Bush promotes ID

There is already one long term consequence of the already weak K-12 education system in the US (relative to many other industrialized countries) and that is the diminishing minority status of US trained students in the sciences. In some fields, and particularly the biological sciences, the grads and postdocs are mostly foreigners (60% or more). The US is relying more and more on foreign educated scholars because of a lack of homegrown talent. You certainly don't see that in Germany or the UK. Another problem with this is that a majority of foreign researchers eventually leave the US and return to their home countries removing their expertise from our economy and leaving a gap that can only be filled by another foreigner...if that supply stops or slows down, the US will be left at a disadvantage. These are hard trends to reverse since the sciences are exceptionally difficult in the first place and require an unsually large time and education investment on the part of a prospective scientist that would not be necessary in other fields. There can be many factors involved but I think it is significant that movements like ID which are anti-science polemic devices for a specific religious group weaken both the interest among prospective American students for science and the capacity for the general public to understand science at all (note Kansas not only opposing evolution but proposing to redefine science to include the supernatural). The end effect will be a society that cannot produce its own scientists, increasing advantages for other competing economies, and a group of people who think the lights go on because of magic entitites when they hit the switch.

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If you can develop a theory that has wide spread support as does creationism or ID such that kids

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Since most of us in this thread are in agreement on the main issue I wanted to touch on one aspect of the debate that I missed before but consider important. In your sentence you refer to creationism and ID as "theory". Bush did the same in his statement of support for teaching ID. The problem is that niether creationism nor ID are "theories" as defined scientifically. They are not even scientific hypotheses as niether is testable nor falsifiable much less generating or having supporting evidence. They can only be considered "theories" in a colloquial sense which in itself would be a problem to use a layman concept of theory in a science class. I think a solution if a kid asks about ID in class is to explain what a scientific hypothesis is and why ID fails,but evolution does not and then move on from there and teach the science.

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they are still theories in the sense they are unproven beliefs.

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That is why I distinguish them from scientific theories. I don't see the connection as offensive per se, rather inaccurate since theories have a collquial meaning that differs from the scientific meaning. Sort of the way "significant" has a different meaning in statistics than it does in common speech. When the collquial use of theory is used interchangeably with the scientific, it gives the appearance that ID and creationism should be given equal scientific merit with a biological theory.I also do not advocate going through each opposing theory in a class nor condemning religion. In principle I would not even bring up ID or creationism in a science class. But if a student were to ask one would have to balance not derailing a science course with not offending the students beliefs. One would hope that the basics of the scientific method would be taught before students are even exposed to any specific topics in biology. But this may not always be the case.I missed jar and Omnivorous' dissent..I have mostly read the posts from you, paisano and holmes.Cheers,
M

I agree that the Ph.D. pool will always be small. But it is still significant because a lot of PhDs in biology go on to found companies or patent their discoveries. If they are mostly foreign it is an unusual reliance on foreigners for an important segement of the economy (not that I think having foreigners in research is bad..but it is not a great sign when one starts heading towards an almost complete reliance on them to do research). If they return to their home countries, the benefit (economically) will go with them. An example going the other way is that a lot of technologies were developed in Germany but due to the unbelievable and mind numbing beuracracy here, were commercialized and patented in the US..for example the MP3 format. The country and its industry has missed out on a fortune.Another issue is that even technicians and health care professionals overlap at least through parts of their education with those who will go on to get Ph.D.'s. If they are all badly taught, then the general level of scientific literacy will be low in exactly the group that needs an ever increasing knowledge base and fewer will bother to go on to a higher degree than would have. It is also alarming that the general public is scientifically ignorant as we now depend a great deal economically and particularly in health care on scientific advances. People with no concept of science are forced to make uninformed decisions or just trust what pharma tells them through ads.Engineering is perhaps different than biology in the motivation (financial and in regards to career advancement) to continue on for a Ph.D. but lousy science teaching will not help the US generate homegrown engineers than it will biologists.

I agree that there are a lot of factors. In fact many are not homegrown. For example the complete failure of the German economy is forcing lots of scientists and healthcare professionals to move abroad. They are highly educated and well trained so they are easily absorbed where they are needed...but one of the reasons they are so well trained and educated is that the general education system here is much better at teaching science.But it would probably be a better topic for a new thread.

Hi Monk,
In many cases it would appear to be unplanned because it derives from a misunderstanding of the diffferences in term usage. Scientific theory is sometimes used to distinguish the science usage from the colloquial...but very often I hear creationists say that evolution is "just a theory" which indicates they don't understand how science works. For groups that persist in using this arguement after having the error explained to them, I suspect that they are most likely purposefully using it as a political device.Irrespective of the controversy involved with teaching evolution, I find it alarming that people can get through high school and not understand the basics of the scientific method given how much modern society depends on it.

short off topic,
I will start a thread on the possible reasons for the increasing number of foreign researchers in US science soon i.e. did not forget as I think it is an interesting topic. I am off to a meeting and will be offline all next week.

Hi paisano,
I found some data on the demographics of postdocs and scientists in general for the US herenationalpostdoc.organd herehttp://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/0309096138There has definitely been a shift to a heavy reliance on foreign talent since the early 80's.Again, while there may be several mitigating factors including economics, I think the relevance to this thread is that by promoting ID and other such nonsense, the administration will further weaken US homegrown science and increase our reliance on foreigners...like with oil, this kind of reliance is suceptible to shocks such as other countries becoming more attractive for foreign researchers (as is happening with stem cell research already)...although one might not immediately see the impact of a decrease in science talent like one might see with spikes in oil prices, the long term consequences would be more dramatic if say China or the EU becomes the leader in science and the use of science in developing practical technology.

Hi paisano,
Thanks for the quick reply. I agree with you for the most part except that part of the shift occurred over the last 25 years i.e. from 1981 to now has seen a dramatic shift in the number of foreigners percentage wise. A career as a postdoc was not attractive in the 80's either yet more Americans chose to go into academia (proportionally) and there were less industry options available in the 80's and early 90's than currently. Also, many foreigners also seek a middle income job when they come here (though the increase in the number of Asia postdocs in many fields may in part be because of the better economics for them in the US than at home). I have certainly been living off a middle class salary ever since I finished grad school as a postdoc.One factor that may be driving people away is the increase in the number of postdocs people usually have to through before getting a stable job and the overall length of time people have to postdoc. It used to be a couple of years and now the average is closing on a decade (in bio sciences). That drives women out in particular since they are forced to choose between having children or continuing their careers.But I don't think this explains all of it...it has always been tough to be a scientist. It takes a ton of money to do research and used to be exclusively for the rich. Darwin and Newton where hardly poor kids who made the big time. It also takes a greater committment to long term learning than many other career choices. That was true 100 years ago and is true today.What I would like to see is information on the science education competence of the countries of origin for the foreign postdocs and grads in relation to the US. There are the PISA studies which show our test scores in relation to europe. But they do not include the Asian countries where most of the foreign postdocs are coming from (Japan is included but not India or China). Incidentally, most european countries waste us in K-12 scores in science and math. If they could break it down grade by grade and for the US state by state or region by region...there might be a way to find see trends over time that might indicate when and where people are getting turned off to science. My guess (and it is just a guess) is that places with high concentrations of fundamentalists and other types of anti-science groups will show lousy science scores over time with the lowest proportion of students going on to get Ph.D.s much less become career scientists..but a study that could track this would be very interesting and useful. It might shed light on the motivations and education levels of those who come to the US from abroad to do science and at the same time, show (or not show) a cultural/educational trend that deters Americans from going into science.