Maybe, but it would be nice if there were more details. I remember reading a slashdot news story about another teen science fair winner with some awesome result, but someone pointed out that he essentially copied someone else's PhD dissertation. Kinda made me skeptical about amazing science fair results. In this case, was he a chemical engineer? How did he even get access to pancreatic cancer urine samples?
Is the 90% accurate, faster, and far cheaper than current tests maybe because it's just a strip
I remember reading a slashdot news story about another teen science fair winner with some awesome result, but someone pointed out that he essentially copied someone else's PhD dissertation. Kinda made me skeptical about amazing science fair results. In this case, was he a chemical engineer? How did he even get access to pancreatic cancer urine samples?
I participated in ISEF from 7th grade until 12th, with varying levels of success. I did very well, but never as well as this kid, but I dated a girl for 4 years who basically won the same place. This competition is very high stakes, as the winners basically get to choose their school from the top schools in the country. I attribute my acceptance into CMU more to ISEF than anything else I did in Highschool.
With such high stakes, there is a lot of parental support, especially from parents who are scientists and engineers. A friend of mine had unlimited access through her family to a MRI machine. She did very well and went on to MIT. Another friend had access to vast quantities of microbial data through her mom. Other people had their parents design and supervise the experiments, while others still performed extensive and impressive statistical tests well beyond the skill of a 14 year old, thanks to their parents. After dating my girlfriend for some time, who again placed as well as the kid in the story, she revealed to me her father basically did all the work.
None of this is ever disclosed at the fair, and all work is always presented by the students to be their own original research. I'm not saying the kids in question were dumb... quite the opposite they were brilliant. But they also had a great deal of extra help from highly educated people to "guide" their research. I'm also not saying this was the case for the winner this year, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was.
More like the "best and the brightest" aren't necessarily any better and brighter than anyone else, but had certain resources that made their work more impressive.
My wife is pursuing her doctorate in science education, and this comes up continually. Equity in education is a huge, huge issue, especially in STEM, and the theme that consistently shows up is that having parents who are educated, who are in the upper middle class, and/or who are in a professional field gives you a huge leg up. It doesn't mean that these kids work less, or aren't as smart, or aren't as deserving as kids from poorer backgrounds, but it does mean that they start out with larger reserves of educational capital than other kids. I mean, you could be a genius, but if your parents are working two full-time landscaping jobs and barely speak English, you're going to be at a disadvantage compared to a kid who has a parent who can spend an hour a day helping with homework.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Monday May 21, 2012 @04:28PM (#40069077)
It would be quite counter-intuitive if the US had more social mobility than socialist countries. In the US you receive little assistance from the state, so it won't be helping the poor up the ladder, while the state also doesn't impose much of a burden on the rich, so it won't be pulling them down the ladder either. In a socialist country, the poor receive more assistance and there are more demands on the rich. Obviously the latter is more conducive to social mobility, so I don't know why you state it as if this was some sort of strange idea that might even be true. Why wouldn't the US have poor social mobility?
while the state also doesn't impose much of a burden on the rich, so it won't be pulling them down the ladder either.
And if the rich do something colossally stupid and jump off the ladder on their own, the state will swoop in with a bailout jetpack or golden parachute at huge expense to the taxpayer.
It's a perception bias, with the poor being poorer and the rich being richer the rags to riches stories also get more extreme. It creates the illusion that everyone can go from the very bottom of the ladder to the very top of the ladder but a few extreme outliers don't mean social mobility for the masses. Also the rich and powerful like to perpetuate this idea because it means that instead of going Robin Hood and taking from the rich and giving to the poor, people want to get rid of taxes for when they themselves become rich. Of course most people don't actually end up rich, but if you can make them believe they will then you get people working 60+ hour weeks for shit pay, little help from the government and they want it that way...
That is not so clear-cut - the US traded their safety net for freedom. Moving from the bottom of the social ladder to the top was possible. In Europe, maybe you cannot fall as low, but traditionally it was harder to get a job/position outside of your station. (Being able to raise to a position by doing well at your job was called US-Style management when I was a kid. That was not the norm.)
Society is not static however. The US social ladder has become more slippery (nowadays you are either broke or billio
(Being able to raise to a position by doing well at your job was called US-Style management when I was a kid. That was not the norm.)
What level of 'raising' does that mean? Do you simply mean going from being a leaf to being a manager was that sort of abnormal job advancement? I'm not sure if you mean raising several levels up (e.g. from a leaf to a VP or somesuch).
If it really was the one level up, that seems to me like a lot of people are "stuck" in exactly the same job forever. (I put it in quotes si
According to this TED talk [youtube.com], if you want to live the American dream, statistically the best place to do it is Denmark with our relatively high taxation level and state-funded education (you get paid to study at university), health care, unemployment safety net etc.
Yep, but you have to have the education requirements to immigrate there first:) For a variety of reasons some of use are disenfranchised with the hoops we need to jump through to make it that far:)
On a more serious note however, it seems like someone's been dumping oil or lube on the slope again, because it's so slippery now I think I just saw a parked trailer pass me by!
There's a strong argument that it's easier today to move up the social ladder in Europe than the United States
I've always thought that this is very widely accepted fact. Where I live, higher education is free (and in fact, you get social security of 500 euros ($640) a month, lower rent, government-backed loans, etc. if you're a student) and university admissions are based on objective tests to select the best students (everyone who finishes Highschool will participate in national testing. Grades come from bell curve and graders don't know whose paper they're grading... or even the highschool of the student). It seems obvious to me that a system like this will result in more social justice and less inequality (Nearly everyone who has the will and skill can climb the social ladder regardless of who their parents where) but people in USA decided that the gain is simply not worth the price (=more taxes, less personal liberty, more nannystate...).
This is appalling.
Why so? Again, I assumed this had always been both well-known and intentional but if it isn't... is there something that makes Europe especially appalling in this regard or is it just so appalling to hear that USA isn't at the top?
I think it is the middle-middle class who are getting screwed by high tuition: if you are poor and you get very good results on SATs, you will get into top schools, and these tops schools will give you financial aid. If you are not-so-poor, you'll be stuck borrowing money, unless you are really, really good. I have a few friends who chose a free ride in a state school over ivy league. As for merit-based system, I think any "objective" tests always favor kids from families that value education, and thus are
One thing I've noted from American colleagues (I'm Canadian) is that they will almost bankrupt themselves to see their kids get into "a good school." In my opinion, there are likely decent schools in their state where they could get in-state tuition at a fraction of what they pay. My philosophy is that the name brand of your school matters the most on your last degree. Do well in undergrad, go to a fancy school on scholarship for post-graduate work. I've worked with MIT, Stanford, USC, etc grads and after s
It's too bad this was posted anonymously. It addresses one of the fundamental problems with economic and social justice arguments: what are the foundational definitions and assumptions of the argument to begin with?
People argue generally because they have different ideas of what equality and "fair share" mean. Since those are highly subjective ideas, it can be argued that everyone is "right." Being right in that context is meaningless though, and those people frequently ignore the problems that occur when t
I could have gone to medical school... but I was to stubborn to do that. My mother is a medical assistant Due to this I could probably make a good emergency triage without any additional training, take blood samples and administer intravenous and intramuscular injections. I know more about human body then anything else... even computers - sometimes I don't even know that I know it. I believe that if you have some brains you can get a really good kick start from your parents field without effort.
It isn't even necessarily that in depth. I mean, would blue-collar immigrants even know to fill out a FAFSA form to get grant and scholarship money for a kid about to go to college? When would parents meet with their kids' teachers if they work nights instead of a 9 to 5? There's stuff that those of us from middle-class backgrounds don't even realize we know that gives us a huge advantage over people who are coming from totally different backgrounds. Just like the children of the super-wealthy probably woul
Equity in education is a huge, huge issue, especially in STEM, and the theme that consistently shows up is that having parents who are educated, who are in the upper middle class, and/or who are in a professional field gives you a huge leg up.
I grew up poor with a single mother than worked full time. We moved constantly between cheap rentals--I went to four different elementary schools. She eventually got her nursing degree and we moved up the socioeconomic ladder a bit (this was 30 years ago, when that was still possible). However, my grandparents were homemakers, an electrician, and an orchard worker (an immigrant with a fourth-grade education). One day our heroin-addict neighbors broke into the local high school and stole a microscope. They k
Which part of "None of this is ever disclosed" did you misunderstand? As a judge you're literally the last person in the world someone doing this would want to tell. It's nice that you believe that everyone is fully upfront about this kind of thing, but with the stakes so high I really doubt it.
all entrants have to make clear up front what their contribution to their project was, how much help they had from others etc.
Yeah of course they have to. That's the way it was back when I was in the fair. But this is not what happens. My highschool had a very large science program and we sent about 90-100 kids a year to regional fairs. For some reason it was the kids who had researcher/professor/PhD/engineer parents who always made it to the international fair. After competing in these fairs year after year, you get to know the crowd, who's legit, and what kind of nonsense is going on.
If you really talk to these kids on a peer level (which you'll never be able to do at this point) you can see right through them. The judges are about the last people who have a grasp on the true character of some of these kids. I personally know a kid who completely faked his entire project year after year and never got caught. He was really good at faking work... probably was more effort than it would have taken to actually to the project. He won several high profile special awards from the military and armed forces for his "research."
Actually, all of this is disclosed at the fair. Any student working in a high-end research lab (or frankly, any place more advanced than your standard high school lab) is required to submit forms signed by the head of said institutions and detail the size and scope of the involvement of the lab. This includes graduate student mentors, access to equipment, and other information.
It's a good introduction to research funding quite frankly. A lot of day to day work for research scientists is simply networking, calling in and loaning out favours and trying to secure the best funding and equipment. These kids are lucky to have access to advanced stuff, yes, but you can't blame them for taking advantage of it.
Perhaps categorising the award by "estimated cost to replicate" would be a way forward?
I'd have dumped the girlfriend -- not for lying, but for closing the door to the winning spot to kids who actually do the work and perhaps actually deserve the prize. She is, it seems, a typical example of no-holds-barred "winner". What a loser, that is.
I think it's pretty clear to any reasonable individual that significant adult assistance is involved when a 15-year-old develops an advanced medical diagnostic for pancreatic cancer.
These kids are the intellectual equivalent of Miss Universe contestants: In addition to being somewhat skilled, they are highly competitive, aggressive, have a good spin campaign and lots of behind-the-scenes coaching. And while they all probably want world peace, at least they don't all have breast implants.
An Ada exception is when a routine gets in trouble and says
'Beam me up, Scotty'.
Congratulations. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:5, Insightful)
Is the 90% accurate, faster, and far cheaper than current tests maybe because it's just a strip
Re:Congratulations. (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember reading a slashdot news story about another teen science fair winner with some awesome result, but someone pointed out that he essentially copied someone else's PhD dissertation. Kinda made me skeptical about amazing science fair results. In this case, was he a chemical engineer? How did he even get access to pancreatic cancer urine samples?
I participated in ISEF from 7th grade until 12th, with varying levels of success. I did very well, but never as well as this kid, but I dated a girl for 4 years who basically won the same place. This competition is very high stakes, as the winners basically get to choose their school from the top schools in the country. I attribute my acceptance into CMU more to ISEF than anything else I did in Highschool.
With such high stakes, there is a lot of parental support, especially from parents who are scientists and engineers. A friend of mine had unlimited access through her family to a MRI machine. She did very well and went on to MIT. Another friend had access to vast quantities of microbial data through her mom. Other people had their parents design and supervise the experiments, while others still performed extensive and impressive statistical tests well beyond the skill of a 14 year old, thanks to their parents. After dating my girlfriend for some time, who again placed as well as the kid in the story, she revealed to me her father basically did all the work.
None of this is ever disclosed at the fair, and all work is always presented by the students to be their own original research. I'm not saying the kids in question were dumb... quite the opposite they were brilliant. But they also had a great deal of extra help from highly educated people to "guide" their research. I'm also not saying this was the case for the winner this year, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
So in other words, the "best and brightest" are plagiarist? Makes sense to me. Actually that would explain a lot...
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Congratulations. (Score:5, Insightful)
My wife is pursuing her doctorate in science education, and this comes up continually. Equity in education is a huge, huge issue, especially in STEM, and the theme that consistently shows up is that having parents who are educated, who are in the upper middle class, and/or who are in a professional field gives you a huge leg up. It doesn't mean that these kids work less, or aren't as smart, or aren't as deserving as kids from poorer backgrounds, but it does mean that they start out with larger reserves of educational capital than other kids. I mean, you could be a genius, but if your parents are working two full-time landscaping jobs and barely speak English, you're going to be at a disadvantage compared to a kid who has a parent who can spend an hour a day helping with homework.
Re:Congratulations. (Score:5, Informative)
It's one thing to pull yourself up from the bootstraps if you're born uppermiddle class. It's another if you're born lower class. There's a strong argument that it's easier today to move up the social ladder in Europe than the United States. [huffingtonpost.com] This is appalling.
Re:Congratulations. (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be quite counter-intuitive if the US had more social mobility than socialist countries. In the US you receive little assistance from the state, so it won't be helping the poor up the ladder, while the state also doesn't impose much of a burden on the rich, so it won't be pulling them down the ladder either. In a socialist country, the poor receive more assistance and there are more demands on the rich. Obviously the latter is more conducive to social mobility, so I don't know why you state it as if this was some sort of strange idea that might even be true. Why wouldn't the US have poor social mobility?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
while the state also doesn't impose much of a burden on the rich, so it won't be pulling them down the ladder either.
And if the rich do something colossally stupid and jump off the ladder on their own, the state will swoop in with a bailout jetpack or golden parachute at huge expense to the taxpayer.
Re:Congratulations. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a perception bias, with the poor being poorer and the rich being richer the rags to riches stories also get more extreme. It creates the illusion that everyone can go from the very bottom of the ladder to the very top of the ladder but a few extreme outliers don't mean social mobility for the masses. Also the rich and powerful like to perpetuate this idea because it means that instead of going Robin Hood and taking from the rich and giving to the poor, people want to get rid of taxes for when they themselves become rich. Of course most people don't actually end up rich, but if you can make them believe they will then you get people working 60+ hour weeks for shit pay, little help from the government and they want it that way...
Re: (Score:2)
Society is not static however. The US social ladder has become more slippery (nowadays you are either broke or billio
Re: (Score:2)
What level of 'raising' does that mean? Do you simply mean going from being a leaf to being a manager was that sort of abnormal job advancement? I'm not sure if you mean raising several levels up (e.g. from a leaf to a VP or somesuch).
If it really was the one level up, that seems to me like a lot of people are "stuck" in exactly the same job forever. (I put it in quotes si
Re: (Score:3)
According to this TED talk [youtube.com], if you want to live the American dream, statistically the best place to do it is Denmark with our relatively high taxation level and state-funded education (you get paid to study at university), health care, unemployment safety net etc.
Re: (Score:1)
Yep, but you have to have the education requirements to immigrate there first :) For a variety of reasons some of use are disenfranchised with the hoops we need to jump through to make it that far :)
On a more serious note however, it seems like someone's been dumping oil or lube on the slope again, because it's so slippery now I think I just saw a parked trailer pass me by!
Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a strong argument that it's easier today to move up the social ladder in Europe than the United States
I've always thought that this is very widely accepted fact. Where I live, higher education is free (and in fact, you get social security of 500 euros ($640) a month, lower rent, government-backed loans, etc. if you're a student) and university admissions are based on objective tests to select the best students (everyone who finishes Highschool will participate in national testing. Grades come from bell curve and graders don't know whose paper they're grading... or even the highschool of the student). It seems obvious to me that a system like this will result in more social justice and less inequality (Nearly everyone who has the will and skill can climb the social ladder regardless of who their parents where) but people in USA decided that the gain is simply not worth the price (=more taxes, less personal liberty, more nannystate...).
This is appalling.
Why so? Again, I assumed this had always been both well-known and intentional but if it isn't... is there something that makes Europe especially appalling in this regard or is it just so appalling to hear that USA isn't at the top?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
It's too bad this was posted anonymously. It addresses one of the fundamental problems with economic and social justice arguments: what are the foundational definitions and assumptions of the argument to begin with?
People argue generally because they have different ideas of what equality and "fair share" mean. Since those are highly subjective ideas, it can be argued that everyone is "right." Being right in that context is meaningless though, and those people frequently ignore the problems that occur when t
Re: (Score:2)
I could have gone to medical school... but I was to stubborn to do that. My mother is a medical assistant Due to this I could probably make a good emergency triage without any additional training, take blood samples and administer intravenous and intramuscular injections. I know more about human body then anything else... even computers - sometimes I don't even know that I know it.
I believe that if you have some brains you can get a really good kick start from your parents field without effort.
Re: (Score:2)
It isn't even necessarily that in depth. I mean, would blue-collar immigrants even know to fill out a FAFSA form to get grant and scholarship money for a kid about to go to college? When would parents meet with their kids' teachers if they work nights instead of a 9 to 5? There's stuff that those of us from middle-class backgrounds don't even realize we know that gives us a huge advantage over people who are coming from totally different backgrounds. Just like the children of the super-wealthy probably woul
Re: (Score:2)
Equity in education is a huge, huge issue, especially in STEM, and the theme that consistently shows up is that having parents who are educated, who are in the upper middle class, and/or who are in a professional field gives you a huge leg up.
I grew up poor with a single mother than worked full time. We moved constantly between cheap rentals--I went to four different elementary schools. She eventually got her nursing degree and we moved up the socioeconomic ladder a bit (this was 30 years ago, when that was still possible). However, my grandparents were homemakers, an electrician, and an orchard worker (an immigrant with a fourth-grade education). One day our heroin-addict neighbors broke into the local high school and stole a microscope. They k
Re: (Score:1)
Which part of "None of this is ever disclosed" did you misunderstand? As a judge you're literally the last person in the world someone doing this would want to tell. It's nice that you believe that everyone is fully upfront about this kind of thing, but with the stakes so high I really doubt it.
Re:Congratulations. (Score:5, Interesting)
all entrants have to make clear up front what their contribution to their project was, how much help they had from others etc.
Yeah of course they have to. That's the way it was back when I was in the fair. But this is not what happens. My highschool had a very large science program and we sent about 90-100 kids a year to regional fairs. For some reason it was the kids who had researcher/professor/PhD/engineer parents who always made it to the international fair. After competing in these fairs year after year, you get to know the crowd, who's legit, and what kind of nonsense is going on.
If you really talk to these kids on a peer level (which you'll never be able to do at this point) you can see right through them. The judges are about the last people who have a grasp on the true character of some of these kids. I personally know a kid who completely faked his entire project year after year and never got caught. He was really good at faking work... probably was more effort than it would have taken to actually to the project. He won several high profile special awards from the military and armed forces for his "research."
Re: (Score:2)
They can very clearly lie, too.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps categorising the award by "estimated cost to replicate" would be a way forward?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd have dumped the girlfriend -- not for lying, but for closing the door to the winning spot to kids who actually do the work and perhaps actually deserve the prize. She is, it seems, a typical example of no-holds-barred "winner". What a loser, that is.
Re: (Score:2)
I think it's pretty clear to any reasonable individual that significant adult assistance is involved when a 15-year-old develops an advanced medical diagnostic for pancreatic cancer.
These kids are the intellectual equivalent of Miss Universe contestants: In addition to being somewhat skilled, they are highly competitive, aggressive, have a good spin campaign and lots of behind-the-scenes coaching. And while they all probably want world peace, at least they don't all have breast implants.