3 ms·
We have a science capability crisis. It has little to do with formal education. It's an issue of leadership, especially in top organizational roles. There is a
by michaelochurch 13y ago
We have a science capability crisis. It has little to do with formal education. It's an issue of leadership, especially in top organizational roles.
There is a lack of competent, available workers for low- and mid-level roles (if you've ever been on an interview loop, you've seen how uninspiring the general ability level is) but that's more an artifact of decades-long discouragement and organizational failure than an intrinsic problem of the people. Knowledge is spotty and hard to find. Formal education, on the other hand, is really easy to find in NYC or Silicon Valley or Boston. There are zillions of people with PhDs from prestigious schools (but many of those aren't any good).
All of this is dangerous in the long term, because after a decade of terrible leadership, competent people tend to leave for greener pastures, or burn out and lose motivation to do anything more than follow orders.
The fact that we fall short of where we should be in STEM is entirely an artifact of the (mostly terrible) organizations we build and the roles those define. It's not the teachers' fault at all, nor can it be fixed by throwing more resources at education without fixing the larger (and probably unfixable) society.
- aantix 13y agoWhy must the capability already exist? With so many specializations, isn't it partly a company's duty to train?
- michaelochurch 13y agoWith so many specializations, isn't it partly a company's duty to train? Ideally, yes. But most companies are short-sighted and tend to assume that if the talent isn't right there and ready, the task is too hard to be worth doing. Executives don't like taking risks, except for those that allow them to capture all upside while externalizing the downside. There's a Gresham's Law of executives. Forward-thinking, progressive people are driven out by quick-flash politicking psychopaths. I don't know of an easy fix for that problem.
- ahomescu1 13y agoLet's say you were a company CEO or head of HR, and decided to hire untrained people and then train them. How would you handle the following: 1) The reality that life is uncertain, and the company might be bankrupt a year from now. There's no sure thing in life, even huge companies disappear. If training a new employee would only pay off in several years, would you still do it? 2) At-will employment, where the employee could stick around for the training, then quit as soon as that's done. I think forcing the employee to stay for N months/years after that is a raw deal. 3) The fact that that employee isn't contributing as much to the company, but you're still paying him/her market wages. Would you offer them lower pay during the training period?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Fomite 13y agoI like the idea that the nation with far and way the most robust scientific research structure in the world has a "capability crisis".