Saving U.S. Science 667
beebo famulus writes "Twenty years from now, experts doubt that America will remain a dominant force in science as it was during the last century. The hand wringing has generated a couple of new ideas to deal with the dilemma. Specifically, one expert says that the federal government should create contests and prize awards for successful science ideas, while another advises that the National Science Foundation fund more graduate students and increase the amount of the fellowships."
Hang wringing? (Score:2, Informative)
The real issue (Score:2, Informative)
If you get into a big accident in your car, you KNOW the car will never be the same again, it just CAN'T be fixed properly. The American education system faces a similar situation.
Elementary schools are treated like a combination of one room schoolhouses where one teacher needs to instill a love of learning about every subject. It just doesn't work since no person loves Engish, History, Science, and Math to the point where they can really radiate an excitement for all of these subjects. The schools want/need to teach more subjects, but don't want to extend the school year and school day to the point where school is a full-time thing for students(with a bit more time off at different times of the year).
With dedicated math, science, english, and history teachers who love(or at least really enjoy) their subject, most students will tend to discover an interest in one or more of these subjects themselves. Without an interest in one or more subjects, schools are nothing more than a babysitting service while parents are out working.
It is unfortunate that most governments don't have leaders who understand that if something is seriously broken, doing a full replacement of the system as a whole is required. Here in the USA, what is needed is:
Shrink the summer vacation from 2-2.5 months down to 3 weeks, and to extend the school day to go from 8am to 4pm.
Get rid of elementary school and go to a system where different subjects have different teachers. To help younger students, the teachers can move from classroom to classroom instead of having the students go from room to room.
Focus on conceptual learning as well as memorization since understanding the why of things is generally more important in future problem solving than JUST being able to come up with the right answer.
Move school funding to being a part of income taxes, not just property taxes as well since those who rent instead of own tend not to pay into the school system.
If the above ideas are not enough, make it so you have 16 grades, not just 12. College should be where people go for EXTRA education, and should not be required to get most jobs. Now that the USA(and most of Europe for that matter) have shifted from blue collar/manufacturing jobs as the focus and have shifted to white collar educated jobs as the focus of the economy, that should be the focus for the minimum the standard public education system should have as a focus. If a public education system could be brought back to properly preparing students for most jobs, it would solve the problem.
Re:Two factors (Score:3, Informative)
Aerospace, rockets, nukes etc.
You guys got the cream... Got to love immigration when you get the best
Re:when it comes to science (Score:3, Informative)
There, you asked for it.
Re:We have a bigger problem... (Score:2, Informative)
My opinion is that offshoring manufacturing concentrates the engineering HERE. Companies get VERY comfortable doing the engineering here, then throwing the design over to a manufacturing facility overseas, rather than the next building. It's simple to check if things are going well - how do your products measure on your tests implemented at another factory?
It is true that some try to offshore engineering as well, but I see that happening less and less, and many bringing back the engineering from overseas. Issues with tracking projects, project focus, making sure the engineering team has the goal of what's best for the company - not what's best for the manufacturer - in mind, sticking to design processes, etc. are greatly reduced when the engineering is kept local.
If anything, I'd say there's a net increase in US R&D and engineering over the last 10 years, more than offsetting the loss in manufacturing. Most companies already outsourced their manufacturing; moving that overseas isn't a big jump. Outsourcing engineering happens a lot in the US with the use of contractors, but outsourcing engineering of entire products overseas has been - at least in my experience - fraught with serious problems and is best avoided. Usually one or two projects run as such is enough to convince most companies not to do it...
Re:Here's an idea (Score:3, Informative)
Absolutely correct. Being of a religious mind in no way prevents someone from working in an participating in the scientifice community. The key word, however, is most. People are willing to accept most scientific conclusions so long as they do not interfere with their religious beliefs.
The problem comes in when ones religious beliefs influence/guide/determine/whatever ones scientific views. To use the beaten horse example of Evolution, there are many persons of various faiths who have no problem with accepting that Evolution has and is occuring.
However, many of these same people go on to say (in so many words), "Evolution is merely Gods plan."
Huh? How can one claim to be a scientist and claim that an unknown, unseeable, untestable supreme being is responsible for a testable, documented, natural function? That's my point.
So no, my comment is not drivel. There are many people within the scientific community who shape their conclusions to fit their religious beliefs. Look at Michael Behe and the Dover Area High School Intelligent Design trial. Repeatedly Behe said that while he was a christian, he didn't let his religious beliefs influence his "scientific" analysis of cell structure and Evolution in general.
Yet, when pressed for an answer as to who this supposedly unknown being was, and could he provide a test to see if this being does or does not exist, he couldn't come up with anything other than, "It's what I believe."
Further, Behe has publicly said that anyone who shares his beliefs that ID is correct and Evolution is wrong, and is considering a career in the biological sciences, should keep their mouths shut until they get tenure as a professor so then they can continue their work.
Sorry, my comment still stands.
Your screwed (Score:1, Informative)
The following url is an article on the state of home schooling in your country.
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg192
Re:But of course (Score:3, Informative)
The moon is a harsh place. No air, very little (if any) water. Lots of radiation. Space flight is still very expensive. Rather than lift all that is needed for a Lunar Colony up from earth, spend the time and effort to build construction robots. Construction robots that can build construction robot factories. Loft enough equipment to break down lunar soil and rock into metals and oxygen and silicon. Turn those materials into solar panels and girders and tooling and rock-boring machines. Have the machines turn the moon's surface into power generation and storage and tunnels for habitat.
For the biology crowd, build Biosphere 3, and then four, and then five. Figure out how to "close the cycle" and support humans with only sunlight coming in and waste heat going out.
Then send the crews to the moon. Any earlier and it's a stunt, and the public will react the same way they did for Apollo. With a giant Yawn and a click of the remote control to change their attention to a different channel.
cascading system failure (Score:4, Informative)
Teachers are very well paid for what they do, which is to prevent most their students from ever discovering personal power. Every single one of your classmates was "bored out of [their] mind" too - you just managed to find a way to make something of yourself, in spite of the government's attempt to dumb you down too. Most of our peers aren't quite so fortunate, for whatever reason.
Read Gatto's [johntaylorgatto.com] essay The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher [aol.com], or his book The Underground History of American Education (available for free online at his website).
Or one of Holt's [holtgws.com] books - How Children Fail or How Children Learn, for example (incidentally, is that your picture on the schoolbus?
The government school experiment is a good example of a cascading system failure. The first teachers came from classical american education, where learning was the learner's responsibility. The first school reform was to transfer responsibility for educational institutions from "the public" to "the government", and it's been all downhill from there.
The government school is corrupt because it places all responsibility for learning on the teacher. The first generation of government school students did well because their teachers had been "properly educated" in the traditional American manner. But every generation of teachers has been a little bit worse than the one before, because the system Doesn't teach children that it's their responsibility to teach themselves whatever they want to learn.
Now, 150 years later, many new teachers are frickin idiots. I had a date some years back with a girl who'd just gotten her teaching certificate, and felt sorry for whoever ended up in her class.
All part of a grand scheme to depower 'the masses' (that is, 'us').
Re:We have a bigger problem... (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong.
By law, the US Government IS its citizens.
Control of the US Government has been seized (er - okay, purchased) by business interests, who are waging this as a war-by-proxy on their own labor force (and, ironically, their own MARKET as well).
I do agree, though, we need to restore balance to the system, and that means either tarrifs, or subsidies. Both of these approaches have some pretty severe shortfalls. It's like tasering someone who's slashed their wrists to prevent them from committing suicide.
Re:We have a bigger problem... (Score:3, Informative)
US Immigrants from India...
1990: 448,6088
2000: 1,018,393
http://www.cis.org/articles/2003/back1203.html#ta