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The quality debate about scientific merit aside, if the U.S. wants to remain "the best", then we need to incentivize the best scientists and researchers in othe

The quality debate about scientific merit aside, if the U.S. wants to remain "the best", then we need to incentivize the best scientists and researchers in other countries to come here and become U.S. citizens. A lot of famous physicists, mathematicians, and logicians have done this over the past 100 years. Unfortunately, the attractiveness of becoming a U.S. citizen is waning because (1) current U.S. policies on science are extremely unfavorable to foreign researchers and (2) other countries are making it much more desirable to remain a citizen there than to become a U.S. citizen (this is a net win for humanity though) I think (1) is in part due to a culture in the U.S. that really just doesn't care about science anymore. When I was in grad school a few years ago, most of my peers were from other countries despite the fact that the majority of undergrads at the same school were born in state. So in effect, the grad students would get advanced degrees in the hard sciences and take that knowledge back home with them, whereas the U.S. students would get a B.S. in literature, advertising, or business (generalizing of course).

hatmatrix 8y ago
> current U.S. policies on science are extremely unfavorable to foreign researchers To U.S. researchers also - the proposal funding rate is so low on account of the resource/PI ratio that many U.S. researchers are moving to Europe where there is greater promise of hard funding.
- arcanus 8y ago
  The USA spends more on R+D in aggregate and more as a percentage of GDP than the European Union[1]. It is not substantially easier to get a Professorship or permanent research appointment in Europe than the USA, at least generally speaking. Without data to back it up, I don't see how this comment holds up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_research_and_development_spending https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_research_...
  - tacomonstrous 8y ago
    What percentage is allocated to basic research? The US government is continuing to abdicate its responsibility towards funding it.
    - dnautics 8y ago
      what is the US government's responsibility here? There are very good arguments that government funding of science has actually been a problem, starting with the big picture: https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/saving-science https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/saving-science
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - dnautics 8y ago
        Lots of down votes but no explanation. I'll put a counterargument. Lots of good science has been privately funded: A lot of things in the early 20th and 19th centuries, Salk Sabin and the cure for polio, Peter Mitchell and solving the chemiosmotic effect, the entire HHMI, etc. Do we actually need a lot of science? A lot of the low hanging fruit has been picked and it seems to me like the next advances will require deep reflection and study that isn't compatible with the tenure-track-driven-by-grant-receipt / grant-receipt-driven-by-performance-on-other-grants cycle of government driven science. At the same time, if government does anything else the scientific endeavor it funds will devolve into an exercise in channeling funds to a few golden children that are selected.... How? And will be detached from any reasonable standard of good governance and accountability. So I challenge someone to explain why the us government has a responsibility to fund science, where that authority comes from, and how acceptable standards of accountability will be established.
        jabl 8y ago
        I didn't downvote your contribution, but I suspect a lot of the downvotes were due to your argument being, at best, tangentially related to the point made in the article you linked to. So the article makes the claim that left to its own devices, science wanders off into the weeds, spending a lot of money and brainpower on things which have absolutely no foreseeable application to the real world (e.g. stuff like string theory). FWIW, I do have sympathy for this viewpoint; while I think there is a place for purely curiosity driven blue-sky basic science, perhaps a smaller pie of the total R&D spending ought to be spent on such things. From this you then conclude that government financing of science is bad (which goes against the econ 101 reason why the state must shoulder some of the R&D responsibility, so I won't bother to discuss that further here), whereas the article makes the opposite conclusion, namely that the state should take a much more hands-on goal-oriented approach to funding science (e.g. "get our boys to the moon before the commies").
  - vkou 8y ago
    Does me building a CRUD app for an internal business process at an advertising firm fall under this category of R&D?
- tacomonstrous 8y ago
  Yes, for instance, the NSF's budget has been static in nominal terms since the Bush years (or at least that's what the program manager told me the last time.i was on a panel). Getting a grant, especially for young researchers looking to establish a track record, is very difficult in this environment.
  - rsj_hn 8y ago
    OK, but the NSF research budget (7 billion) is small potatoes compared to the NIH (37 Billion per year), and DOD (70 Billion). And it's about the same as the Department of Energy (7 Billion, not including the national labs). There is plethora of other Federal agencies that fund research, such as the EPA, NIST, NASA, Federal Aviation Administration, Food and Drug Administration, even the Bureau of Land Management is in on the act. The VA funds research in prosthetics. The Health and Human Services department (including CDC) funds research. As best I can tell, total Federal outlays for research are about 120 Billion. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/ap_18_research-fy2019.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/ap_18_...
    - tacomonstrous 8y ago
      >but the NSF research budget (7 billion) is small potatoes compared to the NIH Exactly! And they are the main organization for funding non-medical basic science in the nation.
      - rsj_hn 8y ago
        I see, so is your argument not that we need more total federal dollars for research, but that they should be shifted away from the other organizations and towards the NSF?
    - hedvig 8y ago
      Where does that funding come from? Why, your pocket. Imagine if the 1% who pays the 50% of that had that money back, how much better our society would be.
  - 8y ago
- privong 8y ago
  > the proposal funding rate is so low on account of the resource/PI ratio that many U.S. researchers are moving to Europe where there is greater promise of hard funding. Funding rates are low in many (all?) fields of science in the US, but I agree with @arcanus that some data showing US researchers moving to Europe is warranted. In my field (astronomy), jobs in the US are tough to come by, but jobs in Europe are generally even more difficult to get. There seem to be fewer jobs in Europe and those jobs are often reserved for people who are already "in the system" and worked at the hiring institution. So many of those jobs to go people who've put in their dues by hanging around, rather than hiring the best people. Europe does have large European Research Council (ERC) grants which are typically a few million Euros per award. If you win one of those, you're good to go and can fund a sizable research group (at least in astronomy) and can probably use that as leverage to get a faculty job. But those grants are tough to come by. I can't speak for other fields, but the vast majority of people I've met in astronomy that are moving to Europe are doing so because they're from Europe and want to head home. But the availability of research/faculty jobs there is not good, compared to the US.
- neuromantik8086 8y ago
  Yup. The stats at the bottom of this page are fairly depressing: http://homepages.rpi.edu/~newbeh/WhyFundScience.html http://homepages.rpi.edu/~newbeh/WhyFundScience.html
bitxbit 8y ago
I think it comes down to US and UK in terms of general science research. I would include Japan but language is an issue (for many). Despite what the average math and science metrics in the US imply, I actually think it’s a direct result of more practical approach to education in the US. There are unbelievable opportunities for young students who want to excel in sciences. I was around graduate level research environment since the 8th grade. And I would say it wasn’t all that unusual as long as you knew where to look. Access to science research is unparalleled in the US.
- somethingsimple 8y ago
  How hard it is to access it as an adult with a career? I'm an immigrant software engineer but I'd love to work in research (I think). Is there a path other than a PhD at this point?
  - jeffmcmahan 8y ago
    There is no need to jump in as a PhD. Enroll as an undergraduate anywhere that has a good department in the area you're interested in, and then express interest and work as hard as you can -- if you show promise, the faculty and graduate students will notice you and enjoy your conversation. However, if you want a paid career as a researcher, you will absolutely need a PhD.
  - bitxbit 8y ago
    If you know python and college level statistics you should be able to find someone. Everyone needs to crunch data (and some graduate students feel its beneath them :-)
  - AlexCoventry 8y ago
    If you're a software engineer and willing to take a pay cut, plenty of research labs will be happy to take you on.
  - neuromantik8086 8y ago
    Try to hustle your way into a Research Software Engineer [0] role somewhere. The role isn't formally acknowledged in the U.S. (outside of Google) but you can usually find them posted on university job boards as "Programmer/Analyst" or something similar. Downsides include crap pay and the potential for your job to spontaneously disappear after soft money [1] runs out. [0] https://rse.ac.uk/who/ https://rse.ac.uk/who/ [1] https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/30621/what-is-a-soft-money-research-position https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/30621/what-is-a...
chairmanwow 8y ago
For those interested, here is a link to a Wolfram Alpha query that shows US vs China GPD PPP [1] Also, here is a Wikipedia link to what GDP PPP (Gross Domestic Product Purchasing Power Parity) actually is [2] [1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US,+China+GDP+PPP http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US,+China+GDP+PPP [2] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_Power_Parity https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_Power_Parity
Eridrus 8y ago
I think the point that most grad programs don't have US students is revealing - for those who have alternative entry into the US economy, most people decide that a PhD program is a poor choice. Most of the things people work on in their PhD programs are very niche, and most do not work in academia or on the same thing after they finish their PhD. And most people never really make a noticeable contribution to science with their thesis. So I'm a bit skeptical that we're losing all this valuable knowledge overseas, rather than PhD programs being about signaling their skill to employers and our byzantine immigration process. Not to say that people learn nothing valuable, but the number of people I've worked with who did a Math PhD and then never used that knowledge ever again is surprisingly high. I think the US should be less concerned about whether it is on top wrt publications, but about whether English remains the language of scholarship, because if Chinese folks start publishing in Mandarin, that's going to be a far bigger loss to English speaking countries than if we do not originate as much research.
- mc32 8y ago
  >if Chinese folks start publishing in Mandarin They may, and then it will be like during the cold war where Soviets published in Russian and we'd be lucky if someone translated that into English. If it were to happen today, someone would make a business out of translating the publications --maybe even crowdsource the translations.
  - cryptozeus 8y ago
    Would bd so easy to translate in this day and age
    - btrettel 8y ago
      Easier, but not easy. During my PhD I've translated about a dozen papers into English, mostly from Russian. Google Translate and Yandex Translate did the actual translation (I would compare the two), but what they produce is not always intelligible or correct. On a few more important papers I went through the paper sentence by sentence to clarify the translation. It's not uncommon that I have to change certain phrases because the software translates a phrase literally when the equivalent is not a literal translation, for example. Sometimes I didn't know what the equivalent terminology was without research and guesswork. I also added footnotes as appropriate if I thought they would help the reader understand something which would not be clear if they were unfamiliar with the original language or research culture. I would not be surprised if I spent over 100 hours on a particular series of 3 papers alone. I don't mind the time, as I enjoyed the process and learned a lot from it. The good news is that I think the feedback I provided Google Translate improved the quality of the product's translation of scientific Russian, it is slowly getting better.
_louisr_ 8y ago
Right... More scientists and researchers making less than minimum wage is surely the answer
spyckie2 8y ago
I find it helpful to remove cultural origins and model it purely based on opportunity, and it makes a lot of sense. In this instance, take away Chinese / American from the article and reanalyze it with the kind of education they received. The fact is that scientific research has extremely poor returns on investment, with high specialization requirements and little opportunity for wealth, fame, or impact. Ground-breaking discovery in niche fields tends to favor one dimensional specialists over generalists, whereas in pretty much any other industry, being multi-talented can be extremely impactful. In a wealthy country where most people are educated to be multi-talented, it's suboptimal for them to go into research because there are so many better opportunities. Whereas if you're a country with a billion people but doesn't have the luxury to educate people to be multi-faceted, if you have the talent to be a researcher, it's a great opportunity for you. An illustration in RPG terms: well educated, multi-faceted individual (can be from the US or China, doesn't matter) communication: 70/100 networking: 70/100 leadership: 70/100 scientific discovery: 70/100 (with science aptitude) communication: 70/100 networking: 70/100 leadership: 70/100 scientific discovery: 90/100 A not-as-well educated person communication: 40/100 networking: 50/100 leadership: 30/100 scientific discovery: 40/100 with science aptitude: communication: 40/100 networking: 50/100 leadership: 30/100 scientific discovery: 90/100 It's just a lot more common to find the latter in a country with 1.3 billion people, and the former in the richest country in the world. For the latter example, being good at science opens up opportunities for them. But for the well educated, they probably have a lot better opportunities within their reach. And with the prevailing metric of a good researcher being novel discoveries or breakthroughs, they both have an equal chance to make contribution to the field, so there's no incentives for the well educated person (Chinese or American) to pursue research.
- spyckie2 8y ago
  revisiting the thought, it may not have to deal with skillset as much as opportunity availability. There are more opportunities for American citizens that are equivalent to a PhD, whereas that may not be the case for non-Americans.
gonvaled 8y ago
A moot point for humankind: we really do not care. It seems it is working out quite well by the Chinese remaining in China. Well done!
projektir 8y ago
Or maybe the US should actually look at its own citizens for once. It seems every time the US has a problem, they try to solve it by importing people.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  That's not a quick fix though, you have to start with people who are five years old right now then see the benefits in twenty or more years.
- nafizh 8y ago
  There are huge amounts of fellowships and scholarships available for US citizens to go into grad school. If they don't want to go in whose fault is that. Admittedly, most of them come out with huge debt from undergrad, so I understand the decision to get jobs immediately.
bsder 8y ago
> So in effect, the grad students would get advanced degrees in the hard sciences and take that knowledge back home with them, whereas the U.S. students would get a B.S. in literature, advertising, or business (generalizing of course). One could argue that the US students are simply more rational actors and perceive the fact that a PhD has no economic value.
rdtsc 8y ago
> (this is a net win for humanity though) Yeah. Maybe we want to take a more global approach and cheer when other countries are doing well and are attracting scientists? There was an article a while back how a Chinese professor or maybe recent grad, couldn't find a position in US and the Chinese government made them a generous offer, an apartment, a guaranteed research fund, etc. Everyone was bashing and shaming US but it seemed kind of nice that China is able to do those things. > So in effect, the grad students would get advanced degrees in the hard sciences and take that knowledge back home with I remember that too, but that's kind of the goal of the F-1 / J-1 educational visas. None of them are designed for permanent residency or imply a path towards citizenship. The idea is that these students will get a graduate education then return home and and apply that knowledge in various countries around the world.
deleted 8y ago
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shams93 8y ago
Its also incredibly expensive to go to college here compared to anywhere else on earth. But in public education the math and science coverage tends to be horrific, but that's because we pay teachers such low wages they often have to live in their vehicles. Who wants a job that is completely stripped of human dignity?
- neuromantik8086 8y ago
  The high cost of college here is honestly more about amenities than anything else. Whenever the discussion of making college tuition-free comes up in the U.S., people nearly always point to Europe as an example of an area where free education is the norm. What few people tend to take into account, however, is that European universities are pretty no-frills for the most part. I personally enjoyed the bare bones approach to higher ed during my time studying abroad (no stupid residential education office to overcharge me for crap housing, no forced meal plans, buying textbooks at my discretion alone), but I know a number of people from my undergrad who would be utterly lost without the amount of hand-holding and perks (gyms, expensive facilities that almost certainly are underutilized, etc) that occur in American universities.
Tharkun 8y ago
When the French executed Lavoisier, they said "the republic needs neither chemists nor scientists". The US seems to be of a similar mind at this point in time.
- rsj_hn 8y ago
  That's a bit unfair. You are talking about an event in the Great Terror (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror), when thousands of people were executed by the Committee for Public Safety, both on the left and the right, as Robespierre descended into madness. Towards the end, he set up a festival in which he invented his own cult -- the cult of the Supreme Being, and posed as moses carrying the revelation of the Supreme Being from a mountain. That really started to freak people out. Pronouncements from that era are not representative of French culture or thinking even a few months after the terror. For example, Napoleon was a great patron of science. BTW, a fantastic source on the French Revolution is the revolutions podcast -- they cover it over 53 episodes http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/ http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/ One of the more poignant episodes towards the end of the Great Terror was when, in one day, they executed a group of nuns whose only crime was living together communally, and a 16 year old pickpocket. Whereas before, the citizens were cheering on the Guillotine, towards the end, when the boy was beheaded, someone from the crowd shouted out "Please, no more children!"
EB66 8y ago
> Unfortunately, the attractiveness of becoming a U.S. citizen is waning I don't think that's necessarily true. Despite the politics and rhetoric of the current administration, just today the front page of the NYTimes ran an article titled: U.S. Has Highest Share of Foreign-Born Population Since 1910 ( https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/us/census-foreign-population.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/us/census-foreign-populat... ) The article opens with: > The foreign-born population in the United States has reached its highest share since 1910, according to government data released Thursday, and the new arrivals are more likely to come from Asia and to have college degrees than those who arrived in past decades.
KennyCason 8y ago
Completely agree. The sad part is that I know many Chinese people who have studied in the United States and want to stay, but we do not make it even remotely easy to do so.
Nitramp 8y ago
I've relatively recently lived in the US (in SF) for two years and returned back to Europe. It's been a great experience, and there are many great things in the US, NorCal, and San Fracisco. Still, I'd have a hard time settling in the US for the long run. The country comes across as so deeply troubled, drenched in toxic politics and a seemingly irrecoverably broken society. Even with lots of economic, scientific, etc opportunity, I'd be very worried about long term happiness in such an environment. Maybe that's a rather personal take, but to me, what's the value of lots of opportunity if everyone still seems troubled and struggling?
- draw_down 8y ago
  Yeah that all sounds about right to me. (I have only ever lived in America)
- jjeaff 8y ago
  Just don't watch the news and problem solved. Life is great here and I rarely come across divisive political fights except on TV and the internet. The media thrives on it, so that's what they focus on.
  - ItsMe000001 8y ago
    I am/was in the same boat as OP. I moved back to Germany after almost a decade in the US (mostly Silicon Valley). Closing your eyes does not make the problems go away. Even if you don't care and avoid the tens of millions of left-behind people, for myself, looking at things like health care was enough to give me second thoughts. It is nice as long as it is nice. I had a colleague, enterprise sales, very good income, who ended up living in the streets in the Bay Area due to a few turns of bad luck that could happen to anyone. Health care cost issues were part of it, but it only got really bad because of a the self-reinforcing feedback loop since there was no help available early (and the very late help was privately organized from people who knew him once they became aware of his dire situation). I venture to claim that he would have been okay if similar bad luck had befallen him in his native Germany. I'm not sure how seriously other people take this, but I find it curious that a huge part of entertainment in movies, shows and games made/consumed in the US is about violence horror, and/or the end of society or even the world (oh and "heroes" of course - always coupled with violence). That is not a global phenomenon, or it only is in as far as Hollywood has always been exporting culture. It also is not normal, I can say from my own (almost half a century) life experience (first part of it on the Eastern side of the German border). Myself, I can empathize with scenarios of the post-apocalypse as shown e.g. in "The Last Of Us", especially the violence and distrust between surviving groups - imagining myself in the area of the US in such a world. I can't imagine the same scenario in Europe, at least not on the same dystopian level. I would feel significantly safer in Europe after the collapse of civilization (said this commenter before getting murdered an hour later by another desperate European end-of-society survivor, haha - yeah, sure, can happen, it's just my gut feeling). I have to balance my post by saying I still feel strong and positive about many things in the US. I'm not a "dark side only" guy when it comes to the view of that country. Still, even if I were rich I would not go back to live there, I don't feel good about the overall direction, even if a lot of things were to improve. All this darn celebration of violence and "heroes", for example, and as was pointed out here, science (so many immigrants holding it up), economic policies, politics (result of a feedback loop with economics and business policies, e.g. incentives for the media - what kind of news sells? Plus incredible concentration in a few hands).
oh-kumudo 8y ago
US certainly has a cultural problem, out of all major countries out there, US has a weird position where a significant population denies evolution/climate change, and turned those topics into highly political charged issues. Also the US education system prior to college takes an another interesting aim to cultivate students' confidence, not by equipping them with logical training, but circumventing hard subjects like math/science, which is really ironic. A very lazy excuse to insufficient investment in maintaining their domestic pool of potential STEM candidates. While on the other hand, what China demonstrated here is, that it is totally possible for a poor country to bootstrap itself into a major science power, providing the society has strong focus on science education and an effective rewarding system to provide incentives to study science. Plagiarism concerns aside, it is pretty successful, otherwise we won't be talking about it here, let alone compare it against US. Maybe it's time for US to let it down its own myth about American exceptionalism, and revisit the true cause of its current lead in global research: large influx of foreign talents, first from Europe, then Soviet Russia and now China/India. US was lucky to have this constant grab of the best minds from the rest of the world, but sadly, or maybe not, I can't see this would continue. Time to wake up.
- baybal2 8y ago
  >Maybe it's time for US to let it down its own myth about American exceptionalism, and revisit the true cause of its current lead in global research: large influx of foreign talents, first from Europe, then Soviet Russia and now China/India. US was lucky to have this constant grab of the best minds from the rest of the world, but sadly, or maybe not, I can't see this would continue. That actually is US weakness, US always had to import talent. Grad school is strong in US thanks to being constantly fed by world class academicians ready to work for peanuts just to get name of a prestigious university on their resume. I will not say that US is that bad at growing homegrown talent, but it is worse at that than China. Much worse. To understand what's happening there, you have to think that in China, non-academic tertiary education is much bigger and stronger, and it feeds both the industry, and higher tier academic studies. In former Eastern Bloc, countries copied USSR's education system, and which itself copied from Prussia and pre-WWI German states. Few of its distinctive features: 1. Doctoral level studies are SUPER TOUGH, and you will be laughed off if you try attempt them without at least 10 years of graduate studies, and/or nomination for at least a minor scientific award. That's why Eastern Bloc masters level equal Western PhD. It never saw the academic credential inflation after WWII. 2. People are told off to avoid academia until they are totally committed and able to make an academic contribution. This true when we talk about first tier universities. 3. Lion share of people are totally fine with 2 year technical school programs. Chinese 2 year tech schools are definitely better than undergrad studies in US. Some are so good, that even comparing them to masters level in US wouldn't be a stretch. This is made possible by the fact that Chinese secondaries graduate much more prepared pupils, with both strong STEM and basic industry related vocational education. 4. Plentiful supply of tech school talents feed the industry, and keep educated labour cheap. And delivers universities a higher quality of candidate pool. Person's resume speaks better than artfully worded application letters the US universities are known for. 5. This allows university level studies to be what they were supposed to be originally: academic research, and not doing degree milling. Because research universities can afford to be picky with applicants, they can stay very focused. 1 in 150 admission odds for are know for some universities. Be sure that professors pick people with the highest promise, right aptitude, and people whose personal interests match their studies. 6. The industry and academia are don't go very far apart despite there being an iron wall in between academic and practical tertiary education. In overall, the distinction is between grunt workers and "highly skilled" category much, much less obvious than in US. Companies can recruit more schooled workforce in general in China, than in US. Having assembly lines staffed with real engineers is not uncommon, and the same applies for the rest of the higher tech industries: chemical, biomedical, semiconductor. And nowhere it is as evident as in computer programming, with outsourcing sweatshops being staffed by people with 6 year education (Chinese computer science school is terrible though.) Conclusion: Chinese academia being that strong is result of their undergrad studies being much stronger that American, and that itself is built on strong secondary education. But it is bad at retaining and attracting anybody qualifying as "world class"
godelmachine 8y ago
I would like to know what HNer’s think about RAISE act, which directly affects legal immigrants.
nvarsj 8y ago
> Unfortunately, the attractiveness of becoming a U.S. citizen is waning because (1) current U.S. policies on science are extremely unfavorable to foreign researchers and (2) other countries are making it much more desirable to remain a citizen there than to become a U.S. citizen (this is a net win for humanity though) Don't forget (3) being tax compliant as a US citizen/perm resident. Since Obama made this worse with FACTA, Trump now with GILTI, etc., US citizenship and permanent residency has become extremely hostile to expats.
0xcafecafe 8y ago
Not to mention the antiquated immigration system wherein, a country of birth is given preference over qualifications and pay for granting permanent residency, disadvantaging nationals from populous nations like India and China. https://www.cato.org/blog/150-year-wait-indian-immigrants-advanced-degrees https://www.cato.org/blog/150-year-wait-indian-immigrants-ad... I know many of my peers from grad school are exiting US after a few years of grad school due to this.
zarkov99 8y ago
There is also the matter that for a smart young American, Law, Medicine and Finance are far more financially rewarding endeavors than Science.
- geebee 8y ago
  The RAND institute published a paper supporting this position: It's a bit old now (2003), but I think it still holds. https://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP241.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP241.html
ataturk 8y ago
But you weren't attending MIT or CalTech I bet.
ptero 8y ago
> we need to incentivize the best scientists and researchers in other countries to come here and become U.S. citizens This may be outside of US control. There are always exceptions, but based on experience of my friends who came to the US from other countries and stayed, scientists generally did not go to the US; they go from something: economic shock, persecution, hungry kids, crime, no science funding (not low, zero), etc. and will to go whatever decent, stable country that would take them. Big inflows of energetic, educated folks happen after wars (e.g., WW2). Collapse of communism made lots of folks from Poland to Uzbekistan search for another home. Those greatly benefited US but were one-time events that cannot be easily extended. To lead in science a country needs to grow its scientists organically and encourage them to stay in science. My 2c.
jmngomes 8y ago
I wouldn't discount the fact that a lot of great STEM students elect to work in finance as opposed to science or R&D roles: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-rent-seeking-problem-in-contemporary-finance-by-robert-j--shiller https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-rent-seekin...
justicezyx 8y ago
> U.S. that really just doesn't care about science anymore Not just "dont care", they routinely ridicule and make fun of scientific research personnels, everywhere. Hollywood being the worts offender.
kindatrue 8y ago
>if the U.S. wants to remain "the best"< If. The U.S. is fast becoming a retiree/senior citizen voting nation. Their top priority (understandably) is cutting taxes/costs to maximize their (poorly planned) retirements. Being the best no long matters like it did when the boomers were young. https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv/status/926282252392083457 https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv/status/926282252392083457
- hollerith 8y ago
  If the demographic shift you describe really does have the effect you describe, then most other countries are becoming even less interested in being the best than the US is becoming -- although I guess a person could argue that a country like China where the population cannot vote (on anything that matters much) will avoid the effect you describe.
squozzer 8y ago
There's another side to this that isn't discussed and that is - at least for me - the easier and more lucrative path was to take my bachelor's degree in physics and get a corporate job. My GRE / GPA wasn't going to get me into Princeton anyway. But the road to a PhD in Physics in 1994 was basically 1) Probably 8 years of study + teaching assistant work and 2) a quality dissertation. That gets you in the CV pile for the next phase. The actual career of being a physicist includes 1) multi-year post-doc(s); 2) University job, which would have been associate professor then, adjunct professor now; 3) "Publish or perish"; 4) Hustling grants; 5) Managing TAs and RAs. For peanuts (unless those grants are fat money) compared to a corporate job. For foreigners, the difference between academia / corporate work probably isn't as stark economically.
- obscurantist 8y ago
  Finding a good tenured position is comically difficult now. I know an assistant professor of engineering at Princeton who just left for Renaissance Technologies because he couldn't secure a long-term professorship there.
Nuzzerino 8y ago
Can you give an example of one of those unfavorable policies and how China does it more favorably? The post speaks in general terms.

hatmatrix 8y ago

> current U.S. policies on science are extremely unfavorable to foreign researchers To U.S. researchers also - the proposal funding rate is so low on account of the resource/PI ratio that many U.S. researchers are moving to Europe where there is greater promise of hard funding.

arcanus 8y ago
The USA spends more on R+D in aggregate and more as a percentage of GDP than the European Union[1]. It is not substantially easier to get a Professorship or permanent research appointment in Europe than the USA, at least generally speaking. Without data to back it up, I don't see how this comment holds up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_research_and_development_spending https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_research_...
- tacomonstrous 8y ago
  What percentage is allocated to basic research? The US government is continuing to abdicate its responsibility towards funding it.
  - dnautics 8y ago
    what is the US government's responsibility here? There are very good arguments that government funding of science has actually been a problem, starting with the big picture: https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/saving-science https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/saving-science
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - dnautics 8y ago
      Lots of down votes but no explanation. I'll put a counterargument. Lots of good science has been privately funded: A lot of things in the early 20th and 19th centuries, Salk Sabin and the cure for polio, Peter Mitchell and solving the chemiosmotic effect, the entire HHMI, etc. Do we actually need a lot of science? A lot of the low hanging fruit has been picked and it seems to me like the next advances will require deep reflection and study that isn't compatible with the tenure-track-driven-by-grant-receipt / grant-receipt-driven-by-performance-on-other-grants cycle of government driven science. At the same time, if government does anything else the scientific endeavor it funds will devolve into an exercise in channeling funds to a few golden children that are selected.... How? And will be detached from any reasonable standard of good governance and accountability. So I challenge someone to explain why the us government has a responsibility to fund science, where that authority comes from, and how acceptable standards of accountability will be established.
      - jabl 8y ago
        I didn't downvote your contribution, but I suspect a lot of the downvotes were due to your argument being, at best, tangentially related to the point made in the article you linked to. So the article makes the claim that left to its own devices, science wanders off into the weeds, spending a lot of money and brainpower on things which have absolutely no foreseeable application to the real world (e.g. stuff like string theory). FWIW, I do have sympathy for this viewpoint; while I think there is a place for purely curiosity driven blue-sky basic science, perhaps a smaller pie of the total R&D spending ought to be spent on such things. From this you then conclude that government financing of science is bad (which goes against the econ 101 reason why the state must shoulder some of the R&D responsibility, so I won't bother to discuss that further here), whereas the article makes the opposite conclusion, namely that the state should take a much more hands-on goal-oriented approach to funding science (e.g. "get our boys to the moon before the commies").
- vkou 8y ago
  Does me building a CRUD app for an internal business process at an advertising firm fall under this category of R&D?
tacomonstrous 8y ago
Yes, for instance, the NSF's budget has been static in nominal terms since the Bush years (or at least that's what the program manager told me the last time.i was on a panel). Getting a grant, especially for young researchers looking to establish a track record, is very difficult in this environment.
- rsj_hn 8y ago
  OK, but the NSF research budget (7 billion) is small potatoes compared to the NIH (37 Billion per year), and DOD (70 Billion). And it's about the same as the Department of Energy (7 Billion, not including the national labs). There is plethora of other Federal agencies that fund research, such as the EPA, NIST, NASA, Federal Aviation Administration, Food and Drug Administration, even the Bureau of Land Management is in on the act. The VA funds research in prosthetics. The Health and Human Services department (including CDC) funds research. As best I can tell, total Federal outlays for research are about 120 Billion. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/ap_18_research-fy2019.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/ap_18_...
  - tacomonstrous 8y ago
    >but the NSF research budget (7 billion) is small potatoes compared to the NIH Exactly! And they are the main organization for funding non-medical basic science in the nation.
    - rsj_hn 8y ago
      I see, so is your argument not that we need more total federal dollars for research, but that they should be shifted away from the other organizations and towards the NSF?
  - hedvig 8y ago
    Where does that funding come from? Why, your pocket. Imagine if the 1% who pays the 50% of that had that money back, how much better our society would be.
- 8y ago
privong 8y ago
> the proposal funding rate is so low on account of the resource/PI ratio that many U.S. researchers are moving to Europe where there is greater promise of hard funding. Funding rates are low in many (all?) fields of science in the US, but I agree with @arcanus that some data showing US researchers moving to Europe is warranted. In my field (astronomy), jobs in the US are tough to come by, but jobs in Europe are generally even more difficult to get. There seem to be fewer jobs in Europe and those jobs are often reserved for people who are already "in the system" and worked at the hiring institution. So many of those jobs to go people who've put in their dues by hanging around, rather than hiring the best people. Europe does have large European Research Council (ERC) grants which are typically a few million Euros per award. If you win one of those, you're good to go and can fund a sizable research group (at least in astronomy) and can probably use that as leverage to get a faculty job. But those grants are tough to come by. I can't speak for other fields, but the vast majority of people I've met in astronomy that are moving to Europe are doing so because they're from Europe and want to head home. But the availability of research/faculty jobs there is not good, compared to the US.
neuromantik8086 8y ago
Yup. The stats at the bottom of this page are fairly depressing: http://homepages.rpi.edu/~newbeh/WhyFundScience.html http://homepages.rpi.edu/~newbeh/WhyFundScience.html

bitxbit 8y ago

I think it comes down to US and UK in terms of general science research. I would include Japan but language is an issue (for many). Despite what the average math and science metrics in the US imply, I actually think it’s a direct result of more practical approach to education in the US. There are unbelievable opportunities for young students who want to excel in sciences. I was around graduate level research environment since the 8th grade. And I would say it wasn’t all that unusual as long as you knew where to look. Access to science research is unparalleled in the US.

somethingsimple 8y ago
How hard it is to access it as an adult with a career? I'm an immigrant software engineer but I'd love to work in research (I think). Is there a path other than a PhD at this point?
- jeffmcmahan 8y ago
  There is no need to jump in as a PhD. Enroll as an undergraduate anywhere that has a good department in the area you're interested in, and then express interest and work as hard as you can -- if you show promise, the faculty and graduate students will notice you and enjoy your conversation. However, if you want a paid career as a researcher, you will absolutely need a PhD.
- bitxbit 8y ago
  If you know python and college level statistics you should be able to find someone. Everyone needs to crunch data (and some graduate students feel its beneath them :-)
- AlexCoventry 8y ago
  If you're a software engineer and willing to take a pay cut, plenty of research labs will be happy to take you on.
- neuromantik8086 8y ago
  Try to hustle your way into a Research Software Engineer [0] role somewhere. The role isn't formally acknowledged in the U.S. (outside of Google) but you can usually find them posted on university job boards as "Programmer/Analyst" or something similar. Downsides include crap pay and the potential for your job to spontaneously disappear after soft money [1] runs out. [0] https://rse.ac.uk/who/ https://rse.ac.uk/who/ [1] https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/30621/what-is-a-soft-money-research-position https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/30621/what-is-a...

chairmanwow 8y ago

For those interested, here is a link to a Wolfram Alpha query that shows US vs China GPD PPP [1] Also, here is a Wikipedia link to what GDP PPP (Gross Domestic Product Purchasing Power Parity) actually is [2] [1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US,+China+GDP+PPP http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US,+China+GDP+PPP [2] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_Power_Parity https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_Power_Parity

Eridrus 8y ago

I think the point that most grad programs don't have US students is revealing - for those who have alternative entry into the US economy, most people decide that a PhD program is a poor choice. Most of the things people work on in their PhD programs are very niche, and most do not work in academia or on the same thing after they finish their PhD. And most people never really make a noticeable contribution to science with their thesis. So I'm a bit skeptical that we're losing all this valuable knowledge overseas, rather than PhD programs being about signaling their skill to employers and our byzantine immigration process. Not to say that people learn nothing valuable, but the number of people I've worked with who did a Math PhD and then never used that knowledge ever again is surprisingly high. I think the US should be less concerned about whether it is on top wrt publications, but about whether English remains the language of scholarship, because if Chinese folks start publishing in Mandarin, that's going to be a far bigger loss to English speaking countries than if we do not originate as much research.

mc32 8y ago
>if Chinese folks start publishing in Mandarin They may, and then it will be like during the cold war where Soviets published in Russian and we'd be lucky if someone translated that into English. If it were to happen today, someone would make a business out of translating the publications --maybe even crowdsource the translations.
- cryptozeus 8y ago
  Would bd so easy to translate in this day and age
  - btrettel 8y ago
    Easier, but not easy. During my PhD I've translated about a dozen papers into English, mostly from Russian. Google Translate and Yandex Translate did the actual translation (I would compare the two), but what they produce is not always intelligible or correct. On a few more important papers I went through the paper sentence by sentence to clarify the translation. It's not uncommon that I have to change certain phrases because the software translates a phrase literally when the equivalent is not a literal translation, for example. Sometimes I didn't know what the equivalent terminology was without research and guesswork. I also added footnotes as appropriate if I thought they would help the reader understand something which would not be clear if they were unfamiliar with the original language or research culture. I would not be surprised if I spent over 100 hours on a particular series of 3 papers alone. I don't mind the time, as I enjoyed the process and learned a lot from it. The good news is that I think the feedback I provided Google Translate improved the quality of the product's translation of scientific Russian, it is slowly getting better.

_louisr_ 8y ago

Right... More scientists and researchers making less than minimum wage is surely the answer

spyckie2 8y ago

I find it helpful to remove cultural origins and model it purely based on opportunity, and it makes a lot of sense. In this instance, take away Chinese / American from the article and reanalyze it with the kind of education they received. The fact is that scientific research has extremely poor returns on investment, with high specialization requirements and little opportunity for wealth, fame, or impact. Ground-breaking discovery in niche fields tends to favor one dimensional specialists over generalists, whereas in pretty much any other industry, being multi-talented can be extremely impactful. In a wealthy country where most people are educated to be multi-talented, it's suboptimal for them to go into research because there are so many better opportunities. Whereas if you're a country with a billion people but doesn't have the luxury to educate people to be multi-faceted, if you have the talent to be a researcher, it's a great opportunity for you. An illustration in RPG terms: well educated, multi-faceted individual (can be from the US or China, doesn't matter) communication: 70/100 networking: 70/100 leadership: 70/100 scientific discovery: 70/100 (with science aptitude) communication: 70/100 networking: 70/100 leadership: 70/100 scientific discovery: 90/100 A not-as-well educated person communication: 40/100 networking: 50/100 leadership: 30/100 scientific discovery: 40/100 with science aptitude: communication: 40/100 networking: 50/100 leadership: 30/100 scientific discovery: 90/100 It's just a lot more common to find the latter in a country with 1.3 billion people, and the former in the richest country in the world. For the latter example, being good at science opens up opportunities for them. But for the well educated, they probably have a lot better opportunities within their reach. And with the prevailing metric of a good researcher being novel discoveries or breakthroughs, they both have an equal chance to make contribution to the field, so there's no incentives for the well educated person (Chinese or American) to pursue research.

spyckie2 8y ago
revisiting the thought, it may not have to deal with skillset as much as opportunity availability. There are more opportunities for American citizens that are equivalent to a PhD, whereas that may not be the case for non-Americans.

gonvaled 8y ago

A moot point for humankind: we really do not care. It seems it is working out quite well by the Chinese remaining in China. Well done!

projektir 8y ago

Or maybe the US should actually look at its own citizens for once. It seems every time the US has a problem, they try to solve it by importing people.

deleted 8y ago
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tonyedgecombe 8y ago
That's not a quick fix though, you have to start with people who are five years old right now then see the benefits in twenty or more years.
nafizh 8y ago
There are huge amounts of fellowships and scholarships available for US citizens to go into grad school. If they don't want to go in whose fault is that. Admittedly, most of them come out with huge debt from undergrad, so I understand the decision to get jobs immediately.

bsder 8y ago

> So in effect, the grad students would get advanced degrees in the hard sciences and take that knowledge back home with them, whereas the U.S. students would get a B.S. in literature, advertising, or business (generalizing of course). One could argue that the US students are simply more rational actors and perceive the fact that a PhD has no economic value.

rdtsc 8y ago

> (this is a net win for humanity though) Yeah. Maybe we want to take a more global approach and cheer when other countries are doing well and are attracting scientists? There was an article a while back how a Chinese professor or maybe recent grad, couldn't find a position in US and the Chinese government made them a generous offer, an apartment, a guaranteed research fund, etc. Everyone was bashing and shaming US but it seemed kind of nice that China is able to do those things. > So in effect, the grad students would get advanced degrees in the hard sciences and take that knowledge back home with I remember that too, but that's kind of the goal of the F-1 / J-1 educational visas. None of them are designed for permanent residency or imply a path towards citizenship. The idea is that these students will get a graduate education then return home and and apply that knowledge in various countries around the world.

deleted 8y ago

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shams93 8y ago

Its also incredibly expensive to go to college here compared to anywhere else on earth. But in public education the math and science coverage tends to be horrific, but that's because we pay teachers such low wages they often have to live in their vehicles. Who wants a job that is completely stripped of human dignity?

neuromantik8086 8y ago
The high cost of college here is honestly more about amenities than anything else. Whenever the discussion of making college tuition-free comes up in the U.S., people nearly always point to Europe as an example of an area where free education is the norm. What few people tend to take into account, however, is that European universities are pretty no-frills for the most part. I personally enjoyed the bare bones approach to higher ed during my time studying abroad (no stupid residential education office to overcharge me for crap housing, no forced meal plans, buying textbooks at my discretion alone), but I know a number of people from my undergrad who would be utterly lost without the amount of hand-holding and perks (gyms, expensive facilities that almost certainly are underutilized, etc) that occur in American universities.

Tharkun 8y ago

When the French executed Lavoisier, they said "the republic needs neither chemists nor scientists". The US seems to be of a similar mind at this point in time.

rsj_hn 8y ago
That's a bit unfair. You are talking about an event in the Great Terror (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror), when thousands of people were executed by the Committee for Public Safety, both on the left and the right, as Robespierre descended into madness. Towards the end, he set up a festival in which he invented his own cult -- the cult of the Supreme Being, and posed as moses carrying the revelation of the Supreme Being from a mountain. That really started to freak people out. Pronouncements from that era are not representative of French culture or thinking even a few months after the terror. For example, Napoleon was a great patron of science. BTW, a fantastic source on the French Revolution is the revolutions podcast -- they cover it over 53 episodes http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/ http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/ One of the more poignant episodes towards the end of the Great Terror was when, in one day, they executed a group of nuns whose only crime was living together communally, and a 16 year old pickpocket. Whereas before, the citizens were cheering on the Guillotine, towards the end, when the boy was beheaded, someone from the crowd shouted out "Please, no more children!"

EB66 8y ago

> Unfortunately, the attractiveness of becoming a U.S. citizen is waning I don't think that's necessarily true. Despite the politics and rhetoric of the current administration, just today the front page of the NYTimes ran an article titled: U.S. Has Highest Share of Foreign-Born Population Since 1910 ( https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/us/census-foreign-population.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/us/census-foreign-populat... ) The article opens with: > The foreign-born population in the United States has reached its highest share since 1910, according to government data released Thursday, and the new arrivals are more likely to come from Asia and to have college degrees than those who arrived in past decades.

KennyCason 8y ago

Completely agree. The sad part is that I know many Chinese people who have studied in the United States and want to stay, but we do not make it even remotely easy to do so.

Nitramp 8y ago

I've relatively recently lived in the US (in SF) for two years and returned back to Europe. It's been a great experience, and there are many great things in the US, NorCal, and San Fracisco. Still, I'd have a hard time settling in the US for the long run. The country comes across as so deeply troubled, drenched in toxic politics and a seemingly irrecoverably broken society. Even with lots of economic, scientific, etc opportunity, I'd be very worried about long term happiness in such an environment. Maybe that's a rather personal take, but to me, what's the value of lots of opportunity if everyone still seems troubled and struggling?

draw_down 8y ago
Yeah that all sounds about right to me. (I have only ever lived in America)
jjeaff 8y ago
Just don't watch the news and problem solved. Life is great here and I rarely come across divisive political fights except on TV and the internet. The media thrives on it, so that's what they focus on.
- ItsMe000001 8y ago
  I am/was in the same boat as OP. I moved back to Germany after almost a decade in the US (mostly Silicon Valley). Closing your eyes does not make the problems go away. Even if you don't care and avoid the tens of millions of left-behind people, for myself, looking at things like health care was enough to give me second thoughts. It is nice as long as it is nice. I had a colleague, enterprise sales, very good income, who ended up living in the streets in the Bay Area due to a few turns of bad luck that could happen to anyone. Health care cost issues were part of it, but it only got really bad because of a the self-reinforcing feedback loop since there was no help available early (and the very late help was privately organized from people who knew him once they became aware of his dire situation). I venture to claim that he would have been okay if similar bad luck had befallen him in his native Germany. I'm not sure how seriously other people take this, but I find it curious that a huge part of entertainment in movies, shows and games made/consumed in the US is about violence horror, and/or the end of society or even the world (oh and "heroes" of course - always coupled with violence). That is not a global phenomenon, or it only is in as far as Hollywood has always been exporting culture. It also is not normal, I can say from my own (almost half a century) life experience (first part of it on the Eastern side of the German border). Myself, I can empathize with scenarios of the post-apocalypse as shown e.g. in "The Last Of Us", especially the violence and distrust between surviving groups - imagining myself in the area of the US in such a world. I can't imagine the same scenario in Europe, at least not on the same dystopian level. I would feel significantly safer in Europe after the collapse of civilization (said this commenter before getting murdered an hour later by another desperate European end-of-society survivor, haha - yeah, sure, can happen, it's just my gut feeling). I have to balance my post by saying I still feel strong and positive about many things in the US. I'm not a "dark side only" guy when it comes to the view of that country. Still, even if I were rich I would not go back to live there, I don't feel good about the overall direction, even if a lot of things were to improve. All this darn celebration of violence and "heroes", for example, and as was pointed out here, science (so many immigrants holding it up), economic policies, politics (result of a feedback loop with economics and business policies, e.g. incentives for the media - what kind of news sells? Plus incredible concentration in a few hands).

oh-kumudo 8y ago

US certainly has a cultural problem, out of all major countries out there, US has a weird position where a significant population denies evolution/climate change, and turned those topics into highly political charged issues. Also the US education system prior to college takes an another interesting aim to cultivate students' confidence, not by equipping them with logical training, but circumventing hard subjects like math/science, which is really ironic. A very lazy excuse to insufficient investment in maintaining their domestic pool of potential STEM candidates. While on the other hand, what China demonstrated here is, that it is totally possible for a poor country to bootstrap itself into a major science power, providing the society has strong focus on science education and an effective rewarding system to provide incentives to study science. Plagiarism concerns aside, it is pretty successful, otherwise we won't be talking about it here, let alone compare it against US. Maybe it's time for US to let it down its own myth about American exceptionalism, and revisit the true cause of its current lead in global research: large influx of foreign talents, first from Europe, then Soviet Russia and now China/India. US was lucky to have this constant grab of the best minds from the rest of the world, but sadly, or maybe not, I can't see this would continue. Time to wake up.

baybal2 8y ago
>Maybe it's time for US to let it down its own myth about American exceptionalism, and revisit the true cause of its current lead in global research: large influx of foreign talents, first from Europe, then Soviet Russia and now China/India. US was lucky to have this constant grab of the best minds from the rest of the world, but sadly, or maybe not, I can't see this would continue. That actually is US weakness, US always had to import talent. Grad school is strong in US thanks to being constantly fed by world class academicians ready to work for peanuts just to get name of a prestigious university on their resume. I will not say that US is that bad at growing homegrown talent, but it is worse at that than China. Much worse. To understand what's happening there, you have to think that in China, non-academic tertiary education is much bigger and stronger, and it feeds both the industry, and higher tier academic studies. In former Eastern Bloc, countries copied USSR's education system, and which itself copied from Prussia and pre-WWI German states. Few of its distinctive features: 1. Doctoral level studies are SUPER TOUGH, and you will be laughed off if you try attempt them without at least 10 years of graduate studies, and/or nomination for at least a minor scientific award. That's why Eastern Bloc masters level equal Western PhD. It never saw the academic credential inflation after WWII. 2. People are told off to avoid academia until they are totally committed and able to make an academic contribution. This true when we talk about first tier universities. 3. Lion share of people are totally fine with 2 year technical school programs. Chinese 2 year tech schools are definitely better than undergrad studies in US. Some are so good, that even comparing them to masters level in US wouldn't be a stretch. This is made possible by the fact that Chinese secondaries graduate much more prepared pupils, with both strong STEM and basic industry related vocational education. 4. Plentiful supply of tech school talents feed the industry, and keep educated labour cheap. And delivers universities a higher quality of candidate pool. Person's resume speaks better than artfully worded application letters the US universities are known for. 5. This allows university level studies to be what they were supposed to be originally: academic research, and not doing degree milling. Because research universities can afford to be picky with applicants, they can stay very focused. 1 in 150 admission odds for are know for some universities. Be sure that professors pick people with the highest promise, right aptitude, and people whose personal interests match their studies. 6. The industry and academia are don't go very far apart despite there being an iron wall in between academic and practical tertiary education. In overall, the distinction is between grunt workers and "highly skilled" category much, much less obvious than in US. Companies can recruit more schooled workforce in general in China, than in US. Having assembly lines staffed with real engineers is not uncommon, and the same applies for the rest of the higher tech industries: chemical, biomedical, semiconductor. And nowhere it is as evident as in computer programming, with outsourcing sweatshops being staffed by people with 6 year education (Chinese computer science school is terrible though.) Conclusion: Chinese academia being that strong is result of their undergrad studies being much stronger that American, and that itself is built on strong secondary education. But it is bad at retaining and attracting anybody qualifying as "world class"

godelmachine 8y ago

I would like to know what HNer’s think about RAISE act, which directly affects legal immigrants.

nvarsj 8y ago

> Unfortunately, the attractiveness of becoming a U.S. citizen is waning because (1) current U.S. policies on science are extremely unfavorable to foreign researchers and (2) other countries are making it much more desirable to remain a citizen there than to become a U.S. citizen (this is a net win for humanity though) Don't forget (3) being tax compliant as a US citizen/perm resident. Since Obama made this worse with FACTA, Trump now with GILTI, etc., US citizenship and permanent residency has become extremely hostile to expats.

0xcafecafe 8y ago

Not to mention the antiquated immigration system wherein, a country of birth is given preference over qualifications and pay for granting permanent residency, disadvantaging nationals from populous nations like India and China. https://www.cato.org/blog/150-year-wait-indian-immigrants-advanced-degrees https://www.cato.org/blog/150-year-wait-indian-immigrants-ad... I know many of my peers from grad school are exiting US after a few years of grad school due to this.

zarkov99 8y ago

There is also the matter that for a smart young American, Law, Medicine and Finance are far more financially rewarding endeavors than Science.

geebee 8y ago
The RAND institute published a paper supporting this position: It's a bit old now (2003), but I think it still holds. https://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP241.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP241.html

ataturk 8y ago

But you weren't attending MIT or CalTech I bet.

ptero 8y ago

> we need to incentivize the best scientists and researchers in other countries to come here and become U.S. citizens This may be outside of US control. There are always exceptions, but based on experience of my friends who came to the US from other countries and stayed, scientists generally did not go to the US; they go from something: economic shock, persecution, hungry kids, crime, no science funding (not low, zero), etc. and will to go whatever decent, stable country that would take them. Big inflows of energetic, educated folks happen after wars (e.g., WW2). Collapse of communism made lots of folks from Poland to Uzbekistan search for another home. Those greatly benefited US but were one-time events that cannot be easily extended. To lead in science a country needs to grow its scientists organically and encourage them to stay in science. My 2c.

jmngomes 8y ago

I wouldn't discount the fact that a lot of great STEM students elect to work in finance as opposed to science or R&D roles: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-rent-seeking-problem-in-contemporary-finance-by-robert-j--shiller https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-rent-seekin...

justicezyx 8y ago

> U.S. that really just doesn't care about science anymore Not just "dont care", they routinely ridicule and make fun of scientific research personnels, everywhere. Hollywood being the worts offender.

kindatrue 8y ago

>if the U.S. wants to remain "the best"< If. The U.S. is fast becoming a retiree/senior citizen voting nation. Their top priority (understandably) is cutting taxes/costs to maximize their (poorly planned) retirements. Being the best no long matters like it did when the boomers were young. https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv/status/926282252392083457 https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv/status/926282252392083457

hollerith 8y ago
If the demographic shift you describe really does have the effect you describe, then most other countries are becoming even less interested in being the best than the US is becoming -- although I guess a person could argue that a country like China where the population cannot vote (on anything that matters much) will avoid the effect you describe.

squozzer 8y ago

There's another side to this that isn't discussed and that is - at least for me - the easier and more lucrative path was to take my bachelor's degree in physics and get a corporate job. My GRE / GPA wasn't going to get me into Princeton anyway. But the road to a PhD in Physics in 1994 was basically 1) Probably 8 years of study + teaching assistant work and 2) a quality dissertation. That gets you in the CV pile for the next phase. The actual career of being a physicist includes 1) multi-year post-doc(s); 2) University job, which would have been associate professor then, adjunct professor now; 3) "Publish or perish"; 4) Hustling grants; 5) Managing TAs and RAs. For peanuts (unless those grants are fat money) compared to a corporate job. For foreigners, the difference between academia / corporate work probably isn't as stark economically.

obscurantist 8y ago
Finding a good tenured position is comically difficult now. I know an assistant professor of engineering at Princeton who just left for Renaissance Technologies because he couldn't secure a long-term professorship there.

Nuzzerino 8y ago

Can you give an example of one of those unfavorable policies and how China does it more favorably? The post speaks in general terms.