Losing Our Technical Dominance (We give it away with Free Trade)

http://www.nytimes.com ^ | May 7, 2004 | http://www.nytimes.com

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Losing Our Technical Dominance

he United States remains the pre-eminent scientific and technological power in the world, but there are signs that it is losing ground to foreign competitors. To some extent this is inevitable — and even desirable. The greater the diffusion of scientific capabilities, the better off the world will probably be. Still, the situation in the United States is worrisome. Fewer and fewer young Americans seem interested in technical careers, and fewer young foreigners will be arriving to take their places. If this trend is not reversed, the pool of trained scientists and engineers in this country will shrink, and the shortfalls may harm economic growth and the technical underpinnings of national security.

These measures of America's success and decline were laid out in articles this week by William J. Broad of The Times and in a voluminous report by the National Science Foundation. The United States still spends far more on research and development than any other nation. That has enabled this country to dominate high-technology exports, publish more scientific papers and win more Nobel Prizes than other nations, but they are closing the gap.

The number of articles published in scientific and technical journals by American authors has flattened out for the past decade after three previous decades of growth. Western Europeans now publish substantially more papers than Americans do. The American researchers' share of Nobel Prizes has fallen to about half.

Although this is hardly a time of crisis for American science, common sense suggests efforts to head off further erosion. The administration seems misguided in planning to cut research funds in real terms for 21 agencies in coming years while increasing only the research concerned with defense, domestic security and the space program. The administration should ease the security-driven visa restrictions that keep away foreign students and scientists. Most important, the decline in the number of Americans training to become scientists and engineers suggests the need to reinvigorate science education in the public schools. Manpower trends can take a decade or two to reverse.

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Date Released: Thursday, May 06, 2004
Source: United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs

United Nations Space Body Holds Training Course On Remote Sensing Education

VIENNA, 6 May (UN Information Service) -- The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (OOSA), within the framework of the United Nations Programme on Space Applications, is holding a six-week International Training Course on Remote Sensing Education for Educators in Stockholm and Kiruna, Sweden. The Training Course, which began this week and will last until 11 June 2004, is being held in co-operation with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and hosted by the University of Stockholm and Metria, a Swedish company specialising in land surveying, mapping and geographic information techniques.

The Training Course is the fourteenth in a series of successful courses held by the same organizers and will provide representatives of various academic institutions from developing countries with basic training in remote sensing technology. It aims to familiarise participants with both the theoretical aspects and practical uses of remote sensing in order to enable them to integrate the subject into their institutions’ curricula.

United Nations-sponsored space-technology related training courses and long-term fellowship programmes are intended to help countries develop national capacity to benefit fully from the growing international body of know-how derived from space research. Participants at this Training Course will be instructed in how to use satellite data in a variety of development activities such as natural resource management, agriculture and environmental protection. By the end of the course, participants are expected to have gained enough training and skills to begin conducting introductory courses on remote sensing in their respective institutions.

Twenty-seven participants are attending the current course from the following countries: Argentina, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, Kenya, Malawi, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad & Tobago, Uganda, Uruguay and Viet Nam.

Instructors from the European Space Agency, Sida, Stockholm University, Uppsala University, the Swedish Royal College of Technology, the Swedish National Space Board, the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, L&L Monitor AB, Metria and OOSA will lend their expertise at the Training Course.

The United Nations Programme on Space Applications is implemented by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs and works to improve the use of space science and technology for the economic and social development of all nations, in particular developing countries. Under the Programme, the Office conducts training courses, workshops, seminars and other activities on applications and capacity building in subjects such as remote sensing, communications, satellite meteorology, search and rescue, basic space science, satellite navigation and space law.

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (OOSA) implements the decisions of the General Assembly and of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and its two Subcommittees, the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee and the Legal Subcommittee. The Office is responsible for promoting international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space, and assisting developing countries in using space science technology. Located in Vienna, Austria, OOSA maintains a website at http://www.oosa.unvienna.org.

United Nations Information Service Vienna (UNIS)
P.O.Box 500, A-1400 Vienna, Austria
Tel.: (+43-1) 26060 4666, FAX: (+43-1) 26060 5899
Email: UNIS@unvienna.org

[justshutupandtakeit]

To believe knowledge can be restricted is to indulge in the same kind of thinking which controlled the Soviet Union.

To believe Free Trade has undermined our technical prowess is to ignore the operation of the Export cycle in international trade.

Our role is to create the New not hand on for dear life to the Old.

[discostu]

So your theory is that if we didn't buy things these guys made they would learn rocketry?! Sorry, if we lose our technical dominance it will be the result of far stupider things than free trade.

[Texas Eagle]

The greater the diffusion of scientific capabilities, the better off the world will probably be.

Oh, oh, oh. And you at the New York Times are more concerned about the U.S. than you are about the rest of the world.

Uh-huh. Now please excuse me while I sign a few more documents and become the rightful owner of the Brooklyn Bridge.

[Common Tator]

The most successful new high tech products of the last 120 years were invented by men who did not even have a College Degree. Bill Gates built a 100 billion dollar company. Microsoft was built by a college drop out.The two young men who invented the Desk Top computer (Jobs and Wozniak) do not have college degrees. The person who developed the first C language compiler for the PC was a college drop out.

But world changing inventions by the uneduated are not a recent development. It was two uneducated bicycle repairmen who invented the airplane. It was a 8th grade graduate who did the assembly line and the Model T Ford. The light bulb, movies, and the phonograph were all invented by a man who never completed the firt grade.

The assembly line, automobile, airplane, electric lights, movies, and computers have been the backbone of our technological superiority. None of the men responsible for these great inventions graduated from college.

Colleges demand that graduates be well rounded individuals. Men who shape the world are the opposite of well rounded. They are focused on their goal, and universities do all they can to see that such people fail. Colleges teach people to do what has already been done.

The worst place to learn how to do what has never been done is a University.

[familyop]

"Losing Our Technical Dominance (We give it away with Free Trade)"

Or more honestly, "Why Can't We Make Jane Invent Things After Chasing Johnny Away?"

I hope that Alan lowers the rate to 1/2%. And to the oil companies, go ahead. Make our day. The oil companies are helping the Democrats into office, so the Dems can confiscate and nationalize their assets.

We need new blood in business, regardless of the near-future costs.

[T'wit]

The principal problem for science and medicine in America is not free trade (which is not a problem at all) but the corruption of scientific integrity by government funding. You can pursue disinterested knowledge or you can chase government grants, but not both.

[familyop]

That's also true. Many of the world's best software developers don't belong to the college/corporate club. I'm using one of their systems right now. It's never had a virus. It doesn't lock up, unless some of the hardware dies.

And me...? I was a machinist in the early '80s. Steel work was generally shipped out of our country then. I was fired from my last job as a machinist by my homosexual activist supervisor. Why? ...because I rejected his propositions.
The management of that corporation knew what he was and why he fired me. The corporation agreed with him.

My point is that our business leaders are morally bandrupt and have been for a long time. They need to get right with our Father and become the moral leaders that their ancestors were.

[staytrue]

Colleges teach people to do what has already been done.

I believe the correct argument would be "Colleges teach people what conventional wisdom says can not be done".

[rogueleader]

If we don't fix this, we aren't going to be a superpower anymore.

[neutrino]

and fewer young Americans seem interested in technical careers,

And why should they be? They would be passed over while companies went to China, India, or other offshore venues. Or, they would be replaced by an H1-B or L1 foreign worker.

What happens when the US loses technical superiority? What happens when China surpasses us economically?

The free traitors are destroying this country, killing it as surely as any cabal of traitors could hope.

If you want on or off my offshoring ping list, please FReepmail me!

[fire_eye]

If we don't fix this, we aren't going to be a superpower anymore.

That's what the global socialists oops excuse me Demonrats, WANT. They're prattling happily about how we're becoming a "service-oriented economy". When everyone is working as a hamburger flipper or a maid or custodian, they'll have finally achieved their long-sought-after goal of economic equality for all.

And of course America is too powerful and that's why the oppressed peoples of the world are blowing up our buildings... so we need to disarm ourselves in the interest of social justice and then the oppressed Moose-lims won't attack us any more. So getting rid of the "war industries" by eliminating engineering and science, and encouraging all our young people to seek alternative careers in more peaceful, humanities-oriented disciplines, is a laudable goal, see?

(No, I will NOT buy you a new keyboard...)

[endthematrix]

It is a valid theory. If outsource our knowledge (that is what we do if we don't use that knowledge that we need to keep up with industrial capacities) and the competitors and enemies have technical as well as the industrial base.

In the long run (no one from the trade administration thinks this way) there will be an imbalance against the US industrial and technological supremacy. Any states dominance in world affairs ultimately rests upon the nation's military and the industrial/technical support base. This loss of the industrial sector in the economy transfers knowledge (why learn an applicable skill that you would never use?) as well as the base itself. With international trade you get the benefit of a return of an inexpensive product of labor only.

What happens when the international system of trade or trade relations collapse and war results? To what nation benefits the current conditions in this scenario? The one who can mass produce the materials for war.

[1rudeboy]

Nothing like waking up, having a cup of coffee, and reading a thread with an editorial comment in its title that has nothing to do with the article. So wonderfully reactionary.

[ColoradoSlim]

"reinvigorate science education in the public schools"

Most public and many private schools and universities are a joke. Their priority's are liberal doses of social engineering, diversity, gay awareness, feminism, sex, creative pharmacology, Islamic and other ethnic studies, historical revisionism, free or greatly reduced tuition for illegals, socialism, beer, sports, and of course spring break orgy.

Come on! Who's got time for all that egg head crap, leave that for the Chinese.

One notable exception to the norm; Patrick Henry College http://www.phc.edu/ this school would be a wonderful model for all schools and universities. I don't believe they are currently offering degrees in science and engineering. :(

[eno_]

The principal problem for science and medicine in America is not free trade (which is not a problem at all) but the corruption of scientific integrity by government funding. You can pursue disinterested knowledge or you can chase government grants, but not both.

WINNER!

We spend tax money lavishly on research of all kinds. And, as the article points out, the ROI sucks. SO the answer is to put more money in the same rathole?

[Doctor Stochastic]

You can pursue disinterested knowledge or you can chase government grants, but not both.

You know you're in trouble when you spend more time writing applications than you do researching.

[EEDUDE]

"and fewer young Americans seem interested in technical careers,
And why should they be? They would be passed over while companies went to China, India, or other offshore venues. Or, they would be replaced by an H1-B or L1 foreign worker."


SO TRUE!

This offshoring is NOT about a lack of technical talent here in the US. Good engineers are plentiful here.

Would I encourage my son to follow in my footsteps as a professional engineer?

Absolutely not!

The companies outsourcing design work to China and India will rue the day they started this crap. They MAY see a short term increase in profits, but they are training the very people who will put them out of business in the future.

[T'wit]

I don't have to tell you, it gets a lot worse when you start fudging your research figures to make your fund request look good. That is the corruption of science and examples are legion.