Slashdot Mirror
Study Says US Needs Fewer Science Students
cremeglace writes "It's an article of faith: the United States needs more native-born students in science and other technical fields. But a new paper by sociologists at the Urban Institute and Rutgers University contradicts the notion of a shrinking supply of native-born talent in the United States. In fact, the supply has actually remained steady over the past 30 years, the researchers conclude, while the highest-performing students in the pipeline are opting out of science and engineering in greater numbers than in the past, suggesting that the threat to American economic competitiveness comes not from inadequate science training in school and college but from a lack of incentives that would make science and technology careers attractive. Cranking out even more science graduates, according to the researchers, does not give corporations any incentive to boost wages for science/tech jobs, which would be one way to retain the highest-performing students."
When you keep downward pressure on wages of scientific positions; When you don't offer people compensation for the utter destruction of their social lives required to seriously pursue science, they gravitate toward management. (for comparison, at least medicine and law provide salaries commensurate with the effort required for the education)
You never see those massive bonuses going to the mathematical wizards, engineers, or design teams who are actually responsible for the profits. It goes to some otherwise average person who sat in his office and barked orders.
Don't be surprised when the truly intelligent notice where the money is going and choose to expand their social lives in the process!
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
So, by this rationale, in order to get more top talent in science, we need to let more talent choose other fields, leaving a scarcity of science grads, which will drive up salaries, and lead more top talent back into science? That's kind of like the argument that cold water boils faster than hot water. Of course, lots of people think that's true, too.
Along the same lines, I'd like to hear the author's explanation of why employees in finance continue to get paid more and more, even as more talent floods into that profession.
Not every price is set solely by supply and demand. In this case, I think culture has a lot to do with it, as do negotiating skills (which geeks don't generally have in abundance). Science and math types are still considered dorks, and the leeches who work on Wall St. or Madison Ave are the cool kids. Fewer science students isn't going to change that.
Nope, that's not what the summary is saying. It's stating that we have a steady stream of scientists and engineers, but it seems like they choose another career path when they realize they'll just be overworked and underpaid. Go fig, when it's easier to get an MBA and become a CEO who gets a golden parachute for tanking their company based on short-sighted decisions to appease stockholders then it is to go through 10+ years of training and pay off 100k in student loans.
You've got yourselves a brain drain. Growing up in Australia as a geek I had the sole intention of getting out of the country, going to university in Europe and finding a decent, well paid job there. In Australia there was no funding or development, no highly paid jobs, little basic research at all, and as a student cash was the big draw to get out. The brain drain was almost epidemic. The USA wasn't an option due to your ridiculous Green Card Lottery. Very glad I did too as I simply had more, and better opportunities. There are some truly excellent innovations that still come out of Australia built literally on a shoestring. Realtime over-the-horizon radar that can image a supercarrier off the coast of Japan is one example, and it is constructed from thousands of hand wound wire, wrapped around cotton reels. So it is possible to have success (albeit non-financial) in the midst of a brain drain.
Reducing the Green Card quotas further, and kicking foreigners out of Science will certainly reduce the number of graduates, and the intelligence of the nation. Weren't most of the USA's scientists working on the big name projects of the last 50 years foreign born anyway?
I'm an assistant professor and I can see this type of thing going on first hand. I get paid okay but expectations of the promotion and tenure committee in terms of papers, research funding and teaching requires 50-60 hours a week of work minimum most week. My record is 110 hours over 7 days, what a nightmare. The reason for this situation is that science funding by the federal government has been more or less flat for about a decade but the number of professors has increased and the expectations of the universities from professors have gone up.
My students take one look at me and immediately make a career decision in another job besides academics or even science in general. I don't blame them either, even I hate my job sometimes and I couldn't ever imagine myself of being anything but a scientist -- but at this point, I have one more year to go for tenure but taking that dream position at the coffee shop in western Colorado and skiing all winter is starting to sound really good.
If you want to do science, do science.
But what if science doesn't pay the bills?
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Indeed, that's their thinking, but they're dishonest about the motives: officially, they say that the native talent simply doesn't exist, not that it exists but only at prices they don't want to pay.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
because science (i.e. by the 'academics') typically results in 80% wrong facts, and 20% absolute fact. Academics can't accept this, cause science is supposed to always produce 100% fact: i.e. it's philosophically bad in our society of 'yes and no' that science is sometimes "right".
Leaving aside the fact that your last sentence makes absolutely no sense, you're completely wrong about the rest of it. Every scientist knows that much of what they study will probably turn out to be wrong. That's why a "theory" in science is the highest level that an idea can attain - because even the most conclusively proven theory can be overturned if the right evidence is discovered. So yeah, the majority of our theories may turn out to be wrong, but it doesn't matter because we won't know about it until we discover better theories through the scientific method. Science isn't about finding the "right" answers, it's about constantly finding better answers.
There's an Isaac Asimov quote which serves to underline this idea:
"When people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."
(And that's why there will always be a religion-science conflict)
No, the reason there's a conflict between religion and science is because power-hungry fascists like to keep the public ignorant so that they can control them. It goes something like this:
You tell your followers that lightning is created by an all-powerful Magic Man who can destroy them at will. But it's ok, because you have the inside track to the head honcho, and you'll keep them safe as long as they bring you lots of meat, wine, and gold to "sacrifice" to him. Then some smarmy guy with glasses comes along and starts talking about electrons, and suddenly your magical explanation starts to sound less plausible to your flock. That's bad for business. So you send out your buddies to tell everyone that "Electromagnetism is just a theory!". You bribe the local lords to pass laws outlawing its teaching. You do whatever you can to try and keep your followers ignorant and, like all good fools, they happily help you do it.
There's no conflict between science and generic Deistic beliefs. It's only organized religion that keep creating problems.
Actually you gain the privilege of becoming an administrator for the rest of your career. The only professors I knew who spent a decent amount of time doing real research were retired. The rest spent their time teaching, chasing grant money, and attending meetings. You really have to be a little crazy to go for an academic career these days.
"The Federal Reserve does not print money."
Read up on quantitative easing. It is what the Fed's been doing massively since the crisis. It is printing money though its done electronically. From Wikipedia:
"Quantitative easing is another way to influence monetary policy, only recently begun to be used in the United States. Other countries, such as Japan, have provided a template for some Fed actions. Essentially, quantitative easing provides a method for the central bank to provide funds at lower than zero interest rates, in order to increase the monetary supply and combat deflationary forces. This is accomplished by the Fed purchasing U.S. government debt with newly printed U.S. currency. In essence, the Fed is monetizing the debt. In the current (late 2007 to today) macro-economic environment, the slowing velocity of money has induced U.S. central bankers to pursue a variety of new, and to some radical, policies to produce economic stimulus."
They also allowed Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to acquire bank charters so they have access to this free money to fuel their commodity, stocks and bond gambling. It is helping to fuel the current bubble in stocks, bonds and commodities.
It is inappropriate for investment banks to have access to the discount window. Paul Volcker has been lobbying hard to get the Obama to stop it, but Geitner and Summers being stooges of Wall Street are ignoring him. Discount window access should only be allowed to conservative commercial banks who don't gamble on the stock market. Ever since the repeal of Glass Steagel and they let Citigroup access it, and certainly since they let Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and what's left of Merrill access it they've created massive potential for abuse and for bubble creation.
@de_machina