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    Are scientists getting dumber?
    By Michael White | October 30th 2009 03:37 PM | 15 comments | Print | E-mail | Track Comments
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    About Michael

    Welcome to Adaptive Complexity, where I write about genomics, systems biology, evolution, and the connection between science and literature,

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    From a news story in today's issue of Science:
    A new study finds little evidence for leaks in the U.S. pipeline for producing native-born scientists except for a steep drop in the percentage of the highest performing students taking science and engineering jobs. The findings suggest that the United States risks losing its economic competitiveness not because of a work force inadequately trained in science, as conventional wisdom holds, but because of a lack of social and economic incentives to pursue careers in science and technology.
    The reason for this is supposedly the lucrative finance profession drawing away top talent. This is something supported by the numbers in various studies of choice of undergraduate major. But better incentives in a non-science field is only part of the problem. STEM careers don't just lack incentives; there are strong disincentives. But some people still don't have a clue:
    Lisa Frehill, executive director of the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology, thinks the key to keeping talented STEM majors in science is to emphasize the opportunities that exist to solve society's problems. "Really good people will be less concerned about money if they can do work that is meaningful to them," she says.
    Being unconcerned about money is great until you reach your 4th or 5th year of your postdoc, in your 30's, with kids, no retirement savings, and a salary that doesn't meet your monthly expenses. Selling science better is not going to fix the problem. Read the feed:

    Comments

    Gerhard Adam
    Sure, that makes sense.  Let's take the most serious problems society faces and then see if we can find enough altruistic individuals that are willing to fix them for nothing.
    Gerhard Adam | 10/30/09 | 15:57 PM
    adaptivecomplexity
    Right - simply appealing to altruism and then making science students go through a miserable process is not the way to do it. Money still matters. Science will never be financially competitive like finance, but it shouldn't require a long-term vow of poverty either.
    —
    Mike
    Michael White | 10/30/09 | 17:27 PM
    Hank
    I maintain that the solution to America's science problem is not to throw tax dollars at the issue (as the recent $24,000 per car 'cash for clunkers' program showed, governments do not accomplish even simple things well) but ease up on visa restrictions - we are letting students learn here and then not letting them work here as part of some weird protectionist scheme, and then wondering when other countries will overtake us.

    There is an economic disincentive too but that is because there are too many people who want too few academic research jobs - the private sector is always hiring but somewhere in the 1970s there developed a myth that private companies don't do research unless it is sales focused.   
    —
    Want more no-nonsense, independent science? Buy Science Left Behind
    Hank Campbell | 10/30/09 | 16:28 PM
    adaptivecomplexity
    ...ease up on visa restrictions
    Absolutely!
    There is an economic disincentive too but that is because there are too many people who want too few academic research jobs
    That's one problem, but, in the life sciences anyway, in order to work in industry you still have to go through this really inefficient training system, where you experience some of the worst aspects of the academic career route. We could minimize the economic disincentives by creating more shorter-term programs (like professional masters programs) that train people better for non-academic jobs. A 3 year masters and a job at Pfizer sounds a lot better than 10 years of grad school/postdoc if you don't want a faculty position.
    —
    Mike
    Michael White | 10/30/09 | 17:25 PM
    Gerhard Adam
    I'm not sure that visa restrictions will help much.  Take the situation with H1B visas now for technical fields.  It isn't that there is a shorter of qualified people, it's just that companies know that they can bring in people from overseas at half the price.  It short circuits the supply/demand relationship for U.S. workers and results in unemployment here while companies exploit a foreign labor pool.

    In the end, it becomes a race to the bottom.  If more foreign visas were granted, there would be even less pay in the sciences.

    Gerhard Adam | 10/30/09 | 18:25 PM
    Hank
    The visa restrictions were the 1990s answer to foreign graduates during the dotcom boom - and what we got instead was outsourcing, not income and jobs saved in the US.

    In the sciences, we have unlimited student visas and then we restrict the H1B after they graduate.   So we are training great scientists and sending them home to be competitors.    There is no law on the books that allows a foreign worker to be exploited - to get any work visa you have to show the pay is comparable for the position.
    —
    Want more no-nonsense, independent science? Buy Science Left Behind
    Hank Campbell | 10/30/09 | 18:43 PM
    Gerhard Adam
    That is certainly not happening.  I suspect the loophole occurs when you engage contractors rather than permanent employees.
    Gerhard Adam | 10/30/09 | 18:47 PM
    adaptivecomplexity
    It is happening, and I've seen it repeatedly - foreign students and postdocs finish their studies, they find a company that wants to hire them, but because of visa restrictions the company either can't or gives up after a long hassle.
    —
    Mike
    Michael White | 11/01/09 | 11:44 AM
    adaptivecomplexity
    It's not a race to the bottom - we're talking about people with specialized skills, many of whom were trained in the US. They don't work for less than their American peers coming out of the same training programs. Our science PhD programs produce a lot of highly qualified foreign graduates, in part because you can only fill about half of an incoming graduate school class with well-qualified American citizens. Fewer Americans are choosing graduate training in the sciences, and if we want to fill our programs with top candidates, we have to take people from outside the US.
    —
    Mike
    Michael White | 11/01/09 | 11:47 AM
    Gerhard Adam
    Well, I certainly can't speak to your particular experiences, but there are suggestions that it isn't working that way.

    http://www.cis.org/articles/2007/back407.html

    http://www.cis.org/articles/2005/back1305.html

    http://www.nber.org/papers/w12085

    In short, I haven't seen any indication that this has ever helped the U.S.  More importantly, it creates a situation where no one feels compelled to improve the entry into graduate school.   Why is it that whenever a citizen is involved, no one has ever heard of "incentives".  Yet when we want businesses to do something that's all we ever hear?
    Gerhard Adam | 11/01/09 | 15:27 PM
    adaptivecomplexity
    More importantly, it creates a situation where no one feels compelled to improve the entry into graduate school.
    What does this even mean? I have no clue what you're talking about.
    —
    Mike
    Michael White | 11/01/09 | 15:47 PM
    Gerhard Adam
    My point is that we make graduate school and PhD programs far more difficult than they need to be, especially when the outcome (i.e. career) is so uncertain.  So I'm a bit less than sympathetic when companies/government talk about being unable to find Americans to do a job, when they've done their level best to place as many obstacles as possible in the path to that achievement.

    It's the same thing in the health care debate when people talk about doctor shortages.  Am I really supposed to believe that no one knows how to fix this?
    Gerhard Adam | 11/01/09 | 15:53 PM
    This reminds me of the NY Times op-ed - Wall Street Smarts:

    “The financial system nearly collapsed,” he said, “because smart guys had started working on Wall Street.”

    Hsien Lei (not verified) | 11/01/09 | 10:15 AM
    adaptivecomplexity
    That's what happens when perceived smarts takes the place of evaluating evidence. If someone smart comes up with a smart idea, why bother with evidence?
    —
    Mike
    Michael White | 11/01/09 | 11:48 AM
    kerrjac
    Not to overlook the benefit society gains from finance and economics majors.

    "How should we capture the smartest upcoming minds and recruit them for science?" is the wrong question, particularly in a free society. The results of science should speak for themselves, just as the results of any other discipline.

    In Not Everyone Gets a Trophy, Bruce Tulgan presents years of qualitative research comparing up and coming generations of workers with older ones. One of his best points is that younger generations have highly advanced BS detectors. A wide-scale science careers PR campaign is as effective as painting "say no to drugs" on the sides of buses. It is weak, like asking people to buy cars to support America rather than to buy a good car.

    Furthermore, the risks of the *success* of such a campaign may even be worse than the risks of failure, lest we find ourselves with too many scientists and too few financial analysts. At the least, if we are going to promote science, why not use science as a tool itself and scientifically demonstrate *why* more scientists are needed? Simply saying that they have lots of opportunities to help society is like saying that you like your hypothesis.
    kerr jac | 11/01/09 | 16:54 PM