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This article is complete bullshit. I'm an academic. I do math and science for a living. I'm also an immigrant. I lived most of my life in India. I also have a

This article is complete bullshit. I'm an academic. I do math and science for a living. I'm also an immigrant. I lived most of my life in India. I also have a lot of European friends, and actually just got back from a Europe trip hanging out with a number of European academics. Finally, I've also looked at the statistics on this subject. Every way you look at it, the U.S actually kicks ass in math an science, whether you look at top research or the averages. Take SAT math. Think of a country that has a reputation for excellence in high school math. Eastern Europe immediately comes to mind. Shall we say Romania? Guess what, cynics? U.S scores are on average 30 points higher than Romania's. Or take Nobel prizes. No other country even comes close to the U.S. If we're so bad at science and math, why do we have Silicon Valley and no one else has anything remotely as good? For several years I've been trying to understand where this self-loathing perception comes from. My friend (also an academic) says that academics spread the "sky is falling" perception in order to get more funding dollars from the NSF/NIH/DARPA, and the media picks it up and runs with it because they always love a scare story. That's the best explanation I have so far. Anyone got a better one?

tokipin 18y ago
when i arrived at a chicago airport recently, there was a poster thingie saying "home to 90 nobel prize winners..." i thought holy shit that's a lot O_O i remember China only having a handful. we have here in just one shitty city an order of magnitude more. factor in per capita and it's really a huge difference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_laureates_by_country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_laureates_by_country
- steveblgh 18y ago
  Yeah, let's factor in per capita: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_laureates_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_laureates_per_capita
albertcardona 18y ago
The article talks about children and pre-university education. In my opinion as a foreigner, the USA fails at pre-university, scores ok at undergrad level, and excels amazingly at grad level and afterwards. The USA imports people all the time, including thousands of graduates. Like you and me. Very few countries do it at a comparable scale; perhaps only the UK and Switzerland.
gills 18y ago
Not better, just jaded. If you suck at math, you feel better by blaming the problem on the people who are good at math ("they didn't teach me well enough!"). So, self-loathing rather than coming to grips with one's mediocrity and doing something constructive about changing it. There could also be a feedback loop that gives others an excuse for failing: it's a failure of 'the system' (the competent people), not a failure of those who won't keep up.
andreyf 18y ago
Citations required. What is this math and science that you do? Since when does Romania take SAT's? Nobel prizes don't say much about the majority of the population. My experience is quite the opposite - the national Russian curriculum includes over a dozen subjects every year throughout high school - including algebra, geometry, chemistry, physics, etc. Relative to the US, the social structure there offers little opportunity for growth after college, which is why people move here. But compared to Russia, the middle/high school curriculum in most American high schools is a joke.

tokipin 18y ago

when i arrived at a chicago airport recently, there was a poster thingie saying "home to 90 nobel prize winners..." i thought holy shit that's a lot O_O i remember China only having a handful. we have here in just one shitty city an order of magnitude more. factor in per capita and it's really a huge difference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_laureates_by_country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_laureates_by_country

steveblgh 18y ago
Yeah, let's factor in per capita: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_laureates_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_laureates_per_capita

albertcardona 18y ago

The article talks about children and pre-university education. In my opinion as a foreigner, the USA fails at pre-university, scores ok at undergrad level, and excels amazingly at grad level and afterwards. The USA imports people all the time, including thousands of graduates. Like you and me. Very few countries do it at a comparable scale; perhaps only the UK and Switzerland.

gills 18y ago

Not better, just jaded. If you suck at math, you feel better by blaming the problem on the people who are good at math ("they didn't teach me well enough!"). So, self-loathing rather than coming to grips with one's mediocrity and doing something constructive about changing it. There could also be a feedback loop that gives others an excuse for failing: it's a failure of 'the system' (the competent people), not a failure of those who won't keep up.

andreyf 18y ago

Citations required. What is this math and science that you do? Since when does Romania take SAT's? Nobel prizes don't say much about the majority of the population. My experience is quite the opposite - the national Russian curriculum includes over a dozen subjects every year throughout high school - including algebra, geometry, chemistry, physics, etc. Relative to the US, the social structure there offers little opportunity for growth after college, which is why people move here. But compared to Russia, the middle/high school curriculum in most American high schools is a joke.