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Why did the social prestige of science and engineering decline in the US?

57 points by scritic 16y ago

dwc 16y ago
Two books I've recently read are The Age of American Unreason by Jacoby [1] and Unscientific America by Mooney & Kirschenbaum [2]. Both are worth reading, but Jacoby gives a deeper and more thoughtful analysis and spends considerable time on historical roots and trends. This topic is tied heavily to politics, and I hesitate to get into that here. I will say this: science is about exploring, like math is about exploring. Viewing science and math as pragmatic skills reduces them to engineering and accounting. Now there's nothing wrong with engineers and accountants and we desperately need and value their skills. But we also need scientists and research mathematicians who explore mysteries for the sake of discovery. There are a lot of subtle implications of that which are completely lost on people who think of science and math as purely functional, vocational pursuits. The benefits of science and math that have been capitalized on by engineers are spin-offs of people with curiosity exploring for exploration's sake. When exploration for its own sake is devalued, the engineers of the world find once fertile ground growing barren. 1. http://www.amazon.com/Age-American-Unreason-Susan-Jacoby/dp/0375423745 http://www.amazon.com/Age-American-Unreason-Susan-Jacoby/dp/... 2. http://www.amazon.com/Unscientific-America-Scientific-Illiteracy-Threatens/dp/0465013058 http://www.amazon.com/Unscientific-America-Scientific-Illite...
- scritic 16y ago
  Thanks for the book recommendations, dwc!
- bugsy 16y ago
  From the synopses and the comments of those two books, here is a summary: "It is all the dumb people that won't accept the One Truth of atheism that are to blame!"
  - dwc 16y ago
    I'm not sure where you got that idea[1]. There was a time several decades ago when the Christian proletariat majority widely supported science, read popular periodicals about science, and aspired to educate their children in science and engineering. There was also a time when conservatives were far more pro-science than liberals. This is why it's important to know some of the history here. Today's anti-science sentiment is surely rooted in right wing Christian factions, and that needs to be fought. But there's absolutely no reason to think that conservative Christians can't endorse and value science, since they have in the past. The acknowledgement of past conservative/religious alignment with science comes from Jacoby. Decrying the current state is not the same as a summary dismissal. Mooney and Kirschenbaum are what the "New Atheists" call accommodationists. Atheists themselves, they believe in embracing and working with religious people to find common ground. They're looking to bond with the "sane" religious moderate majority and fight the Luddite, anti-science extremists. EDITED to add: 1. Ok, you got that idea from comments, obviously. Beware comments on such things. They probably say more about the commenter than about the book.
    - bugsy 16y ago
      "Where I got the idea" is the synopses and comments of the two books as I said. Your comment seems to confirm that you agree that religion is to blame for science illiteracy. Perhaps some people will be interested in a study with empirical data regarding the alleged american adult science illiteracy: http://mailer.fsu.edu/~slosh//PCST90578.pdf http://mailer.fsu.edu/~slosh//PCST90578.pdf
      - dwc 16y ago
        I believe my comment took account of the role that some extreme religious viewpoints play, while stating that the moderate majority is capable of accepting science. It seems no matter what I write you are blaming me for having an extreme stance. I do not. There is no reason for me to give all religion viewpoints a pass. I will not. There's no reason to take criticism of any religious sect as a criticism of all religion. That's not the argument I'm making, nor am I implying it.
        16y ago
- caseysoftware 16y ago
  We have a government that generally believes we can legislate our problems away and that most people are incapable of taking care of themselves. When you start from that premise, everything that you do "for the good of society" or "because it's fair" ends up stepping on someone, usually those closer to the top. Alternatively, when you have leadership coming from fields where reason and making things better by creating are valued, you get a different result. Oddly enough, I'll cite China as an improving example of this and I think it's due to the make up of their leadership: * In the US, the top of the Obama Administration is mostly lawyers and/or mostly from Harvard. Over half the Senators were/are lawyers. The last President with technical/scientific training past Chem 101 was Herbert Hoover.. 80 years ago. * On the other hand, China's president was a hydraulic engineer and the Communist Politburo is eight engineers and a lawyer. Their previous president was an electrical engineer. Source: http://www.economist.com/node/13496638 http://www.economist.com/node/13496638 Which country do you think values scientists and engineering more? Which country do you think understands science and engineering better and pushes to strengthen those fields or at least gets the hell out of the way? (Now I feel dirty for celebrating something about China's political leadership.)
  - jleyank 16y ago
    No, Jimmy Carter was a nuc. Navy, selected by Rickover, etc.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - ams6110 16y ago
      Which just goes to to prove that technical or scientific knowledge is not a good indicator of political effectiveness. Carter's presidency was a disaster.
    - alexgartrell 16y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter#Naval_career http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter#Naval_career
  - 16y ago
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
seltzered 16y ago
Read iTulip.com / the book "The post-castastrophy economy" I'd argue it was the rise of the FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) economy that grew very rapidly over the past 30 years. The FIRE economy is opposite to the classical producer - consumer economy. There's plenty of times I sometimes wish I just made money like my friends doing trading/finance/etc. instead of studying electrical engineering. I'd get to work downtown instead of in a far away suburb too.
- scritic 16y ago
  I think the rise of the FIRE economy definitely has a role, I agree!
- BrentRitterbeck 16y ago
  There are people with strong scientific, mathematical, and technological backgrounds working in the FIRE space. This is directly the result of a lack of funding for traditional science. FIRE didn't take people from traditional science. FIRE absorbed scientifically-inclined people who otherwise wouldn't have a place to put their background to use. Fund traditional science more, and the prestige will come back. Traditional scientific research is expensive. EDIT: Here's a recent link (a few months ago) that illustrates my point: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-tevatron-is-shutting-down-2011-1#ixzz1CgbVHPia http://www.businessinsider.com/the-tevatron-is-shutting-down...
kmfrk 16y ago
Read Anti-Intellectualism in America by Richard* Hofstadter; it's as true and relevant today, as it was back then. The decline, if any, probably has to do with the fact that there wasn't a Cold War where scientists could participate directly against a tangible threat and common purpose: “The Sputnik was more than a shock to American national vanity: it brought an immense amount of attention to bear on the consequences of anti-intellectualism in the school system and in American life at large. Suddenly the national distaste for intellect appeared to be not just a disgrace but a hazard to survival. After assuming for some years that its main concern with teachers was to examine them for disloyalty, the nation now began to worry about their low salaries. Scientists, who had been saying for years that the growing obsession with security was demoralizing to research, suddenly found receptive listeners. Cries of protest against the slackness of American education, hitherto raised only by a small number of educational critics, were now taken up by television, mass magazines, businessmen, scientists, politicians, admirals, and university presidents, and soon swelled into a national chorus of self-reproach. Of course, all this did not immediately cause the vigilante mind to disappear, nor did it disperse anti-intellectualism as a force in American life; even in the sphere most immediately affected, that of education, the ruling passion of the public seemed to be for producing more Sputniks, not for developing more intellect, and some of the new rhetoric about education almost suggested that gifted children were to be regarded as resources in the cold war. But the atmosphere did change notably. In 1952, only intellectuals seemed much disturbed by the specter of anti-intellectualism; by 1958, the idea that this might be an important and even a dangerous national failing was persuasive to must thinking people.”
- irickt 16y ago
  Correction: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter
  - kmfrk 16y ago
    Thanks. Those pesky, prolific Hofstadters.
- jerf 16y ago
  Part of the problem is that the American distrust of intellectualism is itself not the irrational thing that those sympathetic to intellectuals would like to think. Intellectuals killed by the millions in the 20th century, and it actually takes the sophisticated training of "education" to work yourself up into a state where you refuse to count that in the books. Intellectuals routinely declared things that aren't true; catastrophically wrong predictions about the economy, catastrophically wrong pronouncements about foreign policy, and just generally numerous times where they've been wrong. Again, it takes a lot of training to ignore this fact. "Scientists" collectively were witnessed by the public flipflopping at a relatively high frequency on numerous topics; how many times did eggs go back and forth between being deadly and beneficial? Sure the media gets some blame here but the scientists played into it, each time confidently pronouncing that this time they had it for sure and it is imperative that everyone live the way they are saying (until tomorrow). Scientists have failed to resist politicization across the board, and the standards of what constitutes science continues to shift from a living, vibrant, thoughtful understanding of the purposes and ways of science to a scelerotic hide-bound form-over-substance version of science where papers are too often written to either explicitly attract grants or to confirm someone's political beliefs... and regardless of whether this is 2% or 80% of the papers written today it's nearly 100% of the papers that people hear about. I simplify for rhetorical effect; my point is not that this is a literal description of the current state of the world but that it is far more true than it should be. Any accounting of "anti-intellectualism" that fails to take this into account and lays all the blame on "Americans" is too incomplete to formulate an action plan that will have any chance of success. It's not a one-sided problem. If you want to fix anti-intellectualism, you first need to fix intellectualism and return it to its roots of dispassionate exploration, commitment to truth over all else and bending processes to find truth rather than bending truth to fit (politicized) processes, and return to great, foundational humility that even the press could not overplay into hubris. And they need to drop their blinders whereby they excuse away the damage that intellectuals have done while ignoring these ancient precepts and only crediting themselves their successes, because it cuts themselves off from the very object lessons that could help them return to this time-tested approach to science, which they still flatter themselves that they follow. If you fail to fix the intellectuals first, then all your effort to fix "Americans" is going to fail; you'll bend your efforts towards getting them to look at intellectuals seriously, but they'll end up coming to the same conclusions they already have about the value of intellectuals and you'll have wasted your shot. I'm not holding my breath.
patrickgzill 16y ago
Lawyers and MBAs made twice to 10x the money for the same or less amount of work.
- coffie 16y ago
  "The Big Bang Theory" is your best choice to understand how scientists come off as. I have had myself my work-life priorities misplaced and have had my burnouts. I had BS and I had enrolled in an PhD engineering degree. One of the departments have had people working and living in the lab. Those were 25-year old dedicated professionals. One of my friends was getting married. When we asked him when was the engagement party, he said he "had not time for it." Good for him. That was not the job for me. I want to experience my life. My roommate works in an electrical engineering company. He plans to move to another place - the work hours that the workers attend to there are 8 am to 8 pm. For, well, 40 years? That is nowhere near normal-life-ish. You also forgot other jobs also offer sunlight-filled offices and certainly more common human contacts. I do not want to spend my life in an isolated place or holed up in a windowsless lab. It sometimes happens in some science jobs. I think the scientists have been resilient folks, when we put the settings that they have had to survive in. They have not been taught some social skills as much. Which you do not teach - you just let the people play them out. I am reading an IT-job interview book, which I quote: "however, like the engineers, many computer scientists have sub-standard communications skills."
- tzs 16y ago
  I don't think lawyers do the same or less amount of work than scientists and engineers. I've watched up close a big patent suit (I was one of the inventors named on the patent, and the only one available for the trial), and at least in that area of law, the lawyers worked more hours sustained than any scientist or engineer I've known. When I was in my early 30's I got burned out on programming, and went to law school with the intent of going into patent and copyright law. However, after the third year, when I had one paper to write to graduate, I went back to my old job for the summer. I was no longer burned out on programming, and I also had the worst case of writers block in the history of the universe, so never got around to writing that last paper. Having watched the lawyers during the patent suit, I am pretty sure I dodged a bullet by not becoming a lawyer.
rospaya 16y ago
First thought: the US no longer produces like before. Services have taken over manufacturing.
- scritic 16y ago
  I agree the services economy must have something to do with it. But I'm not sure how exactly. It's true that services now employ more people than manufacturing. But even if the number of people employed in manufacturing have declined, the amount of stuff manufactured itself has risen; manufacturing is more productive (even if employing less people) than it was before. I am not yet sure why this should lead to a loss of prestige for science and engineering.
- thecabinet 16y ago
  > the US no longer produces like before You're right about that, but not the way you meant: http://mercatus.org/publication/us-manufacturing-output-vs-jobs-1975 http://mercatus.org/publication/us-manufacturing-output-vs-j... The US produces twice what it did in 1975 using a third fewer people.
bradshaw1965 16y ago
The percentage of smart people working in finance trended much higher then science and engineering. Fake disciplines like "Financial Engineering" thus became paramount. Institutions supported these changes.
- coffie 16y ago
  Speculative fields have became more noticeable. Though, can you tell me what is not speculative in social culture? If one were to push it, what you call "fake disciplines" can extend to most of human society. Don't go there.
  - bradshaw1965 16y ago
    My fake discipline comment is a direct response to the havoc wrought by attempting to place a normal distribution, which worked so nicely in insurance when dealing with things like lifespan, on top of a chaotic system like finance. Long Term Capital Management, Value at Risk, and other models from very, very smart quantitative minds who simply misunderstood the problem space and almost took down the world economy. I call that a "fake discipline".
    - coffie 16y ago
      Hehe. Yes, I appreciate your clarification. That is true - especially as LTCM was full with PhDs. Though it also extends to a multitude of "empty suits" positions. These bright minds needed to think in that structured fashion in order for them to have the world make sense to. It is an excellent point. Nevertheless, with experience and ambition judgement becomes better. I would like to point out research in low-probability events, response to too-big-to-fail, fat tails and black swans in defense of emerging Financial Engineering and Risk Management. The best defense of it that I have ever seen was in the book "The Black Swan".
    - coffie 16y ago
      Though - come on. Do not run into the cognitive framework where you start to compare disciplines. Viewing disciplines along ranks can start messing with you. When I said I have read about FE and LTCM in the "Black Swan", I meant that the people working there are not complacent. The author of that book for example seems genuinely active - though might not be considered likeable. The virtue of the author's criticism to the field that he belongs, he shows the fluidity adherent to him and others within finance. Let's compare it to an example from the automotive industry. Companies out of Detroit have been complacent, which had run into serious design troubles. They were in the business of making mediocre cars. When faced with the prospect of bankruptcy, Ford had the chance to reform before the financial crisis hit. GM and Chrysler - which was owned by Benz earlier - leadership flew to Washington to ask for unspecified amount of money. I cannot assign causality of badness in the current networked world, but the physical/manufacturing car guys seemed to be worse than LTCM. And they had the nerve to face California in court over car emission requirements. So, there are other people that have not acted with diligence to the community. It is about people though. It is not about disciplines. It is all about people.
kleiba 16y ago
I thought about the same question before, or in particular the social prestige of computer scientists. My best shot is: because you cannot make cool TV shows about computer scientists. There are lots of shows in which specific professions come across as cool - doctors, cops, lawyers (of all things)... on the other hand, whenever a computer scientist is portrayed in a show or a movie, what you get is the stereotypical nerd. And there are some good shows, too - but they're mostly funny shows, not cool as in "I want to be like that". And what's better suited to shape the youth's role models than the media they consume? And I don't blame the networks or screenwriters or anything - I've tried to come up with a good concept for a show myself and couldn't do it. Yet I've always found it puzzling that the person who simply buys the latest iPhone is considered hip, while the people who actually build and program them are looked down on...
- karolisd 16y ago
  Doctors, cops, and lawyers interact with other people in interesting ways. Scientists and engineers generally interact with machines in interesting way. Much more difficult to make a story about that.
  - WalterBright 16y ago
    I'm sorry, I can't do that, Dave.
    - kleiba 16y ago
      I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
  - alextp 16y ago
    Except science and engineering is as much about people as it is about machine. Look at the most succcessful scientists and engineers: a lot of what they accomplished they owe to the other people who collaborated and worked with them. The amount of politics and interaction that goes in the higher levels of these professions is also something that can't be ignored.
- 16y ago
ronnier 16y ago
Changing population base and other ways to make more money faster.
zaidf 16y ago
My pediatric surgeon dad who deals with kids everyday loves to chat with kids about their aspirations. In the US, vast majority of the kids want to become firefighters or cops. In contrast, when my dad practiced in India, majority of kids wanted to become doctors or engineers. It's probably hard to tell the cause from the effect. May be they both have a little bit to do with each other. But in Indian movies, for example, the doctor and engineer or businessman usually gets the hot chick--not the macho cop or firefighters.
- scritic 16y ago
  Heh. Some thoughts on this: http://cogsciresearch.blogspot.com/2010/04/math-phobia-pedagogy-and-choice-of.html http://cogsciresearch.blogspot.com/2010/04/math-phobia-pedag...
  - reemrevnivek 16y ago
    Excellent read! Here's the author's own summary: > To sum up, my point in this post was to posit an "internal" explanation, rooted in styles of pedagogy, for why the best and the brightest high school students in the US do not opt for technical majors/careers in college, while those in India do so overwhelmingly. My explanation for this was that, in the US, it is the authoritarian nature of science education, especially when compared with the "creative" way other disciplines (like history or literature) are taught, that is responsible for the math-phobia. On the other hand, in India, the cultural logic of the same authoritarian style of science education works out differently because students can discern a "method" in it, and they can discern no such method in the other disciplines, just a series of facts. Consequently, the best and the brightest high school students in India are less likely to suffer from math-phobia.
- jseliger 16y ago
  In the US, vast majority of the kids want to become firefighters or cops. . . . It's probably hard to tell the cause from the effect. I think it's easy: jobs as scientists in the U.S. suck relative to other jobs. See here: http://www.miller-mccune.com/science/the-real-science-gap-16191/ http://www.miller-mccune.com/science/the-real-science-gap-16...? for more. Basically, if you have the chops to get a job in science, you're probably better off doing something else (like med school; lots of people want to be doctors). Consider that firefighters or cops get paid reasonably well; effectively can't be fired after a short probationary period unless they do something incredibly egregious because they're protected by unions; have jobs that demand physical activity, so they aren't just sitting in front of a screen all day; and, in the case of firefighters, have a level of social prestige that means (male) firefighters are almost universally admired by women. Wanting to be a cop or firefighter requires a two-year degree, if that. Wanting to be a pediatric surgeon takes a minimum of 12 (four for undergrad, four for med school, four for residency, although I think it's more than four). Wanting to be an engineer takes at least four.
tsotha 16y ago
I don't see any reason to believe the social prestige of science and engineering is actually declining. It's never been very high. You can go back to popular culture references in the '50s to see that. People aren't avoiding STEM majors in college because of a lack of prestige. It's because science and technology is hard work and there's not a lot of money in it. If you're willing to put in that kind of time there are other, easier ways to make more money. Outside of a small slice of the population in media and entertainment, "social prestige" is nothing more than how much money you make . Investment bankers don't get a lot of interest from women because investment banking is interesting or investment bankers are seen to be somehow better than other people.
- ricarr 16y ago
  Investment bankers are aggressive male animals. Is is possible women actually find that exciting? ...
karolisd 16y ago
Was the social prestige of science and engineer higher before? I'm not sure if I actually buy the premise.
- Lost_BiomedE 16y ago
  I think there were a few times when we had blips higher. In the late 1800s and early 1900s and during the space race. I can't find specific data on it, so it is possible that re-written history has led me astray on this point. I also think, given the pipeline visible in research, we will have a resurgence in a decade or two.
  - dnautics 16y ago
    Your assumption is that an increased labor force will result in an increase in productivity.
    - Lost_BiomedE 16y ago
      I wasn't thinking in terms of labor force. I was assuming current research could lead to tech that has a very large impact on our daily lives, and that this impact would increase positive perception the public has of scientists and engineers. I think this happened in the early 1900s and could happen again.
arethuza 16y ago
It's not just the US - it happened in the UK at the same time. Although it is very obvious that in places like Germany this decline never happened (or at least not to the same extent). Interestingly enough, in a fairly recent poll of the Top 100 Britons an engineer came second, only problem is he lived in the 19th century: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel
known 16y ago
Study Suggests U.S. Could Use Fewer, Not More Science Students http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/10/study-argues-us.html http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/10/study-argu...
- Detrus 16y ago
  This is a crucial point. "More is better" is a naive notion, but it's easier to promote than "quantity over quality." When mathematicians get jobs in Wall Street by the thousands, there are either too many mathematicians churned out by the education system, too few problems or both. They're not getting those jobs to work on theories about complex systems like a few physicists did in the 1980's. The new generation is there to get respectable wages. The ending is gold: "claims of shortage are "often issued by parties of interest" such as employer associations. In the past, some U.S. businesses have been accused of using the shortage argument to justify outsourcing and hiring of foreign workers. Susan Traiman of the Business Roundtable criticizes the new study, saying that it gives an illusion of a robust supply because it bundles all STEM fields together. There may be an oversupply in the life sciences and social sciences, she argues, but there is no question that there are shortages in engineering and the physical sciences. The findings "are not going to make us go back and re-examine everything we've been been calling for," she says."
triviatise 16y ago
People chase what inspires them. The problem is that there are no heroes in science like there are in sports. Here are a couple of ways to inspire people: 1) Huge prizes like the X prize for a variety of breakthroughs (milestones in energy independence) Prizes should be 10M+ so they get a lot of media attention. Turn the scientists into media celebrities. The main benefit is that the government gets huge leverage for every dollar spent and doesnt spend any money until a milestone is reached. 2) Create competitions for students to teachers to professionals to compete in at every level similar to sports. Televise (reality tv) and make the competitions fun. Make the prizes 100K plus. ---------------------- This is happening already with entrepreneurs - a few young hotshots getting really wealthy in technology startups should generate interest in science/math/tech. But definitely have inspired a generation to start their own tech businesses. Dancing with the stars, american idol, all the chef shows - have all increased interest in those fields/hobbies.
juiceandjuice 16y ago
http://www.phds.org/reading/schwartz/market.pdf http://www.phds.org/reading/schwartz/market.pdf http://departments.colgate.edu/physics/miscelanneous/aiprep02.pdf http://departments.colgate.edu/physics/miscelanneous/aiprep0... http://physics.tsu.edu/Academics/EDphysund07.pdf http://physics.tsu.edu/Academics/EDphysund07.pdf Some good examples of how degrees in physics have changed relative to population, enrollment, job markets, etc...
dnautics 16y ago
Why? Too many scientists. Federal funding (and funding of other nations seeking to improve prestige) has inflated a science bubble. naturally, the number of mediocre scientists has increased like crazy. The low reputation of scientists is well deserved. In fact, I believe it should be even lower. Having many non-science friends, they are very surprised when I inform them that there actually is a ton of fraud and misconduct in science. Other side effects: Being a scientist is awful. Right now, I've got a PhD, I get paid $20/hour for 40 hours of work a week (I actually put around 70 hours of work in the lab). I don't have health insurance (the irony, I'm being paid by the DOE) and this job actually pays better than the last. I don't have time to date. I want to start a company but I can't because I don't have the finances to do simple experiments at home. My life is basically being deferred.
- moultano 16y ago
  That seems more like the result of too little funding than too much. I don't understand how you square these too statements. Too many scientists. Federal funding (and funding of other nations seeking to improve prestige) has inflated a science bubble. Being a scientist is awful. To me it seems that the more likely explanation is that people who would have made great scientists aren't attracted to the profession.
igorlev 16y ago
Tyler Cowen's essay was mentioned here before and I think it's a pretty good way to frame your thinking about the subject. The reason the prestige of science and engineering declined is because the direct and visible impact on every day life of those professions has also declined. A lot of technical areas have matured since the 1950's and are offering mostly incremental improvements. Not to say that the 'actual' impact has declined, but people in the United States are no longer impressed by a greener plastic or a slightly newer satellite being lofted into space. Compare that to places like China or even India that are somewhat behind in bringing industrialization to the entire population and you have engineers make visible impact to every day life and therefore rationally have more importance and thereby prestige. I'm sure that in a few decades once they start catching up, engineering will also start declining as a prestigious profession. There are lots of other intellectually demanding professions such as law, medicine and even finance that have droves of bright students signing up. I think that while they attract students, and are useful at all stages of development, they really come up to the top once you have a stable political system, and a relatively wealthy population. Once technical change stops being radical you enter a maintenance phase. If you have basic health needs met you start trying to squeeze out more and more advances in medicine to prolong the life of a relatively healthy population. Once new products become mostly enhancements of old ideas, trying to compete using the law can be more efficient in terms of effort expanded to results achieved. I think that trying to use marketing or propaganda to try and raise the prestige of scientists can only go so far. Technology needs to offer radical and easily visible everyday impact to outshine the other intellectual professions.
- scritic 16y ago
  Interesting. So the decline of the "low-hanging fruits" of technology is the cause, and not the effect, of the decline in the social prestige of science and technology, if I'm understanding you right.
szany 16y ago
Looking forward to China's inevitable Sputnik moment.
obvioustroll 16y ago
You might want to review the history of industrial pollution in the US - and remember that it was all the miraculous promises of science that brought us TMI, Love Canal, mercury poisoning in fish, smog and everything else. To the average person, it seems obvious to them that "scientists" are why companies can strip away entire mountains, it was "scientists" that killed all the eagles with DDT, and, above all, it's "scientists" who assure us that "ingredient X" give us cancer, or high blood pressure, or whatever, and then, 10 years later its "scientists" who then turn around and hail "ingredient X" as the a panacea that will ensure you live a long and healthy life. Now, you and I both know that's not how science works - but that's certainly how it's perceived.

57 points by scritic 16y ago

dwc 16y ago

Two books I've recently read are The Age of American Unreason by Jacoby [1] and Unscientific America by Mooney & Kirschenbaum [2]. Both are worth reading, but Jacoby gives a deeper and more thoughtful analysis and spends considerable time on historical roots and trends. This topic is tied heavily to politics, and I hesitate to get into that here. I will say this: science is about exploring, like math is about exploring. Viewing science and math as pragmatic skills reduces them to engineering and accounting. Now there's nothing wrong with engineers and accountants and we desperately need and value their skills. But we also need scientists and research mathematicians who explore mysteries for the sake of discovery. There are a lot of subtle implications of that which are completely lost on people who think of science and math as purely functional, vocational pursuits. The benefits of science and math that have been capitalized on by engineers are spin-offs of people with curiosity exploring for exploration's sake. When exploration for its own sake is devalued, the engineers of the world find once fertile ground growing barren. 1. http://www.amazon.com/Age-American-Unreason-Susan-Jacoby/dp/0375423745 http://www.amazon.com/Age-American-Unreason-Susan-Jacoby/dp/... 2. http://www.amazon.com/Unscientific-America-Scientific-Illiteracy-Threatens/dp/0465013058 http://www.amazon.com/Unscientific-America-Scientific-Illite...

scritic 16y ago
Thanks for the book recommendations, dwc!
bugsy 16y ago
From the synopses and the comments of those two books, here is a summary: "It is all the dumb people that won't accept the One Truth of atheism that are to blame!"
- dwc 16y ago
  I'm not sure where you got that idea[1]. There was a time several decades ago when the Christian proletariat majority widely supported science, read popular periodicals about science, and aspired to educate their children in science and engineering. There was also a time when conservatives were far more pro-science than liberals. This is why it's important to know some of the history here. Today's anti-science sentiment is surely rooted in right wing Christian factions, and that needs to be fought. But there's absolutely no reason to think that conservative Christians can't endorse and value science, since they have in the past. The acknowledgement of past conservative/religious alignment with science comes from Jacoby. Decrying the current state is not the same as a summary dismissal. Mooney and Kirschenbaum are what the "New Atheists" call accommodationists. Atheists themselves, they believe in embracing and working with religious people to find common ground. They're looking to bond with the "sane" religious moderate majority and fight the Luddite, anti-science extremists. EDITED to add: 1. Ok, you got that idea from comments, obviously. Beware comments on such things. They probably say more about the commenter than about the book.
  - bugsy 16y ago
    "Where I got the idea" is the synopses and comments of the two books as I said. Your comment seems to confirm that you agree that religion is to blame for science illiteracy. Perhaps some people will be interested in a study with empirical data regarding the alleged american adult science illiteracy: http://mailer.fsu.edu/~slosh//PCST90578.pdf http://mailer.fsu.edu/~slosh//PCST90578.pdf
    - dwc 16y ago
      I believe my comment took account of the role that some extreme religious viewpoints play, while stating that the moderate majority is capable of accepting science. It seems no matter what I write you are blaming me for having an extreme stance. I do not. There is no reason for me to give all religion viewpoints a pass. I will not. There's no reason to take criticism of any religious sect as a criticism of all religion. That's not the argument I'm making, nor am I implying it.
      - 16y ago
caseysoftware 16y ago
We have a government that generally believes we can legislate our problems away and that most people are incapable of taking care of themselves. When you start from that premise, everything that you do "for the good of society" or "because it's fair" ends up stepping on someone, usually those closer to the top. Alternatively, when you have leadership coming from fields where reason and making things better by creating are valued, you get a different result. Oddly enough, I'll cite China as an improving example of this and I think it's due to the make up of their leadership: * In the US, the top of the Obama Administration is mostly lawyers and/or mostly from Harvard. Over half the Senators were/are lawyers. The last President with technical/scientific training past Chem 101 was Herbert Hoover.. 80 years ago. * On the other hand, China's president was a hydraulic engineer and the Communist Politburo is eight engineers and a lawyer. Their previous president was an electrical engineer. Source: http://www.economist.com/node/13496638 http://www.economist.com/node/13496638 Which country do you think values scientists and engineering more? Which country do you think understands science and engineering better and pushes to strengthen those fields or at least gets the hell out of the way? (Now I feel dirty for celebrating something about China's political leadership.)
- jleyank 16y ago
  No, Jimmy Carter was a nuc. Navy, selected by Rickover, etc.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - ams6110 16y ago
    Which just goes to to prove that technical or scientific knowledge is not a good indicator of political effectiveness. Carter's presidency was a disaster.
  - alexgartrell 16y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter#Naval_career http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter#Naval_career
- 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

seltzered 16y ago

Read iTulip.com / the book "The post-castastrophy economy" I'd argue it was the rise of the FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) economy that grew very rapidly over the past 30 years. The FIRE economy is opposite to the classical producer - consumer economy. There's plenty of times I sometimes wish I just made money like my friends doing trading/finance/etc. instead of studying electrical engineering. I'd get to work downtown instead of in a far away suburb too.

scritic 16y ago
I think the rise of the FIRE economy definitely has a role, I agree!
BrentRitterbeck 16y ago
There are people with strong scientific, mathematical, and technological backgrounds working in the FIRE space. This is directly the result of a lack of funding for traditional science. FIRE didn't take people from traditional science. FIRE absorbed scientifically-inclined people who otherwise wouldn't have a place to put their background to use. Fund traditional science more, and the prestige will come back. Traditional scientific research is expensive. EDIT: Here's a recent link (a few months ago) that illustrates my point: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-tevatron-is-shutting-down-2011-1#ixzz1CgbVHPia http://www.businessinsider.com/the-tevatron-is-shutting-down...

kmfrk 16y ago

Read Anti-Intellectualism in America by Richard* Hofstadter; it's as true and relevant today, as it was back then. The decline, if any, probably has to do with the fact that there wasn't a Cold War where scientists could participate directly against a tangible threat and common purpose: “The Sputnik was more than a shock to American national vanity: it brought an immense amount of attention to bear on the consequences of anti-intellectualism in the school system and in American life at large. Suddenly the national distaste for intellect appeared to be not just a disgrace but a hazard to survival. After assuming for some years that its main concern with teachers was to examine them for disloyalty, the nation now began to worry about their low salaries. Scientists, who had been saying for years that the growing obsession with security was demoralizing to research, suddenly found receptive listeners. Cries of protest against the slackness of American education, hitherto raised only by a small number of educational critics, were now taken up by television, mass magazines, businessmen, scientists, politicians, admirals, and university presidents, and soon swelled into a national chorus of self-reproach. Of course, all this did not immediately cause the vigilante mind to disappear, nor did it disperse anti-intellectualism as a force in American life; even in the sphere most immediately affected, that of education, the ruling passion of the public seemed to be for producing more Sputniks, not for developing more intellect, and some of the new rhetoric about education almost suggested that gifted children were to be regarded as resources in the cold war. But the atmosphere did change notably. In 1952, only intellectuals seemed much disturbed by the specter of anti-intellectualism; by 1958, the idea that this might be an important and even a dangerous national failing was persuasive to must thinking people.”

irickt 16y ago
Correction: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter
- kmfrk 16y ago
  Thanks. Those pesky, prolific Hofstadters.
jerf 16y ago
Part of the problem is that the American distrust of intellectualism is itself not the irrational thing that those sympathetic to intellectuals would like to think. Intellectuals killed by the millions in the 20th century, and it actually takes the sophisticated training of "education" to work yourself up into a state where you refuse to count that in the books. Intellectuals routinely declared things that aren't true; catastrophically wrong predictions about the economy, catastrophically wrong pronouncements about foreign policy, and just generally numerous times where they've been wrong. Again, it takes a lot of training to ignore this fact. "Scientists" collectively were witnessed by the public flipflopping at a relatively high frequency on numerous topics; how many times did eggs go back and forth between being deadly and beneficial? Sure the media gets some blame here but the scientists played into it, each time confidently pronouncing that this time they had it for sure and it is imperative that everyone live the way they are saying (until tomorrow). Scientists have failed to resist politicization across the board, and the standards of what constitutes science continues to shift from a living, vibrant, thoughtful understanding of the purposes and ways of science to a scelerotic hide-bound form-over-substance version of science where papers are too often written to either explicitly attract grants or to confirm someone's political beliefs... and regardless of whether this is 2% or 80% of the papers written today it's nearly 100% of the papers that people hear about. I simplify for rhetorical effect; my point is not that this is a literal description of the current state of the world but that it is far more true than it should be. Any accounting of "anti-intellectualism" that fails to take this into account and lays all the blame on "Americans" is too incomplete to formulate an action plan that will have any chance of success. It's not a one-sided problem. If you want to fix anti-intellectualism, you first need to fix intellectualism and return it to its roots of dispassionate exploration, commitment to truth over all else and bending processes to find truth rather than bending truth to fit (politicized) processes, and return to great, foundational humility that even the press could not overplay into hubris. And they need to drop their blinders whereby they excuse away the damage that intellectuals have done while ignoring these ancient precepts and only crediting themselves their successes, because it cuts themselves off from the very object lessons that could help them return to this time-tested approach to science, which they still flatter themselves that they follow. If you fail to fix the intellectuals first, then all your effort to fix "Americans" is going to fail; you'll bend your efforts towards getting them to look at intellectuals seriously, but they'll end up coming to the same conclusions they already have about the value of intellectuals and you'll have wasted your shot. I'm not holding my breath.

patrickgzill 16y ago

Lawyers and MBAs made twice to 10x the money for the same or less amount of work.

coffie 16y ago
"The Big Bang Theory" is your best choice to understand how scientists come off as. I have had myself my work-life priorities misplaced and have had my burnouts. I had BS and I had enrolled in an PhD engineering degree. One of the departments have had people working and living in the lab. Those were 25-year old dedicated professionals. One of my friends was getting married. When we asked him when was the engagement party, he said he "had not time for it." Good for him. That was not the job for me. I want to experience my life. My roommate works in an electrical engineering company. He plans to move to another place - the work hours that the workers attend to there are 8 am to 8 pm. For, well, 40 years? That is nowhere near normal-life-ish. You also forgot other jobs also offer sunlight-filled offices and certainly more common human contacts. I do not want to spend my life in an isolated place or holed up in a windowsless lab. It sometimes happens in some science jobs. I think the scientists have been resilient folks, when we put the settings that they have had to survive in. They have not been taught some social skills as much. Which you do not teach - you just let the people play them out. I am reading an IT-job interview book, which I quote: "however, like the engineers, many computer scientists have sub-standard communications skills."
tzs 16y ago
I don't think lawyers do the same or less amount of work than scientists and engineers. I've watched up close a big patent suit (I was one of the inventors named on the patent, and the only one available for the trial), and at least in that area of law, the lawyers worked more hours sustained than any scientist or engineer I've known. When I was in my early 30's I got burned out on programming, and went to law school with the intent of going into patent and copyright law. However, after the third year, when I had one paper to write to graduate, I went back to my old job for the summer. I was no longer burned out on programming, and I also had the worst case of writers block in the history of the universe, so never got around to writing that last paper. Having watched the lawyers during the patent suit, I am pretty sure I dodged a bullet by not becoming a lawyer.

rospaya 16y ago

First thought: the US no longer produces like before. Services have taken over manufacturing.

scritic 16y ago
I agree the services economy must have something to do with it. But I'm not sure how exactly. It's true that services now employ more people than manufacturing. But even if the number of people employed in manufacturing have declined, the amount of stuff manufactured itself has risen; manufacturing is more productive (even if employing less people) than it was before. I am not yet sure why this should lead to a loss of prestige for science and engineering.
thecabinet 16y ago
> the US no longer produces like before You're right about that, but not the way you meant: http://mercatus.org/publication/us-manufacturing-output-vs-jobs-1975 http://mercatus.org/publication/us-manufacturing-output-vs-j... The US produces twice what it did in 1975 using a third fewer people.

bradshaw1965 16y ago

The percentage of smart people working in finance trended much higher then science and engineering. Fake disciplines like "Financial Engineering" thus became paramount. Institutions supported these changes.

coffie 16y ago
Speculative fields have became more noticeable. Though, can you tell me what is not speculative in social culture? If one were to push it, what you call "fake disciplines" can extend to most of human society. Don't go there.
- bradshaw1965 16y ago
  My fake discipline comment is a direct response to the havoc wrought by attempting to place a normal distribution, which worked so nicely in insurance when dealing with things like lifespan, on top of a chaotic system like finance. Long Term Capital Management, Value at Risk, and other models from very, very smart quantitative minds who simply misunderstood the problem space and almost took down the world economy. I call that a "fake discipline".
  - coffie 16y ago
    Hehe. Yes, I appreciate your clarification. That is true - especially as LTCM was full with PhDs. Though it also extends to a multitude of "empty suits" positions. These bright minds needed to think in that structured fashion in order for them to have the world make sense to. It is an excellent point. Nevertheless, with experience and ambition judgement becomes better. I would like to point out research in low-probability events, response to too-big-to-fail, fat tails and black swans in defense of emerging Financial Engineering and Risk Management. The best defense of it that I have ever seen was in the book "The Black Swan".
  - coffie 16y ago
    Though - come on. Do not run into the cognitive framework where you start to compare disciplines. Viewing disciplines along ranks can start messing with you. When I said I have read about FE and LTCM in the "Black Swan", I meant that the people working there are not complacent. The author of that book for example seems genuinely active - though might not be considered likeable. The virtue of the author's criticism to the field that he belongs, he shows the fluidity adherent to him and others within finance. Let's compare it to an example from the automotive industry. Companies out of Detroit have been complacent, which had run into serious design troubles. They were in the business of making mediocre cars. When faced with the prospect of bankruptcy, Ford had the chance to reform before the financial crisis hit. GM and Chrysler - which was owned by Benz earlier - leadership flew to Washington to ask for unspecified amount of money. I cannot assign causality of badness in the current networked world, but the physical/manufacturing car guys seemed to be worse than LTCM. And they had the nerve to face California in court over car emission requirements. So, there are other people that have not acted with diligence to the community. It is about people though. It is not about disciplines. It is all about people.

kleiba 16y ago

I thought about the same question before, or in particular the social prestige of computer scientists. My best shot is: because you cannot make cool TV shows about computer scientists. There are lots of shows in which specific professions come across as cool - doctors, cops, lawyers (of all things)... on the other hand, whenever a computer scientist is portrayed in a show or a movie, what you get is the stereotypical nerd. And there are some good shows, too - but they're mostly funny shows, not cool as in "I want to be like that". And what's better suited to shape the youth's role models than the media they consume? And I don't blame the networks or screenwriters or anything - I've tried to come up with a good concept for a show myself and couldn't do it. Yet I've always found it puzzling that the person who simply buys the latest iPhone is considered hip, while the people who actually build and program them are looked down on...

karolisd 16y ago
Doctors, cops, and lawyers interact with other people in interesting ways. Scientists and engineers generally interact with machines in interesting way. Much more difficult to make a story about that.
- WalterBright 16y ago
  I'm sorry, I can't do that, Dave.
  - kleiba 16y ago
    I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
- alextp 16y ago
  Except science and engineering is as much about people as it is about machine. Look at the most succcessful scientists and engineers: a lot of what they accomplished they owe to the other people who collaborated and worked with them. The amount of politics and interaction that goes in the higher levels of these professions is also something that can't be ignored.
16y ago

ronnier 16y ago

Changing population base and other ways to make more money faster.

zaidf 16y ago

My pediatric surgeon dad who deals with kids everyday loves to chat with kids about their aspirations. In the US, vast majority of the kids want to become firefighters or cops. In contrast, when my dad practiced in India, majority of kids wanted to become doctors or engineers. It's probably hard to tell the cause from the effect. May be they both have a little bit to do with each other. But in Indian movies, for example, the doctor and engineer or businessman usually gets the hot chick--not the macho cop or firefighters.

scritic 16y ago
Heh. Some thoughts on this: http://cogsciresearch.blogspot.com/2010/04/math-phobia-pedagogy-and-choice-of.html http://cogsciresearch.blogspot.com/2010/04/math-phobia-pedag...
- reemrevnivek 16y ago
  Excellent read! Here's the author's own summary: > To sum up, my point in this post was to posit an "internal" explanation, rooted in styles of pedagogy, for why the best and the brightest high school students in the US do not opt for technical majors/careers in college, while those in India do so overwhelmingly. My explanation for this was that, in the US, it is the authoritarian nature of science education, especially when compared with the "creative" way other disciplines (like history or literature) are taught, that is responsible for the math-phobia. On the other hand, in India, the cultural logic of the same authoritarian style of science education works out differently because students can discern a "method" in it, and they can discern no such method in the other disciplines, just a series of facts. Consequently, the best and the brightest high school students in India are less likely to suffer from math-phobia.
jseliger 16y ago
In the US, vast majority of the kids want to become firefighters or cops. . . . It's probably hard to tell the cause from the effect. I think it's easy: jobs as scientists in the U.S. suck relative to other jobs. See here: http://www.miller-mccune.com/science/the-real-science-gap-16191/ http://www.miller-mccune.com/science/the-real-science-gap-16...? for more. Basically, if you have the chops to get a job in science, you're probably better off doing something else (like med school; lots of people want to be doctors). Consider that firefighters or cops get paid reasonably well; effectively can't be fired after a short probationary period unless they do something incredibly egregious because they're protected by unions; have jobs that demand physical activity, so they aren't just sitting in front of a screen all day; and, in the case of firefighters, have a level of social prestige that means (male) firefighters are almost universally admired by women. Wanting to be a cop or firefighter requires a two-year degree, if that. Wanting to be a pediatric surgeon takes a minimum of 12 (four for undergrad, four for med school, four for residency, although I think it's more than four). Wanting to be an engineer takes at least four.

tsotha 16y ago

I don't see any reason to believe the social prestige of science and engineering is actually declining. It's never been very high. You can go back to popular culture references in the '50s to see that. People aren't avoiding STEM majors in college because of a lack of prestige. It's because science and technology is hard work and there's not a lot of money in it. If you're willing to put in that kind of time there are other, easier ways to make more money. Outside of a small slice of the population in media and entertainment, "social prestige" is nothing more than how much money you make . Investment bankers don't get a lot of interest from women because investment banking is interesting or investment bankers are seen to be somehow better than other people.

ricarr 16y ago
Investment bankers are aggressive male animals. Is is possible women actually find that exciting? ...

karolisd 16y ago

Was the social prestige of science and engineer higher before? I'm not sure if I actually buy the premise.

Lost_BiomedE 16y ago
I think there were a few times when we had blips higher. In the late 1800s and early 1900s and during the space race. I can't find specific data on it, so it is possible that re-written history has led me astray on this point. I also think, given the pipeline visible in research, we will have a resurgence in a decade or two.
- dnautics 16y ago
  Your assumption is that an increased labor force will result in an increase in productivity.
  - Lost_BiomedE 16y ago
    I wasn't thinking in terms of labor force. I was assuming current research could lead to tech that has a very large impact on our daily lives, and that this impact would increase positive perception the public has of scientists and engineers. I think this happened in the early 1900s and could happen again.

arethuza 16y ago

It's not just the US - it happened in the UK at the same time. Although it is very obvious that in places like Germany this decline never happened (or at least not to the same extent). Interestingly enough, in a fairly recent poll of the Top 100 Britons an engineer came second, only problem is he lived in the 19th century: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel

known 16y ago

Study Suggests U.S. Could Use Fewer, Not More Science Students http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/10/study-argues-us.html http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/10/study-argu...

Detrus 16y ago
This is a crucial point. "More is better" is a naive notion, but it's easier to promote than "quantity over quality." When mathematicians get jobs in Wall Street by the thousands, there are either too many mathematicians churned out by the education system, too few problems or both. They're not getting those jobs to work on theories about complex systems like a few physicists did in the 1980's. The new generation is there to get respectable wages. The ending is gold: "claims of shortage are "often issued by parties of interest" such as employer associations. In the past, some U.S. businesses have been accused of using the shortage argument to justify outsourcing and hiring of foreign workers. Susan Traiman of the Business Roundtable criticizes the new study, saying that it gives an illusion of a robust supply because it bundles all STEM fields together. There may be an oversupply in the life sciences and social sciences, she argues, but there is no question that there are shortages in engineering and the physical sciences. The findings "are not going to make us go back and re-examine everything we've been been calling for," she says."

triviatise 16y ago

People chase what inspires them. The problem is that there are no heroes in science like there are in sports. Here are a couple of ways to inspire people: 1) Huge prizes like the X prize for a variety of breakthroughs (milestones in energy independence) Prizes should be 10M+ so they get a lot of media attention. Turn the scientists into media celebrities. The main benefit is that the government gets huge leverage for every dollar spent and doesnt spend any money until a milestone is reached. 2) Create competitions for students to teachers to professionals to compete in at every level similar to sports. Televise (reality tv) and make the competitions fun. Make the prizes 100K plus. ---------------------- This is happening already with entrepreneurs - a few young hotshots getting really wealthy in technology startups should generate interest in science/math/tech. But definitely have inspired a generation to start their own tech businesses. Dancing with the stars, american idol, all the chef shows - have all increased interest in those fields/hobbies.

juiceandjuice 16y ago

http://www.phds.org/reading/schwartz/market.pdf http://www.phds.org/reading/schwartz/market.pdf http://departments.colgate.edu/physics/miscelanneous/aiprep02.pdf http://departments.colgate.edu/physics/miscelanneous/aiprep0... http://physics.tsu.edu/Academics/EDphysund07.pdf http://physics.tsu.edu/Academics/EDphysund07.pdf Some good examples of how degrees in physics have changed relative to population, enrollment, job markets, etc...

dnautics 16y ago

Why? Too many scientists. Federal funding (and funding of other nations seeking to improve prestige) has inflated a science bubble. naturally, the number of mediocre scientists has increased like crazy. The low reputation of scientists is well deserved. In fact, I believe it should be even lower. Having many non-science friends, they are very surprised when I inform them that there actually is a ton of fraud and misconduct in science. Other side effects: Being a scientist is awful. Right now, I've got a PhD, I get paid $20/hour for 40 hours of work a week (I actually put around 70 hours of work in the lab). I don't have health insurance (the irony, I'm being paid by the DOE) and this job actually pays better than the last. I don't have time to date. I want to start a company but I can't because I don't have the finances to do simple experiments at home. My life is basically being deferred.

moultano 16y ago
That seems more like the result of too little funding than too much. I don't understand how you square these too statements. Too many scientists. Federal funding (and funding of other nations seeking to improve prestige) has inflated a science bubble. Being a scientist is awful. To me it seems that the more likely explanation is that people who would have made great scientists aren't attracted to the profession.

igorlev 16y ago

Tyler Cowen's essay was mentioned here before and I think it's a pretty good way to frame your thinking about the subject. The reason the prestige of science and engineering declined is because the direct and visible impact on every day life of those professions has also declined. A lot of technical areas have matured since the 1950's and are offering mostly incremental improvements. Not to say that the 'actual' impact has declined, but people in the United States are no longer impressed by a greener plastic or a slightly newer satellite being lofted into space. Compare that to places like China or even India that are somewhat behind in bringing industrialization to the entire population and you have engineers make visible impact to every day life and therefore rationally have more importance and thereby prestige. I'm sure that in a few decades once they start catching up, engineering will also start declining as a prestigious profession. There are lots of other intellectually demanding professions such as law, medicine and even finance that have droves of bright students signing up. I think that while they attract students, and are useful at all stages of development, they really come up to the top once you have a stable political system, and a relatively wealthy population. Once technical change stops being radical you enter a maintenance phase. If you have basic health needs met you start trying to squeeze out more and more advances in medicine to prolong the life of a relatively healthy population. Once new products become mostly enhancements of old ideas, trying to compete using the law can be more efficient in terms of effort expanded to results achieved. I think that trying to use marketing or propaganda to try and raise the prestige of scientists can only go so far. Technology needs to offer radical and easily visible everyday impact to outshine the other intellectual professions.

scritic 16y ago
Interesting. So the decline of the "low-hanging fruits" of technology is the cause, and not the effect, of the decline in the social prestige of science and technology, if I'm understanding you right.

szany 16y ago

Looking forward to China's inevitable Sputnik moment.

obvioustroll 16y ago

You might want to review the history of industrial pollution in the US - and remember that it was all the miraculous promises of science that brought us TMI, Love Canal, mercury poisoning in fish, smog and everything else. To the average person, it seems obvious to them that "scientists" are why companies can strip away entire mountains, it was "scientists" that killed all the eagles with DDT, and, above all, it's "scientists" who assure us that "ingredient X" give us cancer, or high blood pressure, or whatever, and then, 10 years later its "scientists" who then turn around and hail "ingredient X" as the a panacea that will ensure you live a long and healthy life. Now, you and I both know that's not how science works - but that's certainly how it's perceived.