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> The nation, it says, must sustain excellence in basic research; foster a scientific workforce more diverse in race, gender, and geography; and support high-qu

> The nation, it says, must sustain excellence in basic research; foster a scientific workforce more diverse in race, gender, and geography; and support high-quality precollege science and math education. One of the items on the list is not like the others. In fact, I would bet that none of our rivals overtaking us now care about that item, and so far it doesn’t seem to have hampered their research endeavors.

gumby 5y ago
You can bet that but I don't think the evidence bears it out. Certainly in China, Russia and in Europe there are higher percentages of female scientists than in the US and that is through deliberate effort. Furthermore this effort has helped, not hampered their research output. Just as a trivial example: we wouldn't have had COVID vaccines quickly if not for a female scientist educated in Hungary. And that's just on one axis of underrepresentation. Anything that broadens the catchment pool of candidate scientists is going to improve value of those who become scientists -- a rule which, when generalized, is a fundamental staple of capitalism.
- User23 5y ago
  As far as I can tell the western push for “diversity” is a system of racial, gender, and sexual orientation preferences and not some capitalistic optimal meritocracy. For each person that would have been overlooked that the society gains, how many that would have been as good or better are denied opportunity?
- gotoeleven 5y ago
  Nope, the higher percentage of women in science in crappy countries seems to be because they have less choices in crappy countries. https://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/id/eprint/4753/6/symplectic-version.pdf&hl=es&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm0xrcWbSjaOYwGIpValYtXniLgxIA&nossl=1&oi=scholarr https://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/id/eprint/4753/6/symplect...
  - gumby 5y ago
    Which countries do you consider non “crappy”?
bpodgursky 5y ago
I think you could probably make the case that China, in their own ruthless and meat-grindery way, does try to foster a race + geographically diverse labor pool by normalizing minorities into the Han workforce by whatever means necessary (exterminating local languages, exterminating religions, sterilizing women so they can join the labor force, etc). I don't think it's even remotely ethical, but from their perspective they are actually making strides on that front.

gumby 5y ago

You can bet that but I don't think the evidence bears it out. Certainly in China, Russia and in Europe there are higher percentages of female scientists than in the US and that is through deliberate effort. Furthermore this effort has helped, not hampered their research output. Just as a trivial example: we wouldn't have had COVID vaccines quickly if not for a female scientist educated in Hungary. And that's just on one axis of underrepresentation. Anything that broadens the catchment pool of candidate scientists is going to improve value of those who become scientists -- a rule which, when generalized, is a fundamental staple of capitalism.

User23 5y ago
As far as I can tell the western push for “diversity” is a system of racial, gender, and sexual orientation preferences and not some capitalistic optimal meritocracy. For each person that would have been overlooked that the society gains, how many that would have been as good or better are denied opportunity?
gotoeleven 5y ago
Nope, the higher percentage of women in science in crappy countries seems to be because they have less choices in crappy countries. https://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/id/eprint/4753/6/symplectic-version.pdf&hl=es&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm0xrcWbSjaOYwGIpValYtXniLgxIA&nossl=1&oi=scholarr https://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/id/eprint/4753/6/symplect...
- gumby 5y ago
  Which countries do you consider non “crappy”?

bpodgursky 5y ago

I think you could probably make the case that China, in their own ruthless and meat-grindery way, does try to foster a race + geographically diverse labor pool by normalizing minorities into the Han workforce by whatever means necessary (exterminating local languages, exterminating religions, sterilizing women so they can join the labor force, etc). I don't think it's even remotely ethical, but from their perspective they are actually making strides on that front.