those who attend will listen and follow the precepts and guidelines of that religion and support policies and causes that the church wants. One of the tools that these religious organizations use is the spiritual myth of marriage and the talking point that only sanctioned (who performs the weddings?) and married people are socially, spiritually, and monetarily qualified to have children. Hence the myth that two-parent households are better.

      Social organizations benefit from strong communities as well, but not in the same way as religious organizations. Social organizations, led by people who have a personal agenda, want members. Members are votes to them, and dues are more money in the coffers to fight for what the head of the organization wants. The more people they have listening to them, the more money they have coming in, and the more votes they can drum up to support their leader's personal agenda. These organization benefit from a strong, tightly knit community who all belong one or several of these organizations. It makes their power grab easier to pull off. Hence the myth that strong communities are better.

      Both of these systems are wide open to manipulation and are tools to control you. Education is to free you. These organizations are the opposite of that freedom. Their impact on education is the opposite of what you claim - they stifle personal freedom and destroy the environment of learning and education that they claim to promote.

      The real problems are lack of parental involvement in education and a culture controlled by religious and social organizations. Parental involvement is important, but the elimination of the influence of social organizations and mass media is just as important. Systems that cannot be thrown off as of yet because of the lack of intelligence and the complete indoctrination of these organizations values and norms into children as a result of public education.

  8. No wonder.. by necro2607 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is going to sound really cynical, but I feel inclined to say: No wonder current tech is not forward-thinking and is only innovating at a "comfortable" pace. You know, the kind of pace that enables companies to really milk as much as they can out of products without having to do very much R&D to improve the tech.

    This is why we are still using countless seperate devices for our various everyday communication/information needs that can't communicate with each other, and why the concept of "integration" of the technological extensions of ourselves is largely overlooked. Oh, it's also why we pay $50+mo for, frankly, the most basic of cell phone and internet connectivity, for example. Companies that have the funds to do amazing R&D and amazing advances in the "human" aspects of technology aren't bothering, because they're rich as hell one way or another - they can crawl along at a comfortable pace with no problem (especially because "everyone else is doing it too").

    Yeah, a bit of a tangent there, but I've been thinking about this stuff a lot lately. You know, we 100% have the means for technology to be so much more, but it's as though no one cares.

  9. anti-intellectualism by nerdonamotorcycle · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This is what happens when a culture has a profound anti-intellectual streak, and when those who epitomize dogma and religious faith start winning out in the court of public opinion over those who believe in science and empiricism.

    Consider:

    • creationism vs. evolution
    • abstinence-only sex education
    • the war on drugs, which emphasizes prohibition (based mostly on dogma) over harm reduction (based on empiricism--"what works")
    1. Re:anti-intellectualism by bcattwoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is what happens when a culture has a profound anti-intellectual streak, and when those who epitomize dogma and religious faith start winning out in the court of public opinion over those who believe in science and empiricism. If anything the U.S. has gotten more and more secular as science and math education and achievement have declined. The religious have gotten more outspoken but really religion's influence over people's lives has gotten less and less. The current resurgence of religious sway probably has not helped, but the U.S. has been backsliding for a while now. I think that there are other cultural/socioeconomic factors at work here.
    2. Re:anti-intellectualism by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Also consider....

      It's uncool to be smart.
      Black kids getting good grades are assaulted and told they are "acting white"
      Schools cut science programs but fund additional athletic programs.
      Society rewards and promotes the stupid jock and vilifies and puts down the smart geek.
      Media further promotes the above stereotypes and problems.

      THERE's the start of your problem. Kids are not smart because you are a dork for being smart. fix that and you fix almost everything else.

      BTW: this problem started in the 60's.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  10. "It's so hard!" by ProteusQ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's what I hear from my freshman-sophomore math majors nearly every day. Sorry to pass the buck, but I suspect that HS math is either dumbed down or grade inflation prevents the kids and their parents and their parents' lawyers from complaining too much. So, they get A's in a "hard" subject, get lots of kudos because this must indicate that they're smart, and so some decide (quite logically) to choose math as a major in college.

    Then if you get a prof who expects excellent performance for an A, average for a C, and F if you never did work enough to catch on, and then their world turns absolutely upside-down.

    Should students study harder? Absolutely. And _13 years_ of public education ought to provide adequate training in how to study. If not, we'll get more of these "disturbing" trends.

  11. Comparisons with the rest of the world by pubjames · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think it is time to stop comparisons like "the US is the largest, single, R&D-performing nation in the world pumping some $340 billion into future-related technologies", because they give a distorted view of reality. The main reason the USA comes out on top so often with this kind of statistic is simply because it is sound a large populous county.

    For example, the USA wins the most gold medals at the Olympics. But does that mean the USA is the best at sports? No. If we look at gold medals per capita, then Australia easily beats the USA. If we add countries together so we have equivalent populations, then we get another picture - Europe would often beat the USA if it entered as a single country, for instance.

    If you looked at R&D per capita, or R&D as a % of GDP, or any other more reasonable metric that just comparing countries of different sizes, I expect you would get a very different picture than the summary suggests.

  12. Re:Sooo... by drooling-dog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They come here precisely because they are smart. As bad as the US government is in terms of taxation and economic policy it is still easier for a smart individual to get ahead in the United States than it is in many other parts of the world. Taxation and economic policy is only a small part of it. A bigger part is that the U.S. still has the best research infrastructure in the world, and if you want to do state-of-the-art science, it is still where it's at. If you're in a scientific career, that's far more important to you than how much you'll pay in taxes.

    Flip through any professional scientific or engineering journal, and look at the names of the authors of the papers. You may see U.S. institutional affiliations, but the names will be from all over: Europe, China, India, etc. The U.S. benefits greatly from this influx of talent and brainpower, so let's not keep screwing it up by needlessly harrassing foreign scientists at the border just because we can. The de facto War on Science and Reason being waged by certain political elements in this country doesn't help much, either.
  13. Re:Sooo... by LaskoVortex · · Score: 5, Informative

    Perhaps, but even so it is still better than many of the alternatives. I often hear the lament, particularly from new college graduates, that offshoring is killing their job opportunities or that their wages are stagnant and any number of other gripes with the possible exception of age discrimination.

    Everyone is talking about college graduates. If these belly-achers stopped and read the actual article, they would find their complaining was ill-founded except for the natural bitterness that comes with old age. None of the key indicators suggested that the abilities of college graduates have declined. The indicators suggest that the numbers of such graduates are not keeping pace with the rest of the world.

    This knee-jerk bashing of new college graduates and the irresponsible moderators who give these idiots a voice need to be stopped. Such attitudes and bias are likely part of the force that drives the US's decline in science. Get over your old age! I have.

    --
    Just callin' it like I see it.