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Top Advisory Panel Warns Erosion of U.S. Science
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Oct 13, 2005 12:28 PM
from the raise-your-hand-if-you-are-surprised dept.
from the raise-your-hand-if-you-are-surprised dept.
fbg111 writes "From the NYT: A panel of experts convened by the National Academies, the nation's leading science advisory group, called yesterday for an urgent and wide-ranging effort to strengthen scientific competitiveness. The 20-member panel, reporting at the request of a bipartisan group in Congress, said that without such an effort the United States 'could soon lose its privileged position.' It cited many examples of emerging scientific and industrial power abroad and listed 20 steps the United States should take to maintain its global lead."
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Not Surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Biology and any other field of science dealing with the age of the Earth are destined to decline in the US. The balance of power has already tipped decidedly to non-US schools in technical training in these fields and will continue. This report will be ignored because Congress owes too much to the religious right to do anything that advances knowledge in human evolution or radiometric dating.
Any student of history knows that Scopes lost his trial. Things haven't changed that much in the US in nearly a century.
Re:Not Surprising (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not Surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
I see two problems:
The first is education - the crap that is called "science education" in the schools in this country is raising idiots. They are taught to regurgitate "facts", and the definition of "fact" has changed from "what is provable" to "what we tell you". Critical thinking is discouraged, experimentation has no lab budget, and standards are dropping wildly. I read once (can't find source) that several decades ago most middle school girls could tell you what an aileron was. Today I'd be surprised if more than a few percent of high school graduates have a clue.
The other problem is money and the absolute focus most entities (commercial and educational) now have on short-term profitability. Real science means taking risks, thinking about the long term, spending time on basic science so you can reap the rewards of understanding new principles, then discovering how they may be applied. Today any idea that looks unlikely to be signifigantly profitable within 18 months has almost no chance for funding. This is a good part of the reason why basic progress is stalling in most areas of science that do not have immediate commercial applications.
Fixing either of these requires fundamental changes in the mindset. Neither are likely to happen anytime soon, mostly for the same two reasons...
Re:Not Surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
All the math classes I have seen or heard of in the US are all about learning the "designated correct" way of doing things. If you came to the right answer using sound mathematical principles that differ from the procedural manner taught, you are marked wrong. It's as if learning about mathematics and learning how to do well in math class are two entirely different subjects.
The current system teaches following directions at the expense of critical thinking. Learning to follow directions is certainly useful, but it shouldn't be the entire point of math classes and the educational system as a whole.
What we have is a system that turns out automatons, not intelligent people capable of *using* math (and other education) as a tool. Here is an inside opinion on what our school system really teaches, from the state of NY's Teacher of the Year:
http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html [cantrip.org]
Testify, brother! (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, my kid listed "air" as part of his answer to "name four natural resources" and got points marked off (air, despite being a non-synthetic commodity resource, was not listed in the book).
I should mention that just outside of town the local gas company has a tower where they compress air to extract oxygen, nitrogen, and argon for commercial sale.
The same teacher marked "fuel" as a correct answer to the same question. When I pointed out that many fuels are synthetic, and thus not natural resources, it became apparent that the teacher did not know what natural resources actually are, and was simply parroting an incorrect textbook.
I know plenty of religious people who would never make such a stupid mistake; but the next generation is having all this wrong information drilled into them in lieu of actual education.
Re:I really don't think thats it (Score:5, Insightful)
Realistically, the reason is the almighty dollar. Everything revolves around it, it always has and always will. In the US $$ speaks more than any religious morals
How is it profitable to lose your leading standing in scientific fields? Who would want such a thing? No, I think the original poster was bang-on. Superstition is killing your country.
Re:I really don't think thats it (Score:5, Insightful)
Well...it's not - on a national scale. On a personal level, however, it can be very profitable. Unfortunately, from what I have seen, project managers and middle management in general make higher salaries than the engineers who are actually doing the work. I've actually seen engineers who got an engineering degree, only to be a mediocre engineer for a few years while they part time for an MBA to move on into management where they can make "real money" and work their way up the executive ladder. Heck...alot of people don't even bother with the engineering degree as an ungraduate - they go for business and go straight into an MBA program. I honestly hate MBA's, but the salaries I see them getting can be tempting.
This is my opnion, but they tend to be the same people who valued high scores over actually learning and understanding a given subject in college..YMMV.
Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
You are wrong, as are the people you cite who are "not anti-science." Even if they dispute natural selection and genetics, they of course are pro-science when they are taking an ibuprofen or getting their children vaccinated or getting their yearly flu shot. And no one with a job or an investment portfolio wants to see America lose its technological edge.
But you, like these people, are not drawing the connections between their actions and the results. Science is not just a collection of facts. You cannot just choose to support the knowledge that benefits you (flu vaccines) and fight against the knowledge that disagrees with your beliefs (carbon dated fossils, genetic evolution). Science is first and foremost a PROCESS (not a collection of "facts"), and if you attack the process you are attacking the development of the knowledge that benefits you as well as the knowledge you don't like.
Developing an effective flu vaccine every year is absolutely impossible without basis in the theories of genetic inheritance and natural selection. These theories were not just proposed and voted on by scientists--they have resulted from and withstood investigation from the process of science, conducted by millions of independent scientists over decades.
Attacking the theories in the way that many conservative religious groups have, is to attack the validity of the scientific process itself. It's pretty hard to do a good job educating and encouraging future scientists when the very concept of science is being subverted for religious or political ends.
Re:I really don't think thats it (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is not what people think they believe, but what they actually do.
Just as the problem is not people's morality that is wanting: it's the way they act.
By the way, when we speak of the Religious Right, we are talking Christians of a certain stripe. Christianity is a very old religion. In its time frame, Right and Left as we know it are ephemeral: at various times in the last few centuries is found going along on either side of the road. In the era of William Jennings Bryan it was on the left; in the era of the Temperance Union it was allied with the (or a) women's movement.
In the end though, it won't really fit for long on either end of the spectrum, and will in time go its own way. In the mean time, unfortunately, it seems to infect it's political allies with its least attractive attributes (the paternalism on the left and the self-righteousness of the right) and few of its virtues.
Realistically, the reason is the almighty dollar. Everything revolves around it, it always has and always will. In the US $$ speaks more than any religious morals.
Well put. And like the medieval Christians who enganged in acts of unspeakable cruelty and violence in the name of the Prince of Peace, it strikes me that many of our era endorse a life of materialism and greed, serving Mammon and God, except Mammon gets eight solid hours for five days a week. It also strikes me that in some ways the idea of "The Market" has taken on Godlike characteristics: benevolent, and of unquestionable, all-knowing divine wisdom. Not that I don't think the Market is an amazing thing, but there's a difference between advancing the welfare of Humanity and advancing the welfare of people. No form of robbing Peter to pay Paul can be theft if it serves the Market because the Market serves Humanity.
Alan Watts once insightfully remarked that the most insidious idols are made of ideas.
Re:I really don't think thats it (Score:5, Interesting)
Then you're wrong The far left always proves a point by stereotyping the "religious right" into thinking they are a bunch of bible thumping granny's
The "religious right" they are talking about is *by definition* bible thumping. If you aren't a bible thumper, then you aren't included, so quite being offended
The truth is, it has nothing to do with right or left. The far left has "tree-huggers" who want to get rid of industry, dams, power generators, cars, etc.
Thats an objection to *industry*, not to *science*. The two, while often interrelated, are not the same thing at all.
Fact: Religious fundamentalism exists in America, and is growing.
Fact: Religions fundamentalists, because they are (by definition) vocal and passionate, command a very strong political powerbase
Fact: The Bush administration, more than any president in recent memory, caters to and sympathises with religious fundamentalists.
Fact: There is a long-standing and fundamental disconnect between religion and science, and while it can be and has been crossed many times, it is very present. At the core, religion teaches you to venerate the unknown, and treat it as unknowable, while science teaches you to investigate it.
Fact: Religious motivations have already affected public policy in several areas, including science.
The far left (and what you're talking about is the far, far, far left) has practically no political power in the US. Claiming that there is some secret cabal of hippies keeping us from investing in science is ludicrous. It is a simple fact that the religious right has a great deal of political power, and they have an opposition to many forms of science, and that is affecting the quality of scientific education in America. The whole "intelligent design" thing, an exercise in justification and hypocrisy if there ever was one is only one example.
It's not the only thing driving that of course - the current business climate, with it's emphasis on short term profits, definitely affects it. A n adminstration hostile to pure science (as opposed to military or readily commercially exploitable science) is another. But the religious right absolutely is a factor, no matter how much you want to pretend otherwise.
Re:I really don't think thats it (Score:5, Insightful)
ID is simply the most recent example, the examples from history are countless. Gallileo is another classic example ("And yet, they move"). And thats without even bringing in the real loonies, like the ones who are convinced that the Earth is 6000 years old, and all the animals that exist today have always existed, and no other animals ever have, and all evidence to the contrary has been *placed by God specifically in an attempt to fool people*.
Re:I really don't think thats it (Score:5, Interesting)
For what it's worth, every Christian that I've met here in lovely San Diego DOES believe that evolution is a lie, that the Earth is 6000 years old, and they greet every press release from the Institute of Creation Science with joy - and then they promptly shove it in my face as "proof" of whatever lunacy they're promoting this year. They've recently taken to asking me why I don't talk to them anymore
It wouldn't be that big a deal, but they (fundamentalist Christians) now own most of the school boards here in town, and as per standard operating procedure, are now trying to cram creationism or ID into all the science classes. This has fairly predictable and disastrous consequences when these kids hit college.
I'm sure your views would surprise me. You post on Slashdot and work in the sciences, which already makes you a member of a very, very small group of the population. Were I you, I'd beware of extrapolating your own personal religious beliefs onto those of Christians in general. You already sound a lot smarter and far more tolerant than most that Christians I've met.
Stop stealing my punch lines! (Score:5, Insightful)
To me, it seems that they all declined pretty quickly and either vanished or are still on the bottom of the heap
You got two options people:
Either wise up and realize that being smarter is a good thing
or
Practice sucking up to whatever country will surpass us.
yeah we may be slipping in real science (Score:5, Funny)
Teh pain! (Score:4, Insightful)
Copied verbatim from TFA:
If nothing else convinces you of the magnitude of this problem, consider the fact that The New York Times confused "lose" and "loose."
Current administration is working on this... (Score:4, Funny)
When the label finally sticks, we'll be in the lead again. YAY!!!
Kansas will be the new MIT.
I wrote this yesterday (Score:4, Interesting)
John Gormley of 980 CJME.com had two guests debate Intelligent Design, and sadly almost 2:1 callers thought that ID should be in the science classroom. Every one that gave a reason why they thought that, presented a flawed understanding they held about a scientific concept. As one caller pointed out, only the United States is looking at this debate seriously, and every country in Europe is laughing at it because it's so stupid. Intelligent Design is an attack on science by Christian fundamentalists who want to get their foot in the secular school door. An understanding of science is a blow to the culture of ignorance that a few of the fundamentalist leaders count on to maintain control over a bewildered and sheep like flock.
Here's what I wrote to Gormley, but he was only taking calls so it wasn't read on the air:
Thank you for having a discussion about Intelligent Design today. Your guest Larry Krause put it so well when he said that the effort to insert creationism into the science classroom is a perhaps "well meaning attack on science". Intelligent Design makes no sense in Saskatchewan, where it's apparent that we'll have a half Aboriginal population in a few decades. If we're to require a creator to initiate our earth's development, why should it be a Christian God that puts it all in motion? There are a number of creation theories, and I've seen nothing that the Intelligent Design crowd has put forward that discounts a mythological figure from Aboriginal history being the earth's true creator.
-
I don't think it serves our children any better to have Aboriginal creation myths taught in science class than it does to teach them God created your little bits and it wasn't the laws of the universe that did it. But I wanted to make the point that this is about religion, and if someone who's for ID is against Aboriginal creation myth, then they show their true stripes. It isn't about an "intelligent designer" it's about Christianity's God. It isn't about the "science" behind ID [which there is none], it's about injecting Christian myth into a class that our future drug designers, and doctors rely upon to be effective professionals.
International Students (Score:5, Interesting)
This is sort of already in place. Every international student, who graduates can apply for a work permit known as OPT (Optional Practical Training, I believe). This allows that student to seek employment in a field that is relevant to his/her education and or qualification. It is not automatic but nonetheless I have yet to hear a student get rejected for it. But it ends right there. After the year is over the individual already has to have a work permit or have a petition for it to stay legally in this country. I have personally seen couple of brilliant students leave this country because they couldn't get the work permit in time. Thus this suggestion of "expedited residence status" could be a very benefecial.
But now comes the ugly side of it. I bet the locals will not approve of it immediately, for very good reasons. Now they have to compete with potentially very hard working and probably smarter people for the same job. And I have seen instances where an American has been passed on for an Asian because they believe that person is going to work harder for less pay. But this new suggestion, if it becomes law, tilts the balance in favor of international students a bit. They can bargain for higher pay and will that cause any difference is to be seen. Now, IEEE was really campaigning hard to curtail H1B a year or so ago. We have to see how they react to it.
It's not political. (Score:5, Interesting)
It has far more to do with school administrations, culture, and parenting.
#1 Tenure needs to be removed. Peer reviews need to be implemented. Salaries should be review / performance based. Schooling for teachers needs to be DRASTICALLY improved. Remove all the buzzword-techno-political crap that's found it's way into teaching and just TEACH.
#2 Kids who aren't in school to learn need to be removed. Yeah, so be it, some kids don't get schooled. If they nor their parents can put forth the effort, then that's too bad. Sure, we'll hear sob stories about how some are going to get left behind. Let me clue you in to a little secret. If you hold back our best and brightest to make sure no one is "left behind" then you're going to DESTROY the best and brightest. Or at least you'll have managed to severely inhibit their potential.
#3 Parenting. Why aren't parents do "fun" things like having foreign langauge weeks where they all try to speak different languages. Turn the fricken TV and computer off. Interact. Socialize. Take your kid out in the f'in garage and fix the car with him.
Finally, TECHNICAL EDUCATIONS. Go to despair.com and read the quote that states not everyone grows up to be rocket scientists. It's true.
Science takes a back seat to profit (Score:5, Insightful)
How many corporations have scaled back or even eliminated their R&D departments because they won't turn a profit next quarter?
How much money does big oil spend to suppress new technologies?
Overly restrictive patents bar research by all who can't cough up the money to expand on somebody else's work.
Kids are actively discouraged from tinkering for fear of hurting themselves or hurting somebody else's bottom line. Want to experiment with chemistry? Here's some lemon juice and baking soda - but we'll arrest you if you put it into a plastic bottle. Want to play with model rockets? Prove you aren't a terrorist. Want to hack your X-Box and see how circuits work? The FBI'll be knocking on your door. Biology? Take pictures of a worm, but make sure it isn't endangered. Engineering? The city'll come and fine you for not building your treehouse to code.
When you get to college... how many professors actually teach science and how many spend all of their time seeking new grants to ensure the university can afford a new football stadium?
And of the precious little research that actually is happening, how much is classified and never sees the light of day
decreasing engineer wages !?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
"...The cost of employing one chemist or engineer in the United States is equal to about five chemists in China and 11 engineers in India."
And how exactly will increasing the number of chemists, engineers and scientists graduating each year increase the appeal of this career to students currently choosing careers in business and law?
My thesis is that in increasing the amounts of graduates in sciences and "lowering prices" they will fail to actually improve the situation.
Microeconomics [wikipedia.org] (oh yeah... THAT natural law) says that increasing the supply of these graduates will DECREASE the price they cost -- in other words by training more... they get cheaper!
College kids are choosing business and law because (a) there are more jobs and (b) they pay better. Decreasing the pay chemists and engineers receive won't improve employment in this area. Why are there less computer scientists these days. Oh yeah, no jobs.
Hence I posit that: Decreasing the cost of engineering and chemists will do nothing to increase the United States' competitiveness in these scientific endeavors
m
In a world... (Score:5, Insightful)
Other problems include:
- poor pay
- an increasing tendancy among scientists to take theory as fact
- increased outsourcing by american business
- unmotivated and/or knowledgable teachers(see poor pay as the reason for that)
- Greater competition by other countries
- The fanatical religious destruction of the scientific community.
Re:Erosion of intelligence in general (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think those are the only two choices, you're copping out. There is a third choice: work hard at making the world a better place. Yes, it can be done. Yes, you can pretend it's impossible, if you want an excuse for not doing anything.
not true in other countries (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
Face it, management can easily be outsourced. The only thing that can't be outsourced are service jobs. Want to be sure of having a job in the future? Become a teacher, pharmacist, plumber, doctor, lawyer, fireman, policeman, or any of the many other jobs that one can't telecommute to because they are required by the laws of physics to be in physical proximity to their clients.