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."
It's the State, stupid (Score:2, Interesting)
Recommended solutions?
*Even more* state-run education - more funding, prizes, competitions.
I'm waiting for the day someone will come along and say: wait a minute, maybe this SHOULDN'T be provided by central government. Maybe we should give people back the money we'd tax to pay for it and let them do it for themselves.
Of course, the reason you don't see this much is because if you say to the State: you don't need to provide this service now, the service stops for sure, but the tax reduction? *that doesn't happen*. So people cling on to whatever they can get out of the State, because they know if it's taken away, they only lose.
I am absolutely convinced (Score:5, Interesting)
I realize America's science is not progressing at the rate academics would like. However, this is happening everywhere, and it's a LOT worse over here. Trust me, a LOT.
Lots of material is being dropped from the curriculum. Phd positions are not getting filled. And everything is made easier in name of "everybody being equal", everybody "needs" equal access to university (and somehow access does not mean "a chance to try" but actual graduation), and the only way to do that is dropping the level of education by a lot.
Math is being dropped like a stone in every subject. Numerical analysis
Two factors (Score:5, Interesting)
Two factors contributed to the US's good position in scientific research during the last century:
1 -- The economic decline of Britain, especially the vast amount of intellectual property that Britain had to give to the US in exchange for resources to resist Hitler.
2 -- The rapid maturing and solidifying of the US commercial world, which created intense competition as the number of companies collapsed -- the result was a period during which very large entities had a very strong need to gain a competitive advantage.
Neither of these factors is with us any more. Britain (as a center of technological research that could then be passed on to the US cheaply) is long gone. The US commercial landscape has settled down and now has a much better supply of cheap labor (cheap labor competes with technological innovation to fulfil the same need). So, yes, I'd say we can expect a flattening-off of the rate of technological progress in the US. It doesn't mean there's a big educational disaster or anything.
We're screwed (Score:1, Interesting)
How about improving work conditions instead? (Score:5, Interesting)
How about another suggestion? How about increasing the number of permanent positions instead of low-paying temporary positions? How about job security? How about flexibility e.g. allowing women to have a couple of years off to have a kid and then reenter academia? How about improving work conditions so that working yourself to exhaustion is not considered the norm? Work conditions for scientists are basically crap. Job security is crap. Pay is crap. The only good thing about being a scientist is well the ability to do science, which is nice. But people have got to eat, kids have to be fed and clothed you know, and sometimes we might want to actually spend time with said kids and not constantly worry about begging for money or finding a new position. Basically, with the job conditions for science, you have to really really really really love science otherwise it's just an exercise in masochism. With this why would many kids choose science for a career? In the past, how many kids chose being a monk and devoting themselves to a life of sacrifice, piety, poverty, starvation and interrupted sleep as you get up in the middle of night for prayers for the sake of God? In science today there is almost a monastic attitude in which this sort of thing is *expected* as part of the norm.
Basically with the work conditions and lack of job security for young scientists today, science is not a career, it is a *calling*. Something which you have to love so much you're willing to put up with very bad work conditions and a good chance of never finding a good permanent position.
Adding more graduate students will just make things worse. More competition for jobs -> even worse work conditions and job security.
CULTURE! (Score:5, Interesting)
As a few have said, IT IS THE CULTURE! I blame it on Anti-intellectual sentiment, pitiful teaching of math and science, and the fact that we don't have a big exploration goal.
I am not going to delve into anti-intellectual issue right now, but I would ask: What is the ratio of good scientists to evil scientists in movies?
In general, I have to say that we do a poor job in teaching math and science at all levels. There are many scapegoats here, but it's hard to imagine getting many good science teachers into schools without more pay and better environment. In the Universities, we have been importing scientists in many areas. As a culture, this is short sighted as it is unlikely to motivate US students into science. How are we to expect students in the University to be lured into science and math when they cannot relate to their professors and vice versa. Difficulties in communication and subtle racial/ethnic biases make it difficult for US students to see themselves as future professors. Students need role models.
The moon landings paid for themselves many times over in young scientists and engineers. We need some national goals that gives students a sense of purpose and appreciation. Why should I bust my hump for science when better paying, easier jobs exist? I could probably double my income in the private sector and work less, but I would lose my opportunity to work with fresh young students and help them see the beauties of learning new things.
More NSF grants will not solve the problem. Maybe if they are tied to developing domestic students into faculty--that could have a long term effect. The new Mars and moon efforts are good ideas, but the current administration doesn't have the credibility/vision of Kennedy to inspire America.
As you can tell, this is near and dear to my heart. I hope that we can do something with real effects. I do little things everyday, but I want to do more!
Re:Offshoring and H1B (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It's the State, stupid (Score:1, Interesting)
Letting people do it themselves is moronic for more reasons than I can count, but here are a few:
1. no "common" curriculum- there won't be socialization into what it means to be an American. People will then identify more locally with their state or town. Immigrants will never be integrated and will remain apart and separated.
2. poor people will be even more screwed by private schools which they can't afford when we drop even the minimal baseline education that we offer now.
3. extremists will become even more extremist as their ideas are reinforced in school.
Sure there are failures in the current educational system. We spend too much money too late in the process. The teacher's unions are more concerned with seniority and job protection to actually compete on merit. We don't actually scientifically study teaching methods against one another to be more efficient. Textbooks are expensive, generally crappy, and afraid of the truth because they might offend someone.
Re:We have a bigger problem... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not by "magic" that the US moved to the forefront. It's because pretty much all of the best people of the world had moved there. After that the rest of the research institutes of the world pretty much had to start again (or just start in the case of so called "emerging countries") from scratch.
Of course that the US squandered the incredible advantage they had is another matter.
Brain Drain! (Score:3, Interesting)
Social programs don't make a country competitive (Score:2, Interesting)
Sweden has a social safety net it's nearly impossible to fall through. And they have money. No huge science leadership there either.
The comment below about science-fiction being edged out by (and conflated with) fantasy, and the others about bright kids and non-conformists being beaten up, just about covers it. Culture, not money, is the answer.
Re:Here's an idea (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:We have a bigger problem... (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm currently getting ready to graduate with a BSEE. I've been considering graduate school. I'm weighing it against all other options. I think the point is that I have options. There are many foreigners in graduate programs that don't have any options. Their student VISA will expire and they need a company to sponsor them. Additionally many DoD jobs require US citizenship. So, I think there may appear to be more foreigners in graduate programs, but I don't think it's because US students aren't motivated or feel they can't do it. US students just have more options available to them.
Taxes... or tuition? (Score:3, Interesting)
End result: American degree holders graduate with much less debt, which seems like it would be good for everyone except MBNA.
Re:But of course (Score:4, Interesting)
The point at which I really realized that school's only purpose in everybody's life, not just mine, is to get in the way of education was my freshman year of high school. We spent a month in my biology class rote memorizing the characteristics all the phyla and classes in the kingdom animalia, all the steps of the Krebs cycle, crap like that. Meanwhile, we barely spent a damn minute learning anything useful, and spent zero time whatsoever learning how scientists figured things out or following the reasoning behind any of these discoveries. It went on like that for another four years - a total of five science classes, and never once did anybody teach me any actual science. Just random facts pulled out of a deck of Trivial Pursuit cards.
It's no wonder science is having such a hard time competing with claptrap like creationism. With the way that it's presented to people in our educational system ("Here, take it on faith that these random facts are true."), it's epistemologically no different to most people from any creation myth.
Re:We have a bigger problem... (Score:5, Interesting)
That sounds well and good, but I don't think history supports it. Yes, VCRs started here and ended in Japan. Yes, computers started here and ended in Taiwan. But these days both manufacturing and research are rapidly moving. Taiwanese manufacturers are doing their own research and creating products with USA labels that have generated essentially no new USA expertise in the problem domain. Japanese cars are far ahead of USA cars in innovation and quality. In my major (chemical engineering), new plants are simply not being built anymore in the USA, so research in plant efficiency (which is an umbrella idea encompassing most of the traditional major) is beginning to stagnate; a number of experienced engineers have said that the future of the major lies in China now.
My major is transitioning to new fields, particularly bioengineering and nanotechnology design and fabrication, which may be supporting your point, but OTOH the new stuff is very bleeding edge and will not be ready for productizing for a decade or four. I don't see a good skills transition in the interim, because all the other nations are starting at about the same place we are and unlike USA they have the manufacturing facilities to experiment with.
I agree that we don't want Flint, MI, to be the entire USA. But we also shouldn't want USA to become uber-specialized Chiba City surrounded by a vast wasteland of poor serfs.
Re:Taxes... or tuition? (Score:2, Interesting)
You are somewhat correct in the concept. Yes lowering the debt is the proper solution in part. However; if you merely transfer the debt to the public as a whole via taxes or national debt you just load down the whole economy. The raising of taxes to pay for college just accelerates the collapse of US Jobs. The solution here is much more basic. We have to protect the economy with tariffs and we have to pay down our debt and at the same time support 35% of our population for about 20 years. This isn't as hard as it seems. Productivity will cover this if we don't allow the foreigners to loot our economy. This problem is a conceptual problem of understanding what a nation is and how they work with other nations. The "Free Traders" have it wrong. Lowering tariffs only denuded the USA in the world. We are now walking about with no clothes freezing and the whole world is laughing at us and deriding us for being fools. Once well clothed again, we can easily get about supporting ourselves and growing out power.
This also isn't a problem of R&D or University funding. The USA funding here is actually a problem. University tuition is now too high because they live in an economy isolated from the real one. R&D is now almost entirely US Government funded because it has just swamped the capital market for such by high interest rates, high taxes and by funding it. Honestly we need to get out of the game of funding that. USA dominance of the world actually is better explained by Thomas Paine in his book "Common Sense" (Published Feb 14, 1776). I suggest you browse the net and read it. In particular read the chapter on the cost of the war and US Defense.
Re:Start at the bottom (Score:2, Interesting)
Back in the day - when I was in school, in the early 70s - rote memorization of basic facts and concepts was de rigeur. The whole "learn as you best learn, explore, become a critical thinker" was ignored. And that's how it was all through US history, up until the feel-good late 70s... And that coincides with our brain drain.
Until a child is well into their teens - I'd say 15+ - they simply do not have the brain development to seriously critically think. Until this point, it SHOULD be STFU and OBEY and learn these facts and memorize your multiplication tables. Learn the fundamentals, so that when you start to critically think you'll do so with a firm background, and won't go traipsing down a path that solves the world's energy crisis but requires that 1+1 equals slightly more than 2.
Focus on teaching the "whole child" and making sure their feelings and emotions are "groomed" as well - if not more so - than their intellect is the main issue. School's about learning your basics - language, history, writing, mathematics - and learning discipline regarding how to study. Once you've mastered these basics, THEN you get the opportunity to go and explore in your last year or two of high school and in college.
Doing otherwise is like tossing someone the keys to a car and their driver's license before they've even really seen a car operated, let alone learned how to drive. Would you trust a 7 year old to drive you around all day? Do they have the ability - the mental capacity - to make enough good choices regarding driving? Nope. Likewise giving them the keys to their education as is so common today is bad for the kids, too...
I know it's popular to dismiss those who talk about "back in the day", but back in the day we didn't have a shortage of engineers and scientists, and schools were radically different. I proffer that the two are inextricably related, and if we're going to build our engineering ranks, we need to look at how school's ran when we had plenty of engineers, and go back to that method of education. It seemed to work quite well...
Re:Here's an idea (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not saying all theistic people are like that. I understand that a large part of early science was motivated by the desire to understand the mind of God. I understand that most scientists are theists (because most humans are theist). But I have witnessed theism hamper people's interest in science as well, something I've never seen atheism do.
Cheers.
Re:Too late, assholes (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, but people aren't equal. There are smart people and dumb people. Which is ok, and IMO a "dumb" bricklayer is at the very least as important as a "smart" quantum physician. I mean, I deem a house more important than finding element 139 (yes, I know it's theoretically impossible, that's not the point now).
The problem is that society views that physician more important than the bricklayer (and also pays him a lot more). So everyone wants to be 'smart', while at the same time nobody wants to stand out. So if everyone is as smart as the next guy, we're all smart, right?
Re:We have a bigger problem... (Score:3, Interesting)
The US developed the first reel-to-reel video recorder but the VCR was a Philips invention (Dutch) building on a cassette recorder developed by Sony (Japan).
As for the computer, the first stored program computer was German and the first commercial computer was British.
Nobel Laureate has a solution (Score:3, Interesting)
See chapter vi [wikipedia.org].
Re:But of course (Score:3, Interesting)
Probably wasting my time here, since you give me the impression that you just like to bitch at anyone who criticises the status quo, or america, or whatever... But I could be wrong, so I'm going to reply anyway.
The DMCA: I'm afraid I no longer have my bookmarks of instances where the DMCA has negatively affected research, so I typed "negative impact of DMCA on research" into google, and came up with a few examples. Breaking these examples down into research categories, it looks like cryptography, computer science and especially computer security are negatively affected. The search " "negative impact on research" dmca " generates somewhat better results, including this pretty good one: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/occ/dmca/dmca_acm .htm [doc.gov]. I could go on, but I think it would be more meaningful for you to do some research yourself.
These are the areas where the DMCA has a direct impact on research, but it has a pretty strong ripple effect. Several months ago I was trying to automate incormporating some binary data measured using some SEM or something like that. I thought "maybe there's a library on the web I can use to read these files". I found such a library, but the site was removed with an apology that it had be taken down thanks to a DMCA complaint. We had to spend few days copying the data by hand. So there's an example of how the DMCA made my research more difficult, and I study Photonics.
What annoys me here is this: I was able to answer your question with just 15 seconds of effort. Why didn't you use google to search for the effect of the DMCA on research before posting this rather ignorant response? One gets the impression your goal is to be polemic, not to pursue the truth.
How unfortunate that it seems that way, since it's certainly not what I did. Perhaps these complaints crop up on Slashdot often. I certainly use Slashdot as a forum to complain about them. But the observations I made are first hand, not taken from Slashdot, as you should have noticed. I also think I communicated them in a way that was well thought through, but it's just a slashdot post, not a paper or book. Frankly I think only a brief and unbiased comparison of our posts would conclude that in fact yours is the poorly thought out post.
Bias is a difficult problem in science, but I was specifically talking about the well known attempts of the current administration to bias resarch results. Such deliberate and systematic efforts to bias science (motivated by policy and sometimes religious goals) are quite easy to get rid of, as opposed to difficult bias stemming from funding problems, and the peer review inertia effect.
I'm going to elaborate on that last point a little, because it seems that many slashdot readers don't understand scientific bias very well. Bias is very difficult to eliminate altogether, since a little apriori knowledge about the results one expects to get in an experiment can be either helpful or necessary. Bias is also introduced by the peer review process, since there is a natural predjudice towards current scientific canon. A result that strongly contradicts current scientific consensus needs to be more well grounded, more reproducible, and more thorough than one that fits well into current scientific thinking, for what I hope are obvious reasons. If they aren't obvious, I'll have to work a little bit on explaining them. A certain amount of bias is also introduced by funding, since one (be it a company, state or individual) funds only subjects one is interested in. So funding biases research in that it biases the direction of research. These types of bias probably can't be completely avoided, as they are an unfortunate
Re:We have a bigger problem... (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, smashing the looms probably WAS the right answer for the luddites since the textile factories were destroying their middle class life style and destroying the factories was their only realistic alternative. Their problem was, I think, that they weren't good enough at it.
There actually is a historical example where 'smashing the looms' did work for quite a while. Japan's Tokugawa shoguns closed the country to outside influence and most innovation in 1635. That policy worked until the late 1850s -- 230 years give or take a couple. (That's about the same time span as the US from the first conflicts at Lexington and Concord to the present). By way of comparison it's about 218 years longer than the Thousand Jahr Reich and 224 longer than the New American Century.
One might argue that Japan's isolation was doomed anyway due to internal pressures of various sorts. And that could be correct. But one should also note that of all the world's non-European cultures, Japan surely came through the European colonial era in the best shape.
***creating the next better product is.***
Might be. Might not. What happens if no one WANTS the next better product? There are plenty of examples of companies that couldn't come up with the next better product -- Polaroid and DEC come to mind.
===
Seems to me that all this should be of more than academic interest to denizens of the G7 nations.
Re:Taxes... or tuition? (Score:3, Interesting)
Someone else problably replied to this but simply reducing military spending would be enough. Drop it by 20% and apply that to education and you'd almost double the current education spending. Protectiev tarrifs may hurt the economy much much more then higher taxes.
Re:The real problem (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's trendy to believe that religion is what is holding the U.S. back today.
But I think it's more complicated than that. Throughout the 20th century, the U.S. was at least as religious as it is now. But it also led the world in scientific discovery and application.
For the most part, Americans are both religious and lovers of scientific progress. Certainly technical progress with tangible results.
India I would say is very religious, but also much in love with scientific learning. China is only irreligious because of intense religious persecution, and I don't think we want to go there. Japan is very secular, and very good at science, but maybe not so good at the creative and innovative aspects of discovery as Americans, culturally speaking (although they may be making progress in those areas). South Korea has a lot of born again Christians, and still is full heartedly embracing technology and science.
Europe is extremely secular, but I don't think they have the cultural values to innovate and compete over time with the countries I just listed.
The Muslim world, of course, is ultra religious and vehemently anti-modernity, which carries over into a disdain for science.
So I think if you want to be objective and scientific in your view, the correlation between religious fervor and scientific progress is far from fixed. In my opinion, it is the U.S. system of separating church and state that has enabled both religion and science to thrive here. Yes, there have been attempts to throw that balance out of whack recently, but let's dispose of our bathwater and keep our baby, shall we.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
Re:The real problem (Score:3, Interesting)
2) When you've had an educational system where for the last 40 years there's always been a ready excuse* for why Johnny can't read/add/think (* insert your favorite victimology here: racism, sexism, economic oppression, whatever), this is the result. Where it's more important to spend $100,000 on teaching deeply retarded kids how to eat and not soil themselves, than to challenge the most advanced children to excel, this is the result.
Want to implement a test to simply show which schools are teaching the basics most successfully? The teacher's unions (and their mentor, the Democratic Party) will aggressively object (and then ask for more funding).
Look at ANY school district and compare its funding for the 'bottom' quartile of their students, vs. their funding for the 'top' quartile.
What's most surprising is that the result surprises ANYONE.
Is it just me or did I totally channel Ayn Rand?
Re:Taxes... or tuition? (Score:4, Interesting)
Tariffs are a compensation for the domestic tax burden. They equalize the taxes on the imported goods and services with those levied domestically. All that happens when you get rid of tariffs is that your tax system becomes a trade war against your own citizens. The USA is currently bleeding to death at the rate of nearly 1/2 trillion dollars a year in its trade deficit. The resulting situation is destroying our competitive situation and our education situation and for that matter our bank balances. The loss to our economy of about 1/2 trillion dollars represents the loss of about 100,000,000 jobs (Yes one hundred million) annually. Add it up in paychecks if you cannot do anything else. The failure to have tariffs will keep this bleeding going. The US Economy is in serious trouble where people now believe that their credit rating is their prosperity rather than their bank balance. In the past 6 years Americans have borrowed equal to 3 years income. We are broke. This situation is going to collapse if we do nothing about it.
The USA collapse might seem fun for the rest of the world but it will be followed by anarchy and economic troubles such that nobody would want them. This catastrophe was courtesy of the "Free Traders." They built this disaster brick by brick. Never in their entire history have they made one prediction on the economy or promise that has been fulfilled. In fact the opposite happens every time they come up to bat. More trade and more prosperity is their promise. The rows of closed factories and import trucks tell how big a liars they are.
The very existence of this discussion thread owes to the fact that the "Free Traders" are wrong.
Just for the record, I am a real free trader, I like my money as good in one US State as another. I will travel without restriction in the Federation. My problem is with those who want to allow people to trade here without paying the bills.
Now as to suggestions regards moving funds or cutting military. I like all proposals for savings. As to US Defense Spending, I sincerely doubt you could cut a dollar at this time. I wish it were so. Our army is 660,000 and it was 2.3 million only 6 years ago. Get real!