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Can Movies Inspire Kids To Be Future Scientists?
Hugh Pickens writes "MSNBC reports on a recent panel that discussed studies showing that people, especially children, often model their behavior on what they see on the big (or small) screen and science shows up in many Hollywood films. In fact, 22 of the 60 top-grossing movies of all time are science-fiction or superhero flicks, including history's No. 1 box office hit, Avatar. The movie science doesn't even have to be entirely accurate, some of the panelists added when asked to consider the role and impact of science in cinema. As long as it plants a seed of curiosity in viewers, it may spur them to investigate scientific issues on their own — and perhaps consider a career in science down the road. 'It's not an educational medium, it's an emotional medium,' says Seth Shostak, an astronomer with the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. 'Kids get turned on by the emotion.' Interestingly enough although movies work hard to get the science right, many make errors ranging from the understandable to the egregious, but that's ok, say the panelists. 'Even if a film or media product is not very accurate, that becomes a teaching moment,' says Arvind Singhal. 'So there's room for everything.'"
Avatar is a modern fantasy, not science fiction. There's barely anything plausibly speculative about Avatar. The few pieces of plausible fiction (cold sleep, avatars, aliens, and mechs) are plot devices, not plot points. All of the actual plot is implausible speculative fantasy.
I know Avatar inspired me to be a one dimensional money-driven corporate manager.
The media also strongly discourages participation in science when it depicts it as a field that only socially awkward people would ever have an interest in. We really see a lot more of that, coupled with a strong push for everyone to become some kind of businessman, than we see of movies that might encourage children to become scientists. Welcome to American culture.
Palm trees and 8
We need Scientists of ALL kinds.
It is that every kid with an IQ of 90 or more is told that they can be a doctor, lawyer, or scientist
Who is telling them that? Last I checked, we were telling our children that they should aspire to be either businessmen or celebrities.
Palm trees and 8
You know what inspires kids to do something? The same thing that inspires people to take jobs outside of McDonald's. Money. Pay them assholes. Until you stop canceling projects and giving the banks bailout money to reward fucktards to game the stock markets instead of making something, expect more bullshit coming out of the schools. And why not? Who the fuck wants to be a starving scientist?
Oh and i almost forgot - fuck you slashdot.
Some time ago, violent movies were supposed to be what caused violence. Now they generally blame videogames. Whatever, if that was true, smart movies should make smart people too. But to be honest, I think movies are just education. Like any educational tool, it teaches anything. It can teach good, bad, right, and wrong. If people decide to do good, bad, right, and wrong, smart or dumb, it mosly takes a lot more study, education, effort, time, and encouragement, from parents, teachers, friends, family, neighbors, government, and private groups. So do movies contribute to make smart or dumb people? Yes, about a 0,01% contribution towards that end. A lot more is needed.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Are there any good sci-fi movies that have a positive view of the future? Most recent things I've seen paint the world / galaxy as some sort of war-torn dystopian nightmare.
Best I've found so far was AstroBoy... I'm even renting out ST:TNG, though it's annoying because I feel socially compelled to filter out some of the softporn situations :-P
otherwise we are doomed on security. every part of password can be verified stand alone in every movie.
but then again, we will have awesome webcams with infinite detail zoom
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
Of course the movie has to be good, and a good movie gets children thinking about stuff, and there are TV shows that inspire. A recent post on Nova (PBS) discusses biologist Caryn Babaian inspired by The Professor on "Gilligan's Island" and she said, "He has a lot of authority... he was a chemist, he was a plant-person, he knew about ethnobotany and different cultures. But he was always wearing this shirt and khaki pants and the sneakers. So I thought, 'That's authoritative. That's scientific...' "
Hey, whatever works. There are shows that inspire me though they never said I also had to deal with unreasonable people and unrealistic projects, long boring meetings, gripes, etc.
mfwright@batnet.com
Can Movies Inspire Kids To Be Future Scientists?
Comics, TV and movies have been generating interest in science and engineering for generations. Do you think there was a shortage of NASA engineers in the 1960s who had not read sci fi comics or watched sci fi shorts/serials in the theaters when they were kids? Do you think there was a shortage of engineers in the 1980s who were not avid Star Trek viewers?(*) Do you think there is a shortage of engineers today who were not fans of Star Wars, Blade Runner, Aliens, etc when they were kids?
;-)
(*) How many Motorola engineers were trying to open the Razor flip phone like a Star Trek communicator during the Razor's development?
We're talking about kids here.What grabs there attention and fires their imagination is different than what we see. Even if you don't think Avatar will inspire future scientists, some other film or program might and probably will. Has Slashdot so soon forgotten that why the Milwaukee School of Engineering awarded an honorary doctorate to James Doohan?
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Those kids must be going to the school designated for the second arc. With the hairdressers.
Movies may have scientists, but no real science (as in the scientific method). Show kids THAT in a classroom. Show them how powerful it is. Make them experience personal achievements by applying science.
The last time something really influenced kids was getting men on the moon. A movie is just generally background noise and cheap entertainment these days. I certainly wasn't motivated to do something based on a movie I've seen in my childhood, but I was motivated by programming in LOGO and discovering how powerful a C64 really was.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Who is telling them that? Last I checked, we were telling our children that they should aspire to be either businessmen or celebrities.
They may also simply be following the money stream. There is lots of discussion about inspiring children to become engineers (i.e. STEM, Engineers Week, etc) and there is always the example of Sputnik. But then in 1958 there was a huge influx of money into schools and govt contracts, so not surprising many followed it.
mfwright@batnet.com
Why become a scientist in the US today? You go to school forever, spend years in a dead-end postdoc, and then can't get a tenured position. You're then 35, a decade behind in starting your career, and overqualified for most jobs.
How about we inspire them with actual science rather than wasting their potential trying to condition them to be passive consumers. The latter is the ultimate goal of popular entertainment. This just sounds like an attempt to use science as a fig leaf.
Kids get an expectation of "COOL, lets do Science!" and end up with boring, complicated, and badly taught stuff that turns them away instead of getting them interested.
How many folks (of a certain age) were so blown away by Tron, that they wanted to do something with computers? Having the PC revolution right around the same time really helped, but there was a huge influx of geeks thru the 80s and early 90s that helped fuel Silicon Valley.
Who is telling them that? Last I checked, we were telling our children that they should aspire to be either businessmen or celebrities.
Or a basketball/football/baseball player. Or a rock star, or supermodel, or simply a celebrity, which is even better since you don't have to have any appreciable talent. (Snooki, Paris, Charro, etc.)
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Many Slashdotters have admitted, in various articles over the years, that Mr. Scot (the chief engineer of the "Enterprise") motivated them to become engineers. He out-engineered all the adversaries (of the Federation) by making the "Enterprise" nearly invincible.
Indeed, some of the engineers who were inspired by Mr. Scot participated in the construction of the first, non-functional, prototype of the space shuttle and gave it the insightful name: "Enterprise". This prototype was used to test the ability of the spacecraft to glide back to earth.
Kids that choose science as a future are doomed. Why would you want to be scientist anyway? Besides, the portrayal in movies is absolute nonsense. Another lesson these brats need to learn is Hollywood is fake! Its like deciding to become a lawyer based on watching Perry Mason episodes!
The work is not always as great as you first imagine, the reception is unappreciated no matter what you do and the pay is poor.
Let kids become doctors, lawyers, and business people. They will be smart and have lots of money! America gives a rat's ass about science. If you discover something, it will be stolen and misused. Look at the Wright brothers. Wright had to sell out to Curtis because the gov't broke their patents.
Someone else will make a fortune based on your discovery. Howard Hughes made a fortune based on the oil drill bit, and had very little to do with its actual design and funding. He bought it from someone else.
My high school science teachers taught us how to be past, not future, scientists. We badly repeated experiments with known outcomes to confirm models about which we didn't care. I would not say it was very inspirational.
There just might be something to this future scienist idea.
Intelligence is not fixed at birth. The brain is a muscle that can - and must - be exercised to fulfil its owner's potential.
And only the top percentile of humanity gets to have a job in the medicine/science professions? What sort of Gattaca-fueled world do you live in?
Skype is too convoluted... Now I'm reverse-engineering the Kyoto Protocol.
It's not just about inspiring kids to grow up and become scientists. It's also about how much the next generation will care about investment in a new fancy science fiction future. There are plenty of reason to want to cut government spending. And if you care nothing about space exploration and travel, you could easily see the budget of a government organization like NASA or the National Science Foundation as completely superfluous.
Pure science needs pure funding. If your lab is forced to spend more time worried about how to monetize an idea than to explore it's scientific ramifications, you end up in compromising positions of wanting to cut corners and fudge the numbers.
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
With the possible exception of the "blowing stuff up" aspect, I think Myth Busters is one of the best programs for inspiring future engineers and scientists.
Good *science* movies are much harder to find. There's some vaguely interesting scientific issues raised in films like 2001 - where did life come from and what would extra-terrastrial intelligent life be like? Solaris perhaps? And film's like Lorenzo's Oil show science in a positive role. I did like Apollo 13 though for showing the engineers doing the almost impossible to save the astronauts. Can anyone help me make a list of others?
This is not a sig
It is that every kid with an IQ of 90 or more is told that they can be a doctor, lawyer, or scientist
Who is telling them that? Last I checked, we were telling our children that they should aspire to be either businessmen or celebrities.
Guidance counselors are telling them that from Junior High. They're telling them to go to college. Then when they get to college and want to study 'underwater basket weaving', the colleges aren't kicking them out, they're actually offering PhD's in it.
Well, I'm a scientist now and am so for two reasons:
1. Bill Nye. Because, honestly, who wouldn't want to have your own theme song that repeats your name 'BILL BILL Bill bill bill!' (And, really, the guy was legitimately cool)
2. Weird Science. It was always going to be way easier for me to synthesize the girl of my dreams than win her.
-Ryan
AUWYHSTOT (Acronyms are Useless When You Have to Spell Them Out Too)
Documentaries, yeah.
Two things go into making a scientist. The first is surviving a rigorous academic program. The second is developing a natural wonder.
In the case of these types of movies (which are quite entertaining, btw), the emotional component is so strong that it really supplants any kind of genuine wonder. Perhaps the seeds of that kind of wonder are really innate in (some of?) us. In any case, the wonder really needs to be put aside a good way through much of the (initially mundane) academic program, which is about 5% wonder (gets better as you go), and 95% business/industry. (Heck, perhaps the damn work ethic too is largely innate, or else inscrutably "nurture".)
So, to summarize, maybe we enjoy a little wonder in the beginning, then it all gets SHELVED as e dig into our programs, and we just hope there are some shreds remaining when we get out*. And these syrupy types of emotion might encourage someone to fill out an app, but it won't carry them past the first 3 pages of a dry text book.
These people who think feature films are going to generate scientists have been smoking their own underwear. Probably not bad for the box office, though!
*And, the other major problem is that most of those who DO make it through have had the wonder beaten out of them by the modern scientific apparatus, becoming, themselves, wonks. Still, for those who cultivate some wonder, learning science is its own reward.
Bukowski said it. I believe it. That settles it.
I'm not sure if I was "inspired" to be a scientist by film, but I would say that the movies "Ghostbusters" and "Back To The Future" certainly provided me with a lot of motivation for "Science!" (with the exclaimation point). I'm not sure, though, if those movies actually helped shape my interests, or whether they just resonated strongly with my existing interests and proclivities. And those were two of the most popular films of the 1980's, so it might be more correct to say "Awesome movies inspire people", which is one of the general reasons for pursing cinematography as an occupation (I'm sure GB and BTTF also inspired a lot of comedians and film students, too).
And it's not like Ghostbusters or BTTF are particularly accurate protrayals of the scientific or engineering process, either. I'm not sure I'd want to see an "accurate" film about the scientific process, though: wouldn't it be just a long montage sequence of all the reagents that didn't work; with a gripping B-plot on writing a grant proposal. That said, most films about a particular field or occupation are heavily dramatized. Haven't several people commented that shows like CSI use incredibly compressed evidence gathering cycles; and that in the real world it takes a month or so to process DNA evidence, and most crime scenes are either inconclusive, or heavily contamiated by the victim's dog before the cops ever get there.
As a very broad, crude generalization, introducing the reality of occupations, like science or business or the technical fields or agriculture, into movies is probably desirable, more as anti-inspirational "warning" than anything else. Most of these jobs are boring most of the time, so stay away. But if we present the jobs honestly and with reasonable fidelity, then the one-in-a-thousand that isn't turned off by it might actually be a good fit for that job. The film doesn't have to "inspire" people, just broaden their horizons so they are at least aware of the opportunities available.
Anyway, this is what happens when I ramble on caffeine.
OK, keeping in mind this is /., could you please tell me who Charro is? I swear to you, this is not a troll post.
Palm trees and 8
What's nearly as bad is the science career advice children receive at school. Almost no teachers anywhere have ever met a professional scientist. Even the few who might be married to one have no real idea what their partner does on a daily basis and they are in no position to advise on either the suitability of a child to try to become a professional scientist, nor on what that child could expect from a career in a scientific job.
The single biggest failing of science is that it does nothing to prepare the next generation for work in the field. Meaning that those children who leave school to attend a university science course, assuming it will be like the science they did in school, have one hell of a big surprise when it turns out to be completely different from what they expected. The surprise is nearly as big as the one science graduates get when they discover, in turn, that working as a professional scientist is again, nothing like what they thought it was when they were students.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
The problem in the US... is not to inspire future scientists. It is that every kid with an IQ of 90 or more is told that they can be a doctor, lawyer, or scientist, and allocated resources as if they could, when only the 1st percentile or less can actually fill these positions.
Oh please. I didn't realize Charles Davenport was still alive, let alone had a Slashdot account.
Someone doesn't need to be a member of the Master Race to make a valuable contribution to society, and there are plenty of people with high IQs who waste their gift. And that's even assuming your original statement is accurate. I believe it's not.
I don't remember anyone being actively encouraged/motivated to go into *any* type of career when I was in school. There were a handful of AP classes for math, and one for science, but they were basically the same as skipping a year and going on to whichever one the older kids were taking.
I would love to see more emphasis on encouraging children to develop an interest in science. It makes it more likely that the ones who do have the most aptitude for it *and* a genuine long-term interest make use of their gifts. At the same time, it can potentially increase the overall knowledge of the others, who either decide they don't have enough interest or have skills better suited to some other field.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Charo has a couple of appreciable talents.
Is not to inspire future scientists. It is that every kid with an IQ of 90 or more is told that they can be a doctor, lawyer, or scientist, and allocated resources as if they could, when only the 1st percentile or less can actually fill these positions.
I don't see how 'movies' solves this problem: instead, it makes people with Wal-Mart skills, think that they *should* have a better lot in life, and resent that something is wrong if they don't, and spend money trying to get degrees that are meaningless, and so forth ad infinitum.
Seriously? You think lawyers are in the top 1%?
I'm sure there are some lawyers in the top 1%, but it isn't exactly a requirement...
Likewise, although to a lesser extent, it is quite possible to be a good scientist without being one of the intellectual elites - you may not be at the forefront of your field, but you can be quite successful. Ask any scientists; 99% of discovery and advancement is really just drudgery in the lab/field. In most cases it is more about attention to detail, dedication, and rigor than being vastly more intelligent than everyone around you.
That said - you do have a good point that a lot of people are probably wasting resources going to college when they would be happier and more productive following a different route.
Hmm... ):
Excuse me while I go suck-start my rifle.
THL phish sticks
Furthermore, being smart isn't everything in the sciences or the professional world. Being knowledgeable and creative will take you just as far, if not farther. I think that anyone with a passion for science could do very well in it, even if they're IQ is ranked fairly low during grade school.
What I see, is that people who seem dim are the ones who lack passion for any form of knowledge. Simply being interested in things makes the difference between being suited for working at Wal-Mart and being a doctor, a lawyer or a scientist. IQ doesn't play that big of a role.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
Um, if you mean Charo, she is actually an amazingly talented flamenco guitarist.
My bad, one too many r's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charo
I just wanted to include someone not very current.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
I saw The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai at the tender age of 6 and immediately set out to build my own oscillation over-thruster. Didn't get very far... but the seeds were definitely sown.
You can't win by fighting popular culture. Today science and technology are very, very low on the pop culture totem pole. Drug dealers aren't that great, but they score better than scientists. Hip-hop rappers are way, way up. Rock stars are out. Supermodels aren't cool, but pseudo-idol teens are in.
And none of them are getting A's in school.
Avatar is a horrible examine of a pro-science movie. The scientists for the most part got kicked off the planet in the end. The chief scientist for the Navi cause died. No, I don't think it is inspirational to present the idea of dying on a far off planet in a feud with a paramilitary force.
Face it, in the US today isn't respected to be a scientist. It is respected to be a drug-addicted rap singer that can't use the word "woman" but instead says bitch constantly. It hasn't been respected to get good grades in high school and to spend time studying. There are popular songs with phrases like "Should I be a straight A student? If you are then you think too much." This is the culture we have created and what we are going to have to live with for the next 20 or 30 years.
Look at Asian families where if the kid brings home a B they are beaten. The kid knows it, studys and doesn't get the beating so there is no awful social stigma. In the 1950s white middle class families did the same thing which is why we have science and technology companies in the US today. As a society we have lost that motivation and it is going to hurt.
Forbidden Planet --> Voyage to See What's at the Bottom --> Star Trek --> 2001 --> submarine nuke --> Fermilab main control room crew chief. ymmv.
Um, if you mean Charo, she is actually an amazingly talented flamenco guitarist.
While you are completely correct in this, however, it is not why she is a celebrity nor what she is primarily known for. I hesitated before including here, but decided she belonged solely because the vast majority of her public appearances have nothing to do with guitar, and many people who know who she is don't even know that she is a very good guitarist. To quote wikipedia: best known for her flamboyant stage presence, her provocative outfits, and her trademark phrase ("cuchi-cuchi").
I knew she played and have heard her many times, it was a judgement call. Basically, if she didn't have a giant rack and yell "cuchi cuchi", you likely would never had heard her play guitar, as she is pretty good, but not good enough to obtain celebrity for that alone. But technically, she *does* have an worthwhile talent, granted.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
I remember after seeing the first Indiana Jones I was interested in archaeology and medieval history. All I could find in my school library about archaeology was a 30 year old book in a discard bin. All my teachers could tell me was something I could study after finishing a college degree. Sure, there was history: timelines and name lists from 1492 onward.
I'll always be left to wonder how my life would have turned out differently if I had someone in my life at that time to help me explore the interests provoked by that movie all those years ago. Probably poorer. Maybe happier.
Public education in the USA is an employee factory. That's its history. That's why it was created. That's what it's for.
We will never succeed in making education not an employee factory until we succeed in bringing about a society that does not depend upon a majority of the working age population being employees. We have the technology to satisfy our basic needs with less per capita investment of time than at any point in recorded history.
"How the White House secretly hooked network TV on its anti-drug message: A Salon special report."
... kid to read up on science and scientific issues .. and drugs and soda ... and wars ... and diet and .. [you got funding?]
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2000/01/13/drugs
"President Clinton's drug czar, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, some of America's most popular shows -- including "ER," "Beverly Hills 90210," "Chicago Hope," "The Drew Carey Show" and "7th Heaven" -- have filled their episodes with anti-drug pitches to cash in on a complex government advertising subsidy."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/04/movies/04flyb.html?_r=1
Pentagon's New Goal: Put Science Into Scripts
From drugs to science to a positive view of military life, its all been emotional blended in for generations.
If your movie gets too "historical", funding and support can stop.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I think in some cases we have the opposite problem. You don't need to be a genius or even much above average to be a doctor, just to get into med school. There are easily twice as many qualified applicants as spots available.
Frosty piss posts are worthless, GNAA posts are worthless and hurtful, but they are the least of this site's neuroses.
it's our job to inspire them. I've always been peeved by the assumption that 'oh, they are too young to teach that.' Expose them to the ideas, and let them decide. The other problem I see is we have a lot of educators (in the US anyway) who went to school to learn education. These people have been exposed to very little levels of math and science, and as such dismiss it often as difficult. When you hear something is difficult for the first 16 years of your life, why would you want to go into it?
Heck, Spiderman comics first got me interested in chemistry (I stumble across some old issues where Parker was actually a scientist). Show kids that their favorite hero likes science too and who know where it could lead.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
Ever read the Bell Curve?
Sure, it "is not fixed." Perhaps you can train your brain to perform a half of a standard deviation above your average. But that's about it. It's reality. It's fixed.
You may not like that reality, but the kind of thinking you seem to be espousing, is that which makes my niece with a 19 ACT think she can get into a good college and get a scholarship, without work. She thinks she's entitled to it. And that's about all she thinks.
And I didn't say "a job in the science professions." I wrote "a scientist." And the reality is, only 1% of the population, more or less, has the intelligence and wherewithall to perform as a "scientist" and not a "research assistant."
How many professors are there in the US population, for instance? How many undergrads are taught that they can become professors? The difference is over 1:1000, and that's a problem.
I was inspired by The Core. :)
Most kids who watched "Back to the Future" identified with Marty McFly. I did, to, but I also aspired to be Doc Brown. It was a major inspiration in my pursuit of science.
However, it ALSO gave me aspirations of pursuing science even if it's outside of the traditional routes. Thusly I didn't care to put up with academia and only do "garage science", exploring pet crackpot hypotheses in my spare time. So maybe we should take things like that into account.
It is that every kid with an IQ of 90 or more is told that they can be a doctor, lawyer, or scientist
Who is telling them that? Last I checked, we were telling our children that they should aspire to be either businessmen or celebrities.
Guidance counselors are telling them that from Junior High. They're telling them to go to college. Then when they get to college and want to study 'underwater basket weaving', the colleges aren't kicking them out, they're actually offering PhD's in it.
And when we've reached the destination at the end of that path, we will have made a college degree (i.e. K-12 + college) into a much more time-consuming, much more expensive equivalent of what a high school diploma is today.
I wish that about three quarters of the energy, effort, and attention we pour into "inspiring kids" were instead put towards teenagers and young adults. You can have the most inspired children in the world; it won't matter much by the time peer pressure, celebrity worship, and your average high school curriculum gets through with them (my sig line is apropos).
Teaching them how to do basic things like balance a checkbook, manage credit, and live within their means so they can eventually build wealth would be a great starting point. From there you can teach them how to think critically, use logic, perform basic research, to understand what skepticism is and isn't. A generation or two of that and we'd have a much better and healthier society.
A few entrenched monied interests would also make less money that way, and that's the problem with actually implementing it.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
but Wargames made me want to be a hacker.
So did Tron.
Be seeing you...
I have heard many times, for many different nerdy professions stories or surveys that show countless nerds were inspired to their professions by some work of fiction. Yet, I rarely hear that about non-nerdy professions. I have never heard a police officer point to a cop movie as a source of inspiration, nor a fireman, nor a teacher, nor an athelete, nor a soldier... OK, I can think of one exception to this, I have heard some pilots point to movies, but other than that it always seems to be nerds. What gives?
"Intelligence is not fixed at birth."
No but a large degree of one's potential is, there are low energy / "lazy" people with high IQ, there are also very hardworking and dedicated average people.
But lets not think that outcomes have nothing to do with genetics. Who is energetic and/or determined and who isn't is largely determined by genetic potential.
I wouldn't try to inspire people through movies that you watch maybe in the theater once, maybe rent it once, possibly see it a grand total of two or three times. People aren't always watching movies. However, a lot of people watch a generous amount of television, something where you get a persistent storyline that spans seasons. You don't just get into the characters for an hour or two, you get into them several times a week. Just think, how many people wanted to get into forensics, much less learned that forensics existed, after shows like CSI got really popular? I can't count the number of people in my anthropology department that joined because they started watching Bones and really wanted to be a forensic anthropologist.
Hog-poop. IQ is a rough measure of problem-solving ability. Science is about problem-solving, medicine largely is, and law should be. If you don't have the neurons for it, you don't have the ability; someone with a greater than 150 IQ is five standard deviations above the average and is going to master (solve) a lot of problems faster and better than the average joe.
Anything else is liberal BS and wishful thinking. Deal with it.
He didn't say it wasn't useful; he said it wasn't everything. A 150 IQ on an unmotivated individual will just smoke a lot of weed and say funny/clever things related to muskrats. An average Joe who's engaged and willing to work hard is going to be more of an asset, even if it takes him longer than it might have taken Lord Highmind.
The Andromeda Strain has already been mentioned; I would also count Contact, Mon Oncle d'Amerique, L'enfant sauvage, Gorillas in the Mist and - with a grain of salt - Evolution as great science movies.
I do neuroscience research for a living, and I can definitely say that I wouldn't be where I am today if it weren't for Hollywood. I remember watching computer-glorifying movies like "Flight of the Navigator", "Tron", and "Star Wars" when I was in first grade in the early '90s. That was an era when we didn't have a VCR at home and going out to the movies was something of a treat. Since today's elementary school kids all have iPods to take to school and DVD players in the family minivan, it's easy to remember that it wasn't that long ago that movies and computers weren't so commonplace. I grew up in a middle class, college educated family, and we had only one television in the house and didn't even have a family computer until the mid '90s, except for my father's Apple IIGS that he used for work. To say that movies inspired me would be an understatement. I was a Star Wars nut for a long time, and Flight of the Navigator made a huge impression on me, too. Funnily enough, I only saw FotN once, but remembered vivid scenes from it for over a decade later (and when I rewatched it last year I was amazed how accurate my memory was).
By second grade, I was teaching myself how to program BASIC on the school DOS 4/286 boxes. Heck, in third grade I taught the teacher how to use Applesoft Basic on her IIGS. Learning the math to write programs put me into advanced placement math the next year, and by sixth grade I was teaching the other students how to write programs to solve their algebra homework. By high school I was doing database and IT work for the local university that I later graduated from.
Somewhere in there, my parents took me to see "Apollo 13". That spurred another interest in space physics and engineering, which led to reading books about the disaster and spaceflight in general. Eventually, my 7th grade teacher loaned me her copy of Kip Thorne's book "Black holes and time warps". Bottom line, I ended up with a degree in physics. IT work paid well, but was boring as hell, so I made the switch into doing real science and worked my way up to lab manager.
... most people want to work to live, not live to work. And unless you are really good/passionate about science and have the work ethic you're not going to get anyone into science.
The real issue is cost/benefit and status, if you want more scientists you have to pay them like you do doctors or bankers. That's the truth, you have to make science a high status job.
So kids want to be eight foot tall and blue?
So in the next 20 years we are going to have a bunch of scientists needing grants to study vampires and werewolves?
And only the top percentile of humanity gets to have a job in the medicine/science professions? What sort of Gattaca-fueled world do you live in?
Ok, top 2 or 3. This has little to do with IQ (although you need that). It's more about willingness to work.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I'd wouldn't put Charo anywhere near that group. She was an outstanding flamenco guitarist and was headlining Vegas shows by her early 20s. She was known for her little catchphrase, but she was hardly like the talentless boobs were saddled with today. I think she still tours today.
Hogwash, economic starting points are a bigger indicator of success than raw brains - when you're poor and smart, getting ahead is HARD. When you're rich, you don't have to worry about paying for college, summer jobs, or much of that - you have a lot of free time for sports and networking, which helps you get ahead later on.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Kids have the science gene first, that causes the emotional response to such films. Science is about thinking about how stuff works, it doesn't need any external catalysts to kick it off. (Preaching to the converted here I know bit hey).
:)
Mind you, hoping the cricket highlights tomorrow morning will inspire my little boy
We need someone to make Science propaganda films for 10 year old students again. The Bell Science series produced by Frank Capra and starring Dr. Bunsen Honeydew (or the prototype of his character) were terrific. If you had any sort of interest in how things work an exposure to these was a huge recruiting tool.
The science in these films was pretty forward thinking too.
Here's a clip from one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7ksqNV1IiE
Movies are about ordinary people in extraordinary situations. Even superheroes are ordinary people "infected" with extraordinary abilities. Scientists and intellectuals in general are never shown favorably. Even when they have good intentions, they tend to do the bad/wrong thing. It started with Frankenstein and it never stopped. Actually it started with the Bible and Eve wanting to eat from the tree of knowledge. Eve was the first scientist and where did that get us? We got kicked out of Paradise. Avatar has nothing to do with science. Maybe to the /.ers who are interested in "how did they make this'. To the average person/kid the only thing it inspires is to fight heroic battles while flying on top of dinosaur like creatures. This can easily be accomplished with the purchase of the video game version of the movie.
And look where those admissions slots go-- people who are largely in the top percentile as measured by grades, test scores or any other standard measure. (Sure, you're right, the US needs more of them, has a deficit of doctors, but getting admitted is a factor, largely, of demonstrated intelligence).
Imagine what it would do it if WAS a requirement :)
Oh come on. We've reached the point where everyone has to feel good about themselves, and be told that they can make a meaningful contribution to society blah blah blah. What a load of crap.
If your school didn't shout this mantra, then congratulations. You went to P.S. NoWhere, along with the rest of America's nobodies. You are effectively (though not exclusively) tracked out of being part of the economic elite.
This changes nothing about the situation. No one with an "aptitude for science" is less than two standard deviations above the Bell Curve. These people are effectively found by standardized testing, and the best path for the US, would be to devote resources to them instead of Buffy and Bill. The idea that people need to be "inspired to science" is a myth propagated by high school science teachers who want better salaries.
Crap. One ./er actually bothered to look at data. I am astounded and amazed.
Seriously, however, while hard work (and being willing to be an hours slave to the establishment) is a part of it, all of these positions remain significant indexed by IQ.
Tron is just one influential movie that got me fired up to be an engineer.
No, actually, when you're poor and smart in the US, you apply to the Golden Dozen of colleges and universities, and get a full ride -- all elite universities currently essentially provide full rides for admits with familial incomes less than $75,000/yr, which isn't exactly "poor." When you're a little less smart, you go to the next tier and get a "merit scholarship" and actually get PAID to attend. When you're rich-- well, the money can help a little, and that upsets the meritocracy a bit.\
The problem comes when you're poor, and stupid. This makes you willing to take on $50K in debt, to spend eight years at Lower Nowhere State University.
This is about "producing future scientists."
It is not about the fact that someone with a 150 IQ might be "unmotivated." That has nothing to do with it.
I'm sorry, if you need to master multivariate calculus, or regression analysis, or any of 100 other skills where IQ is a strong predictor of ability and performance, then IQ does matter a lot, and hard work, dedication and the like don't mean that much.
If your IQ is 100, for many of these tasks, you'll be able to solve them but it will take 2, 5, or 10 times as long. There will be some things that will be immediately obvious to a 150+ IQ, that you'll NEVER get-- or that will take you a week to work out.
For some percentage X of those tasks necessary to being a scientist, the person with 100 IQ will either take much, much longer-- on the order of 10x or greater-- or simply be unable to complete the task. X is greater than 30%.
That's all. The performance difference is significant and huge. And every sub-120 IQ here can mod this down all they want. It doesn't change the reality and never will. Only 3% or less of the population can perform the tasks. Finding those 3% and training them, is the task, not "inspiring" anyone.
Yep. Get the MBA or famous and life's easy.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
A doctor is like a mechanic? Do you have any idea of the body of technical knowledge a surgeon has to keep current on? Any idea?
(Stops to laugh).
I can certainly see why a doctor rushes you out of the office.
No kidding. One of the "top percentile" sent my wife to the ER for a tummy ache telling us it was probably appendicitis. She also advocated CT scans for a tooth ache and tried to diagnose my wife with a thyroid problem when we had tests done by an endocrinologist who concluded she didn't have one. We stopped going to her.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Intelligence plays some role. It makes the difference between a Terence Tao and a little known professor.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Shall we play a game?
But: success? Who said anything about 'success'? OP was about "future scientists."
Sure, in the US the first indicator of future wealth is the size of daddy's wallet and mommy's tits. Which may or may not have anything to do with intelligence. But if we're talking about generating functioning, effective scientists-- not scientists playing scientist because of daddy's money-- then the factor that matters is grey matter, not green stuff.
>Almost half of the American population believes in creationism.
And G-d made it that way!
Seriously, this is what happens when you let people who don't have the brains, breed... what was that movie?
I always thought that was a pretty good movie to inspire kids.
Or principles or caterpillers?
The top 1% of professors are the likes of Terrence Tao (mostly the entire population of the math departments of the world's universities). The remaining 99% of assistant/associate/full professors fight with the usual dirty tricks:
- knowing people in high places or being supervised by one (the benefits are immense: you can publish in better venues, and get better job offers),
- publishing uncountably many junk articles to boost up impact factor (for either self or for colleagues in the same clique),
- securing grants with buzzword-laden proposals.
Of course, your personal experiences may vary.
Now about that IQ thing and how much it matters. My theory is: "Once you understand higher maths, you're halfway to anywhere" (with apologies to Heinlein).
No kidding. One of the "top percentile" sent my wife to the ER for a tummy ache telling us it was probably appendicitis. She also advocated CT scans for a tooth ache and tried to diagnose my wife with a thyroid problem when we had tests done by an endocrinologist who concluded she didn't have one.
That's because if your wife *had* been suffering from a serious problem, and those tests not been run to disprove that, when your wife died you'd sue the Doctor for $zillions.
The sad truth is that medical diagnosis today is driven as much by legal CYA as it is medicine. (One of the main reasons I didn't go into that field.)
Science is about problem-solving...
Some of it is, much of it isn't. The majority of it is coming up with a problem to solve. That has more to do with creativity.
Cranking through calculations or debugging experiments is problem solving. To be good at those things you need both ability and experience. To be a good scientist; however, you need to know which calculations and experiments are interesting. I think that's the more important element and it comes though experience, intuition and familiarity with the field.
Furthermore, the idea that problem-solving isn't a learned skill is hog-poop.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
But coming up with a problem to solve is also part of problem solving, "creativity" is part of intelligence (if a part of intelligence that is often not measured well by IQ tests in the US), and general intelligence increases the ability to acquire/remember learned skills "experience." So you haven't gotten us anywhere.
I just hope that more hot young females are inspired by the fine example of Christmas Jones to become nuclear physicists.
Movies will more likely inspire kids to jump to unsubstantiated conclusions and think that their shortcuts can save the day.
Of course they can, but if they'll be in for a disappointment if the primary reason they're going into science is because of exciting movies they saw. Actual science, be it education or research, is usually quite unlike what's seen in the movies.
A doctor is like a mechanic?
I wouldn't put it as strongly as the grandparent post. But there is an old adage: if you ever actually need a brain surgeon, you will probably care much more that he has a steady hand than what his high school maths score was.
Is not to inspire future scientists. It is that every kid with an IQ of 90 or more is told that they can be a doctor, lawyer, or scientist, and allocated resources as if they could, when only the 1st percentile or less can actually fill these positions.
I don't see how 'movies' solves this problem: instead, it makes people with Wal-Mart skills, think that they *should* have a better lot in life, and resent that something is wrong if they don't, and spend money trying to get degrees that are meaningless, and so forth ad infinitum.
According to From Hauser, Robert M. 2002. "Meritocracy, cognitive ability, and the sources of occupational success." CDE Working Paper 98-07 (rev). Center for Demography and Ecology, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin. Over 10% of social scientists, people in computer related occupations, materials engineers and a non-negligible number of university professors, electrical engineers, lawyers, hard scientists, and general engineers have an IQ under 100. To be fair, though, the bottom 10% of physicians have an IQ under 113
This hardly relegates the jobs of scientist, lawyer or even doctor to the top 1%. With the exception of doctor, which requires being in the top 20%, all of these jobs could be obtained by someone with a sub 100 IQ.
That said, it is not very likely that your theoretical 90 (bottom 25%) is going to get a job outside of sales, police, electrician, mechanic etc.
I think you're seriously underestimating what it is to be poor in the US.
When you're the oldest child of a junky single mother, living in a neighbourhood where you're either in a gang or you get beaten up every day, go to the kind of inner-city school nobody goes to unless they have no other chance and in the evenings when you get home have to do some kind of work and help take care of your kid-brother(s)/sister(s), you'll be lucky if you finish high-school, much less be able to "get a full ride" to a good University.
Life fucks up the really poor from the cradle onwards: no amount of brains alone will make up for being born deep down in the shit pit.
Personally I'm fucking priviliedged for having being born in a country where education was free, for being raised by both parents and both valuing education (even if they came from a poor background), for them to have chosen to have only one kid 'cause they knew they couldn't afford to get more than one through University, and for me to be good at it and a risk-taker type.
None of my parents (both from poor families) had anywhere near the chances I had and I'm damn proud of both for having pulled themselves out of the shitty situations they were born into. I can also guarantee you that at least one of them is more intelligent (IQ-wise) than the vast majority of people out there in this world and would've gone far if the deck wasn't stacked against her.
I'd bet most people have been in a school and a hospital, and met at least one lawyer. Have they ever had the least bit of resemblance to 90210, ER, or LA Law? I'm in finance, and every time I watch anything that's meant to depict it, it's so ridiculously off target I can't watch it. I'll bet the rest of you have jobs that are similarly unrealistically depicted on TV.
This is a bit like saying "unless you have a big frame, you'll never be able to lift X sized weights." Or "If you ain't tall, you ain't gonna play (basket)ball".
I suppose in the extreme, this is the case. If the population you're looking for really requires extreme IQs, there's only a few people who will have that. But there's a lot of research positions out there, and I doubt you need such an extreme IQ as 150 to be a contender. So actually, I'd think there's lots of people who could do these research jobs, but for one reason or other decide it isn't worth it for them.
Thermonuclear War
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
It's because of the mantra that everyone needs and is better off with a college degree. Which isn't true. It's not "PC" to say but we need more and better blue-collar training. There is nothing shameful about blue-collar work; ironically, it's the politically-correct desire to pretend everyone can and should have white-collar jobs that sends the indirect message that blue-collar work is shameful. Look at the cost of plumbers - it's insane - we need more plumbers. I have great respect for a good plumber. US needs more blue-collar workers so it can re-create an efficient manufacturing economy. We don't need trillions of e.g. literature majors or 'women's studies' majors; we need people who can make stuff and lower the cost of making stuff.
I don't know about the remaining 99 percent being that way. There are very smart professors such as my adviser who are sort of undervalued by the department. He focuses on wavelets and signal processing. I suppose you could say "wavelets" is sort of a buzzword these days, but his knowledge of math is very impressive by many standards. As a matter of fact, it could just be my department is a good one as I remember several professors at my undergraduate university that were OK teachers but not so good at research.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Well, maybe people should start suing for the extra cost in medicine for shoddy diagnosis. Ive had this discussion with an older doctor before. He mentioned that these days doctors are too scared to make diagnosis based on experience because they are afraid of liability. So they default to higher cost and higher certainty tests when there really is no need for it. For example, my wifes tooth (it was an abscess) only needed an X-ray (which are relatively cheap) to almost completely rule out a bone infection, not a full blown CT scan. I understand CT scans are becoming extremely high resolution and show pretty well what's going on, but the cost to the individual is not warranted unless its something ambiguous, mystifying or in need of high resolution.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
And Joan, presumably. You know, the one who burned the steak and rouend it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
They sure worked on me. I wanna be either a sci-fi actor or a scientist.
Why do you seem to believe that intelligence, being measured by Stanford Binet, is a innate quality of an individual?. I'm not trolling, this is a genuine question.
Most of the time, the best (in the "bright" sense) coworkers I had where educated in really expensive schools and went to good Universities.
Take the Flynn effect for example. Are more intelligent people being born today than a few years ago? Or we're better schooling people?
English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
If by success you mean economic success, then you're correct. There are studies to back it up.
Academic success? I'm not convinced.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
But books can.
So nine times as many have an IQ of 100 or over?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Exactly what's wrong with being a businessman or a celebrity?
You can't handle the truth.
Not the sequel, the original. Saw it when it came out, read the book, and that's part of the reason why I sit here now doing what I do for a living. Wish that movie had never been made. /disgruntled.
Never argue with a man carrying a water buffalo
Is not to inspire future scientists. It is that every kid with an IQ of 90 or more is told that they can be a doctor, lawyer, or scientist, and allocated resources as if they could, when only the 1st percentile or less can actually fill these positions.
They will probably work at the CIA, MPAA, RIAA, FDA, FCC, IRS, Congress, Oil lobbyists, EPA, or any othe 3/4 letter acronym requiring rubber stamp stooges.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Yup, just like getting the military ready to fight the last war, the teaching institutions are getting kids ready for the job markets of 1990.
A friend of mine encouraged her daughter to pursue cosmetology, since she had a great deal of talent and interest. She was average in intelligence, and there is no question she could have handled college. However, she would have ended up with a mediocre grade from a mediocre school and probably would end up struggling to get some clerical job that pays $35k/yr with $100k in loans and hate every day of it.
Instead, she'll be done school with about $5k in loans, doing something she is actually talented at and which she could potentially compete at a regional to national level in, in a line of work that is transferable anywhere where you can be your own boss or work in a cozy small business with a nice clientele in any city in the USA. For three years while her friends are spending $25k/yr and still at a high-school level of maturity she'll be out getting real-world experience with almost no difficulty finding work. While her friends are bussing tables or working high-school summer jobs for $8/hr she'll be at entry-level career pay, and by the time her friends are back living with their parents she'll probably be able to live completely independently with a stable career, and if she is frugal perhaps own a home. Her friends' parents will end up spending most of their retirement savings preparing their kids to live meaningless clerical careers constantly fearing the next wave of outsourcing and wondering when they'll be able to move out of the house.
The key is to find a career that you can enjoy, make a decent living at, and actually EXCEL at. A college diploma on its own won't guarantee any of that. Sure, lots of people SHOULD go to college, because it is necessary for a career that are likely to excel at.
Finally, the US doesn't seem to need more scientists. Most businesses are laying them off left and right to send the work overseas. Colleges pay them moderately well, but only because the tuition bubble hasn't burst yet. If you want to encourage kids to be scientists, start paying them like the aforementioned businessmen and celebrities...
In Disney's 2008 "Tinker Bell" Tinker Bell is an engineer. She spends much of the movie fighting "her destiny" because, basically, the "tinkers" are not cool. The general theme though is that she has a powerful gift for engineering and that she should recognize that. The climax of the film is Tinker Bell frantically producing blueprints while schematics and equations float around her head. She saves the day, wins the admiration and respect of the community, her friends and her self. She also earns the privilege of participating in a group activity she though the was going to be excluded from because she wasn't cool.
Personally, it chokes me up a little bit to imagine 6 year old girls saying, "When I grow up I want to be an engineer just like Tinker Bell."
I love when people are all authoritative like that. As it stands, there was nothing misogynistic about it, and the call works with the rationale.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
First, from everything I've seen intelligence is almost entirely fixed at birth. Sure, it does need to be cultivated, and as somebody else pointed out you can influence your output a little, but an average-intelligence kid is not going to consistently outperform a brilliant kid in their area of talent no matter how much effort he puts in, or how much the brilliant kid goofs off. In the subjects I was good at I'd be at least 1-2 standard deviations above the rest of the class on difficult tests with almost no time spent studying at all (and trust me - the others studied). In subjects I struggled in I'd work really hard but have trouble getting more than a B.
As others have pointed out, raw intelligence does not really translate into economic success, which I'd wholeheartedly agree with. However, those who are economically successfully probably have figured out that when you're a great football player you play football, not chess.
As far as the top percentile goes, that is pretty-much my observation. I work in a science-based company, and scientists at the company fall into one of two categories - those who are WAY at the top of their game, and those who are constantly worried about the next round of layoffs. The ones worried about layoffs are probably still up in the top few percentiles of the population in scientific ability. It just is a dog-eat-dog world out there unless you get lucky enough to land a low-pay government job. Employers pay for results, and they have a HUGE pool of talent to draw from - worldwide. Why would they pay serious wages to anybody who wasn't top-notch? If they just need bodies to follow directions they can get those for 1/4th the wage overseas.
If kids want to be economically successful they need to find something they can be good at, and do it. They also need to figure out how to make work, not wait for somebody to come along and tell them what to do. They don't need to be self-employed, but they do need to be self-starters. I think that is the biggest problem with institutional education - it creates passive students who just take whatever courses the guidance counselor recommends and they don't know what to do when nobody is telling them what to do.
That's not poor in America. That's black in America, which is a different thing.
More seriously, your poor in America, crack-mom etc example is certainly a heart-wrenching anecdote, but how many of the people in the US in the top 1% or even 5% by intelligence live in such circumstances? You might as well tel us about the genius who is struck by lightening every month, and then hit by a bus on his way to Stanford.
Sure, there are a few guys or gals out there like that, but they don't matter STATISTICALLY. They're extreme outliers-- not representative.
Otherwise-- I didn't say growing up in the US was fair, or that it was easy, or even that the system worked for people in the circumstances you describe. The brunt of my thesis is that it makes absolutely no sense to spend resources, and "prepare," people for careers that they have no chance of performing in.
Otherwise-- sorry, there are problems, certainly there are problems, but for the vast majority of the "poor" in the US who also have the demonstrated intelligence, the opportunity is there. There may be other problems and injustices in the system, but the idea that the poor and intelligent do not have access to education in the US, is largely a combination of bunk and resentment.
Well, what's it take to play in the NFL versus the Farm Leagues? It's the same-- in fact, sports at the professional level, display even more of a demonstrable tendency towards what seem to be purely genetic pre-requirements.
The distinction you're making is between being a research assistant or lab tech, and being a research scientist. Again, I didn't say the US should not encourage people to pursue science-related "careers." I claimed that large segments of the population that they can become future scientists (or doctors or ... what not) and then spending the money to provide them with "education," loosely speaking, to become things they will not by all odds become, is a waste of resources and thus, in simpler language, just plain stupid.
Well, if we're moving to that level, I'd prefer Piaget to Binet, at which point you get an IQ assessment that lasts 8-16 hours and is highly variegated by task and skill.
And you could of course look at what happens in France or Germany and so forth, when a full third or society or so have access to relatively high-quality education.
My brunt here is-- that's not what's happening in the US. In the US, with a "failing education system," two-thirds of the population is being told to strive for positions of which, there is only room for 3% or so, and of which, only 3% or so are qualified. They're also often told, that their self-worth is tied to being one of those classes.
Equally, they're provided with education to become one of these things, and blithely told by their teachers and professors that they can become one of these things, when in reality, they really can't, and the education they're being given, is more of a Potemkin exercise than a reality.
I am reminded of an anthropology student at a third-tier state university, who sincerely believed that her career path was to become an anthropology professor. She continued to believe this despite having grades so low that she could not gain admission to the graduate program in her state, and after getting 550/800 on her GRE subject test.
A fresh-minted Ph.D. from the anthropology program at Yale might have a 1/3rd chance of securing an academic career-- the odds for this poor woman were probably closer to 1 in 1000. Yet she was surrounded by people like her, spending years of their lives, and accumulating debt, working towards a goal that they can't achieve.
And thinking that if they work in an office or at a restaurant or in a factory-- all contributions to society-- , that it's not good enough, and that they're too good for such positions.
That's the tragedy, if not a recipe for disaster.
You also pose a number of serious questions which I pass over:
>Most of the time, the best (in the "bright" sense) coworkers I had where educated in really expensive schools and went to good Universities.
>Take the Flynn effect for example. Are more intelligent people being born today than a few years ago? Or we're better schooling people?
These are large questions that are ripe for longer discussion. To some extent-- for instance, with no ripple effect from the depression-- perhaps not "birthing" more intelligent people, but yielding more from nutrition and other effects.
Not every bright person goes to a Tier 1, nor should. But access has increased dramatically in the past half-century, which means, a lot of the bright people you meet in the US will have gone to the top Tier, an received that education.
A better question, for me, might be-- what should the education for the next tiers look like? At the moment, it seems to be a mixture of watered down elite "liberal arts" education, and purely tech education-- "become a radio tech, forget anything else."
Neither seem to work very well to me, for the majority of the population.
And the telephone sanitizers.
No.
Ha ha, I win!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Plus the more tests they do, the more they can charge you[1] for.
Of course there's an obvious solution to the problem, it's to run healthcare the way the rest of the developed world does. But it's communist, it's unamerican, it wasn't invented here and it won't work for [insert reason here].
[1] Yes, you. Even if you have insurance, they'll just put your premiums up if you claim "too much".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Nothing is wrong with being a businessman or a celebrity; such people certainly have a place in society. The problem is that is pretty much the only thing we encourage people to do, at least in terms of what popular media outlets are promoting. It takes more than executives and Hollywood stars to maintain a functional society.
Palm trees and 8
Depends. Does the mountain weigh less than a duck?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I left plenty comments on this topic refuting this notion, that what a dying economy needs is more scientists
AFAIC what a dying economy needs is more businessmen, people who will invest their savings and time into new ideas, which was the reason that science in the West accelerated in its development during the industrial revolution - business drives economy, increases wealth and drives science, nothing else can do it, only new business can do it.
You can't handle the truth.
My point is not that we need to encourage everyone to be a scientist, but rather, that we need to not encourage everyone to be a businessman.
drives science, nothing else can do it, only new business can do it.
Not true; businesses do not build large particle accelerators, radio telescopes, nor will businesses fund studies on rare and endangered species. Not all science creates profit.
Palm trees and 8
Well it sounds like we are in agreement: there is an important role that businessmen fill in society, and we do need them. I only went further and said that society needs more than just businessmen, which is true and which you seem to agree with as well.
Palm trees and 8
After posting, I realize I colored my comment with a bias towards the government funding of science, and for that I apologize. For the purposes of the story in question, it doesn't really matter where the funding comes from. Certainly, for government funding, public opinion matters more. Yet, even in private industry venture capitalist/CFOs/PHBs are going to be more inclined to green-light speculative research when they have some common culture on which to bias their decisions. For instance, a handful of notables involved in the rise of wireless communication (such as Martin Cooper, father of the handheld mobile phone) remarked on being influenced by the communicators used in Star Trek.
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.