> The data here is poor in several ways- the selection is highly weighted towards european countries and excludes, for instance, Canada and Mexico and South Ame

> The data here is poor in several ways- the selection is highly weighted towards european countries and excludes, for instance, Canada and Mexico and South America. Africa is right out and the only asian country is Japan. Further, GDP is not a measure of "Wealth" but the size of an economy (wealth is like savings, GDP is like gross revenue.) Agreed with this. The selection of countries is limited, and is a result of the source article, which is itself an interesting read on the politicisation of science: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/313/5788/765.full http://www.sciencemag.org/content/313/5788/765.full I wrote a longer response to the rest of your comment, but on reflection I think I'd rather not to get into that here.