Thread: Decline of Science in the US

I saw this interesting video on reddit today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXIR9ve0JU0

It's sad how much we've declined over the last 10 years.

I like listening to deGrasse Tyson speak. I've watched a lot of his programs on NOVA.

As to the graph, it is saddening. I lay this at the feet of our education system and it's inability, or unwillingness, to teach strong fundamental course work as opposed to the rash of "social" courses that in turn starve our children for meaningful mental exercises.

Out of curiosity, what is your thought on the cause of this decline?

Originally Posted by WickedTribe

I saw this interesting video on reddit today. America's Science Decline - Neil deGrasse Tyson - YouTube

It's sad how much we've declined over the last 10 years.

Yeah, it's sad.

To many people I know, this is old news. But it seems there are just as many or more who don't have a sense of it or have responded with "meh".

I would like to have seen references linked from the video. A morphing map is nice, and NDT is certainly a good spokes-face for this stuff (he's like America's Number One Science Cheerleader), but the truly curious will want to know more - like any good scientist.

I have no doubt there are decent quibbles to be had. "Peer Reviewed Articles" are a pretty loose metric. One trend over that same time period is growth in number of journals. Many of them are shitty. Crappy articles are sneaking into established and respected journals too (Ben Goldacre is another good pop-science writer, and he's given good examples of that over the last couple years).

Part of the trend is that places like Brazil, India, and China have had healthy growth in their economies and improvements in education. Their rate of growth in intellectual output can be much larger than ours: for decades the smart and curious people in those countries have either emigrated elsewhere or followed another career. Now they have more opportunities at home. Of course their growth rate is huge. For decades their rates were low (for lots of reasons), and ours was artificially high (their researches came here to work).

But I agree that there are real problems in the US. Lots of research never gets published, it's locked away under patent and trade-secret protection. Congress allows public-funded research to be owned by the corporations that took the public money. Many universities assert ownership over work done in their labs.

Maybe the worst problem is rampant anti-intellectualism - it isn't just something that crops up in these forums. I see it in newspapers, in Congress, in local government, and in schools (from kindergarten to university). It's in many books, TV shows, and films.

Why do we hate ourselves?

Meh... fuck it. There's probably a football game on I can watch. If not, there's plenty of preachers and porn to keep me distracted until kick-off.

Cheers,


AetheLove

I blame these so called "scientists". In an effort to grab every dollar they can in grants they put the meh into everyone. We have no use for knowing how many times a roach farts, if pretty waitresses make better tips, if more people go online now then 10 years ago, or if babies are stupid. Yeah they're all real studies. I only wish i could come up with something dumber to look at. You can blames schools if you want to but the bullshit studies imo are what caused the problem. IMO i honestly think another piece of it is when they do study something that might be important they try to shove it down eveyones thoat. IE climate change, food "facts" as if they're every going to get them 100%. So many people that use to care no longer do.

Originally Posted by Alundil

I like listening to deGrasse Tyson speak. I've watched a lot of his programs on NOVA.

As to the graph, it is saddening. I lay this at the feet of our education system and it's inability, or unwillingness, to teach strong fundamental course work as opposed to the rash of "social" courses that in turn starve our children for meaningful mental exercises.

Out of curiosity, what is your thought on the cause of this decline?

Several factors. I agree with your statement, and I'd add that our culture in recent years has been glorifying the entrepreneur and the businessman over the engineer or the scientist. I wasn't alive during the space race, but it seems like people had a lot more reverence for science and a lot more pride in our country's scientific industry then than we do now.

And yes, I think that there's a current culture that seems to cherish ignorance - in many forms.

Originally Posted by WickedTribe

Several factors. I agree with your statement, and I'd add that our culture in recent years has been glorifying the entrepreneur and the businessman over the engineer or the scientist. I wasn't alive during the space race, but it seems like people had a lot more reverence for science and a lot more pride in our country's scientific industry then than we do now.

And yes, I think that there's a current culture that seems to cherish ignorance - in many forms.

I agree that there is a glorification of the entrepreneur and businessman. Though I don't know if I see more emphasis on that over all other things now than I did several years ago. I think that, given the "American Dream" and "....land of opportunity" cliches that our country's cultural conscience maintains I'd say that the love of business(wo)men has always been there.

I do think that mediocrity has been made acceptable over the years through constant "education" that winning is not everything or is secondary to participating. Thus creating a generational gap between people who grew up striving to excel and people who grew up simply participating. The bad thing for the US, in that regard, is that there no other countries who do not push their children to excel and exceed at all costs (with the exceptions of perhaps some smaller EU countries (some bailout poster children come to mind) - but certainly not any among of our major allies/competitors). They take our "softer, more tolerant" slide as an opening in a bloodsport fencing match. They are using that opening to score gains at our expense long term and we are bleeding profusely because of it.

We, the US, now host millions of people young and old who have no idea that the world is competitive until it is too late to change the outcome. So stuck on congratulating "Little Johnny" for playing the game instead of winning the game. No more do (the general) we push our kids to win because that might hurt the feelings or self-esteem of the kids that lost. Instead there is an overwhelming emphasis on just playing the game for the sake of the game. In fact, the kids/parents/coaches can be (and have been) penalized for keeping score or announcing scores (admittedly at young age groups but this sets a bad pattern for other facets of life).

And this continues in the classrooms as well. Entire classes being slowed down (retarded in the technical sense - though the pun is quite apropos here too) because there are a few students learning at a slower rate. Instead of pulling those students from all other classes in that grade an addressing them in a uniform fashion, the majority of the students that were capable of keeping the planned pace are penalized. To what purpose? To ensure that the slower students don't "feel bad?" It is generate a larger pool of deficient students over the long haul.