Posted on 08/22/2004 12:02:47 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Hidden amid the hoopla of finding planets orbiting other stars, decoding the human genome and discovering miracle materials with nanotechnology, there's a seemingly improbable but perhaps even more important story — U.S. science may be in decline.
After 50 years of supremacy, both scientifically and economically, America now faces formidable challenges from foreign governments that have recognized scientific research and new technology as the fuels of a powerful economy.
"The Chinese government has a slogan, 'Develop science to save the country,' " said Paul Chu, a physics professor at the University of Houston who also is president of Hong Kong University of Science & Technology. "For a long time they have talked about it. Now they are serious."
According to the National Science Foundation and other organizations that track science indicators, the United States' share of worldwide scientific and engineering research publications, Nobel Prize awards, and some types of patents is falling.
A recent trend in the number of foreign students applying to U.S. schools is even more troubling, scientists say.
As American students have become less interested in science and engineering, top U.S. graduate schools have turned increasingly toward Europe and Asia for the best young scientists to fill laboratories. Yet now, with post-Sept. 11 visa rules tightening American borders, fewer foreign students are willing to endure the hassle of getting into the country.
"Essentially, the United States is pushing the best students from China and other countries away," Chu said.
The new restrictions also hassle students who are already here, like Lijun Zhu, a physics graduate student at Rice University since 1998 who returned two years ago to China to get married. The honeymoon became a nightmare when he and his new wife were stranded for more than two months, awaiting visa renewals.
"I was afraid of going outside my home for even a moment and missing the call from the consulate," Zhu recalled.
Losing future students like Zhu would cost more than just prestige in ivory towers. It could very well mean losing the nation's technological leadership, with implications for the nation's job market and security, to say nothing of culture.
Decline called 'ridiculous' Although President Bush's science adviser, John Marburger, dismisses as "ridiculous" the notion that America could lose its scientific prestige, scientists and policy-makers lay the blame in several areas: the drying well of foreign students, limited stem cell research and less federal funding for basic science research.
Since the visa restrictions were tightened in 2002, foreign-student applications to U.S. universities have fallen from 400,000 a year to 325,000, a 19 percent drop. Graduate school applications nationally are down even further, by up to 40 percent, said Jordan Konisky, vice provost for research and graduate studies at Rice University.
The problem, he said, is that when additional screening requirements were added, extra staffing in U.S. consulates to handle the workload was not.
And the atmosphere in these foreign offices, simmering with tension from terrorism's threat, breeds caution.
"No bureaucrat wants to make a mistake and approve a visa for someone that comes to this country and causes a problem," Konisky said. "So they tend to be very conservative about this, and that's good. But I think they're being overly conservative."
Graduate science programs at Rice and elsewhere are heavily dependent on foreign students.
Nearly half of engineering graduate students are foreign, as are more than one-third of all natural sciences graduate students.
These students invigorate research, professors say. They publish papers, bring new ideas and play a major role in patent applications.
Afraid to leave the U.S. In 2003, the Rice graduate physics program admitted 16 foreign students. Two were delayed more than six months, and three were permanently blocked from entering the United States. Southern Methodist University has a smaller program, and in 2002, the two foreign students who were accepted didn't get visas. School officials briefly considered ending the program, but enough students gained visas in 2003 and this fall to keep it open, said Fredrick Olness, the SMU physics department chairman.
Yet even if students make it into the United States, their visa troubles, as evidenced by the plight of Zhu, aren't over.
Scientific conferences are held worldwide, and many students with families or looming deadlines at school opt not to travel for fear that they won't be able to come back. Likewise, meeting planners say the number of foreign scientists attending conferences in the United States has dropped because they don't want to bother with obtaining a temporary visa.
Then there are the physicists who want to work at some of the world's best particle accelerators, which are in Switzerland and Germany.
"All of the foreign faculty we have are afraid to leave the country because of visa problems," Olness said. "If this keeps up, the United States is going to take a hit on its stature in the worldwide physics community."
Seizing the opportunity Marburger, himself a physicist, said changes to streamline visa problems, including adding staff in U.S. consular offices abroad, should be announced soon.
"This has very high visibility in Washington, all the way up to the president," Marburger said.
The winner, for now at least, is clear — scientific enterprise everywhere else.
At Hong Kong University, applications from Chinese students have more than doubled in the past three years. Chu says his faculty is thrilled.
Chu said Great Britain and Australia have seized the opportunity and opened recruiting offices in China. The European Union, too, has set a goal of having the most competitive and knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010.
What concerns U.S. scientists is that a decades-long brain drain into America may be coming to an end.
America began attracting scientists in the 1930s when the shadow of Hitler's political and religious persecution fell over Europe. Hordes of leading scientists such as Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, whose work with nuclear chain reactions led to the atomic bomb, immigrated to the United States.
Focus on science funding After the war, the United States began spending billions of dollars on basic and defense-related research. Other great foreign scientists followed, drawn to new facilities and money. Their work laid the foundation for the technology bonanza of the 1990s, when one-third of Silicon Valley start-up companies were begun by foreigners.
Attracting top graduate students from other countries, then, is the first step toward continuing the trend.
"The United States used to welcome foreign scientists," said Zhu's adviser at Rice, physics professor Qimiao Si. "Nearly a century ago, the center of gravity shifted to the United States. We don't want that to happen in a reverse direction."
There are other policy areas that U.S. scientists say harm their ability to compete. Scientists say the Bush administration's policy to limit the use of embryonic stem cells will blunt advances made in biomedical research. "The stem cell decision has certainly put us behind at the front end of the curve," said Neal Lane, Clinton's science adviser. "It's a huge barrier."
The president's decision also led some U.S. researchers to seek private funds for their work. But this, said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, usually a stalwart ally of Bush, is no solution to the issue.
"It's the federal research that is the big opportunity," the Texas senator said. "That's where the big dollars are. And to have these avenues to federal resources closed is going to hurt us in the long run."
Another problem, said Albert Teich, director of science and policy programs at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, is an increasing focus in the federal budget on applied military and homeland security research. Excluding a modest increase for biomedical research, nondefense research and development in the proposed 2005 federal budget would decline 2.1 percent, according to the association.
Marburger said federal science spending is still far greater than in any other country. The United States, he said, spends 1 1/2 times more on research and development than all of the European Union countries combined.
Teich agreed, but only to a point.
"It is probably wrong to say U.S. science is currently in decline," he said. "But it is certainly in danger of declining. We're perched on the edge."
Another troubling trend A fundamental problem, scientists and policy-makers say, is the lack of interest in science from American children.
Between 1994 and 2001, the number of U.S. students enrolling in science and engineering graduate programs fell 10 percent. Foreign enrollment jumped by 31 percent to make up for the shortfall.
National reports on this trend have offered suggestions to address the problem, such as giving money to community colleges to assist high-ability students in transferring to four-year science and engineering programs.
"Unfortunately, there's no silver bullet," said President Clinton's science adviser, Neal Lane.
Although there are some encouraging trends — the number of U.S. Hispanics enrolling in science graduate programs between 1994 and 2001 increased by more than one-third — the number of U.S. minorities in science graduate programs remains well below their representation in the total population.
Vision does not build hardware. That takes money and the money is not there.
We will never get very far using chemical rockets no matter how good or well developed. The distances are just too vast, and the power/fuel requirements just too great.
On this I disagree. Chemical, ion, VASMIR, nuclear, etc. are just fine for planetary exploration and exploitation. Stellar travel is just a pipe dream for the moment.
If I had it to do over I would go into a trade. Welding.
the law profession will grow whatever increased resources they need to suck in to pay the salaries of all the new lawyers. we laugh now at things like suits against fast food companies - but they will be reality in 10+ years.
we have zero chance at ever getting tort reform - too many american parents are sending their kids to law school as the profession of choice to have any shot at being financially well off - they aren't going to support killing that off.
Driving a bulldozer for me. :-)
Big money in crane operator. :)
I think I'd be a spammer. It would be nice to be on the other side for a change.
117 - "Thirteen years later on the day I quit - knowing just about everything about the shuttle and how it was processed - I was making less than when I started after adjusting for inflation. "
I don't know if you were aware of it or not, but there was a "racket" at KSC, an agreement within and among the contractors, limiting individual wage increases to 8% for a person (not accounting for inflation), no matter what you did, even getting a dramatically different, more important, should be more pay position. Normal raises (even for promotions) were limited to 2-5% (about the standard inflation.
These 'secret' agreements prevented the various companies from 'stealing' workers from one another, but also prevented individuals from getting any real raises. Essentially you were effectively 'stuck' with the wage you hired in at, no matter what you did. It also allowed the companies, like Lockheed and Rockwell, and MACAC to transfer workers from high paying California jobs, without raising the salaries of the KSC 'locals'.
I finally figured out that the only real way to get a raise at KSC was to transfer to a new company/job in California and then get transferred back to KSC on a California pay scale.
When I finally figured out that I would never get a real raise (I hired in highly experienced, but at a low rate - because I was stuck in the oil crash in Texas), I started trying to get out, because there was no way to secure a better future, and no other real options in Brevard County, than to work at Kennedy Space Center.
(I hired in - with 20 years experience - at $12 per hour (common labor was paying 11.50 per hour then thanks to the unions) because I was desparate, and after 4 years and 3 promotions from grade 2 to grade 6, and great experience, the best I could do was $14 per hour). So in spite of my many awards for excellence, and saving launches many times, and saving millions and millions, I just couldn't get a raise to much above common labor.)
I have found teaching/learning calculus, that generally boys respond better if you teach calculus and advanced math in terms of 'geometry'(spaces, aras, charts and graphs), and that calculus is normally taught like what the girls understand better, in terms of words and formulas (algebra).
Sorry if this is poorly conveyed, but I hope you understand what I am talking about.
120 - "Buy a backhoe, or learn plumbing, if you want to be prosperous and independent. My brother in law quit programming in Java and started an applicance repair business. Three months in and he bought two more trucks and hired four helpers."
So, you recommend a future for Americans of digging ditches and itinerant repairing as our future, while the Chinese and the Indians design and build these the computers and buildings and autos and appliances. And they do the scientific research, while we dig in the dirt and repair chiinese made shoes.
122 - "On this I disagree. Chemical, ion, VASMIR, nuclear, etc. are just fine for planetary exploration and exploitation. "
Sorry, I can't agree. What can we 'exploit' when fuel costs $10,000 per pound of payload.
To 'expolit' anything in space we need something equivalent to the economics of the giant container ships. You can't haul or exploit very much in a rowboat.
123 - "If I had it to do over I would go into a trade. Welding."
good plan, going into a trade - which can't be outsourced, but welding is a good way to go blind.
126 - "Big money in crane operator."
I loved working as a crane operator (being a small sail boat racer), but they don't get that much either, unless you get into the right positions, which are relatively rare.
Crane operators and truck drivers are paid about the same.
Welders can tan their hide if they're not careful. And the smell of burning hair and flesh from spatter is an acquired taste. Many welders carry more shrapnel than Kerry ever did. If you have the stuff, though, welding will do well for you.
It's not easy to find a crane operator sometimes. That's one place where you want some experience. That was the top paying operator job on the Alaska Pipeline. Somebody might lie about his truck driving experience and get by, but crane operators don't get to slip by. If you're lucky somebody won't get killed the first hour.
That's very interesting. In twenty years of teaching calculus, I haven't really noticed a difference in learning of this sort (though I haven't honestly thought about this or looked for it). The modern doctrine for teaching calculus is to show things in several different ways: numerically (tables of numbers), graphically, and finally algebraically. Students are very capable of learning calculational or algebraic dance steps (such as finding a derivative) without having any clear idea of what it means, so new calculus curricula stress intuitive understanding and problem-solving over mechanical algebra skills.
But it's time for me to meet class. First class of the semester, in fact.
I don't know... I figure the way to plan this thing is to figure out, first, how to get the crew back to the green hills. Second, what do we want them to do while they're there? Third, what do we need to send to accomplish 1 and 2? Fourth, how do we ship all that stuff to Mars?
I agree, we want western european students. I pointed out that we are allowing illegals to flood in and putting the screws to legitimate immigration.
Adult Film movie star..... move over, Johnny Wadd!
Well, you write awfully well for a Nigerian.....
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