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China To Overtake US In Science In Two Years
An anonymous reader writes "China is set to overtake America in scientific output as soon as 2013 — far earlier than expected. Chinese research spending has grown by 20% per year since 1999, now reaching over $100bn, and as many as 1.5 million science and engineering students graduated from Chinese universities in 2006. 'I think this is positive, of great benefit, though some might see it as a threat and it does serve as a wake-up call for us not to become complacent,' said Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith. However, the report points out that a growing volume of research publications does not necessarily mean an increase in quality."
Is there some way to objectively measure it? Number of patents, number of papers, what?
Chinese universities also have more cheating then us ones.
...a machine for turning ramen into "scientific output".
When I hear things like Texas wants to slash 10 billion dollars from the public education budget. Or did that not get through?
'I think this is positive, of great benefit, though some might see it as a threat and it does serve as a wake-up call for us not to become complacent,' said Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith
Science is absolutely not a competition. Was Argentina harmed because the US went to the moon? Was Russia harmed when penicillin was discovered? No, not at all. China's increased scientific research is a benefit to all of us.
The only way you could possibly twist this into a bad thing is if you think China is going to become a military power and try to take over the world. But it's a LONG logical stretch between "greater scientific spending" and "army capable of conquering the rest of the world." So let's cheer up a little and not look at everything through the lens of fear. This is great!
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
A step rise in Chinese research - and in Indian, and other newly developed countries - means more total research happening around the world. More research and more results is a win for everyone.
In addition, the spread of research efforts mean that more avenues are explored, and that progress is not as dependent on the temporary political and scientific winds in any particular country or region.
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China may do a lot of research, but it does not seem to do a lot of good research. If you've been to China, it is understandable why: There is very much a mentality of "Whatever you want to do is ok, so long as it gets you ahead." Lying, cheating, all perfectly ok. Well maybe you can argue this works in normal life and business (though some serious downsides can be pointed out) it doesn't work in science.
Feynman put it really well (he was talking about the Challenger disaster): "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
Well China's culture doesn't magically stop when you start talking universities and labs. The faking of results goes along strong, because it helps you get ahead. Publish more papers, be more prominent and all that. Works for the individual researcher, I suppose, but that means overall the research is useless. I can write as many papers as I like, fake as many results as I like, that claim that X causes Y. However if X does indeed not cause Y it doesn't do any good, I can't change reality.
Before China can become truly top at science, as in producing the most useful actual output, they'll have to have a cultural change, at least in the scientific community and probably the larger culture.
However I also fail to see why this is a big deal. I wouldn't consider myself all that worldly, but I've traveled to a fair number of countries not the US. All of them are by definition #2 or lower in science output, as well as many other things the US is #1 at. Guess what? that doesn't matter. They are nice places to live, with happy productive people, stable governments, and so on (I don't tend to visit countries that don't meet those requirements). I could move to Canada or the UK or Norway and be quite happy there. They may not be #1 in anything, I don't know, but it doesn't matter. You don't have to be the best at everything, I think maybe Americans need to learn that.
Awesome. Then we can just copy their IP for a change.
Aww, go ahead and mod me troll. You know it's true.
The 'stupidification of America' is an imagination of your weird-wing ideology. Statistics can't speak to specific cases, so maybe the people you hang out with are idiots, but overall America has a higher level of education than at any time in history. Check it out. It's somewhat leveled off recently (in part due to immigrants not graduating from school), but in no rational worldview could you call it 'stupidification.' Seriously. If you want a cultural reference, look at how geeks are treated in Grease compared to High School Musical. It wasn't nearly as respected to be smart in those days.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I worked in one of those. It wasn't the superior research skills of the Chinese, it was racism. Once, it was a balance of lots of nationalities, then they hired someone who only hired Chinese.
There were a lot of people who did really good work there, certainly including the Chinese members, but any time you have a top notch place composed entirely of one nationality, you know it's not merit driving hiring. And yes, I'd say that for an all caucasian crew as well.
America already has the Library of Congress, which increases scientific output by 50% in all cities. There are just too many entertainers, some of which should be converted to scientists. That should be pretty obvious to most Civ players, I hope.
This article is dumb for (at least) two reasons:
Dumb: As noted in the slashdot summary, quantity of papers isn't the same as quality. I have published physics papers in refereed journals, and my experience is that most scientific papers are correct but utterly inconsequential. They matter to the people who published them, because those people are desperate to get permanent jobs. Period.
Dumber: It's not a nuclear arms race, it's scientific research. By the (lame) metric of quantity of papers, the U.S. has increased its "output," while China has increased its "output" as well (and at a greater rate). Why is this a bad thing? Scientific progress enriches everyone.
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Was Japan harmed because the US developed the nuclear bomb?
Absolutely not. There are debates about the ethicality of using a nuclear bomb, and especially about dropping the second bomb, and I don't know enough to answer that question. But one thing is clear beyond doubt: the offensive attack the US had planned if they didn't use the bomb would have been far worse. And that is historical fact.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
When the US is a third-rate, has-been country with no scientific or technological leadership in the world, the irony will be that it wasn't the Communists or terrorists that did us in ... it was all of those so-called America-loving conservatives who reward ignorance and shun scientific knowledge, who defund scientific research and agencies, who cut education and kill financial aide for college students, who attack scientists for daring to contradict the ideology with their elitist "facts." It will have been these people who damned our country.
I learned things in high school that my parents didn't get taught. Trig and calculus weren't taught to them from what I gather. My grandpa has a high school diploma but can't do algebra. It may be they are exceptions, but I wouldn't just assume they were taught more back then. We need some facts.
SSC
With people complaining about STEM brain drain due to lack of science funding from the government, and STEM grads jumping into the luscious field of finance , what do you expect?
New Economic Perspectives
The "Space Race" was the single greatest time in scientific advancement in history.
Not really - the space race was more about technology than science. Scientifically the problem was solved: there was no problem calculating the physics involved to go to the Moon - the problem was developing the technology capable of doing so. It was a fantastic motivator for science and remains one of mankind's shining achievements but was really the result of applying science rather than discovering new science.
You're an idiot. If your logic were even remotely accurate, then Europe would be the last in the pack as far as R&D goes. Guess what? They're not.
Was US industry harmed when Japan started taking research seriously, and applying it to their products? Absolutely.
Was the average US consumer harmed? No. They benefited from cheaper, better quality, more functional products. The fact that US companies couldn't keep up is a problem with US companies. It would be extremely stupid to be afraid of others increasing the knowledge pool of humanity because we want to live in a time warp where companies incapable of innovating are protected from having to.
The alternative plan (assuming there wasn't some unexpected peace move) was to expand the fire bombing campaigns. Compare the casualty numbers of the fire bombings and the nuclear weapons, and it's fairly clear. The nuclear bombs were meant partially as a propaganda technique, and it succeeded, not only in Japan but also in many parts of the world. You rarely hear about the Tokyo fire bombing, even though there were more casualties.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
... in scientific research when you see the following:
None of these apply to China yet, and I don't think it happen in 10 years, let alone 2 years. So, if I were an American policy maker, I'm not gonna to freak out yet.
... in scientific research when you see the following:
- Sales and marketing are considered more important professions then doctor or scientist.
- Reality TV is considered an unmissable event.
- Solutions to problems involve cutting budgets to scientific organisations.
- It's popular to advertise your own ignorance.
- It's unpopular to show an aptitude for something.
- Scientific research in one area is halted by a religious minority waving an old book.
- You have to write lists of poorly thought out points to dissuade yourself from the fact science is failing in your own nation.
So if I were an American policy maker I wouldn't freak out because an uneducated populous allows you to openly serve other masters.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The USA's lead in Creation Science is expected to be safe.
BULLSHIT!
Red to red, black to black. Switch it on, but stand well back.