Rising above the gathering storm

[CharonY]

In 2005 the national academies followed a bipartisan call provide recommendations to ensure economic growth. One of the key findings was that low quality if science education was endangering the US' innovation potential and thus, economic growth. Link

Now, five years later a follow-up report has been published. While some suggestions are at least partially implemented, the once held advantage of the US seems to have continued eroding. Follow up

 

I have not finished the whole report yet, however many of the key points appear to be very important to me (although I may be biased).Despite the importance AFAIK I can see little coverage of this in the media (as opposed to, say some random remarks of some guy on TV or radio about someone else). Why is that so? Is it because the complexity of the problem cannot be worded into nice sound bites which blame one party or another?

[Pangloss]

I can see little coverage of this in the media (as opposed to, say some random remarks of some guy on TV or radio about someone else). Why is that so? Is it because the complexity of the problem cannot be worded into nice sound bites which blame one party or another?

 

Well one thing is for sure -- we're not going to be able to rely on a collection of makeup-enhanced pinup dolls with online degrees in mass communications to show us the way to a better-educated future.

[CaptainPanic]

Education is considered just another factor in the government's financial picture.

 

I believe that the reason is that politicians need to please the population. The population demand instant satisfaction... (Yes, we blame the politicians and managers to be short term thinkers, but the general public is far worse). And the short term thinking will mean that it is very interesting to reduce the budget of education.

 

Add to that the fact that universities are considered very expensive, and the people working there are "a bunch of nerds that just turn their hobby into a job", and all they do is "look at the stars" which "has no purpose at all", so they are "getting free money for doing nothing" while all the other people are "working to feed those eternal students"...

- That's just some statements that I picked up in the media over the years. People do not understand the value of science.

 

It is a sad situation where universities probably need a marketing department to justify the money they spend.

[CharonY]

Education is considered just another factor in the government's financial picture.

 

I believe that the reason is that politicians need to please the population. The population demand instant satisfaction... (Yes, we blame the politicians and managers to be short term thinkers, but the general public is far worse). And the short term thinking will mean that it is very interesting to reduce the budget of education.

 

Add to that the fact that universities are considered very expensive, and the people working there are "a bunch of nerds that just turn their hobby into a job", and all they do is "look at the stars" which "has no purpose at all", so they are "getting free money for doing nothing" while all the other people are "working to feed those eternal students"...

- That's just some statements that I picked up in the media over the years. People do not understand the value of science.

 

It is a sad situation where universities probably need a marketing department to justify the money they spend.

 

 

Interesting enough, either in the report itself or in a comment from one of the authors (I forgot the details), it was mentioned that the desire for instant gratification in students (as well as parents for that matter) is one of the many reasons for the decline of science education.

Carl Sagan wrote something similar in the 90s already.

Also, most universities have a PR department. The outreach programs are at least partially aimed to increase visibility of the university, justify expenses as well as to attract donors.

It has to be said, though that according to polls unis are generally held in high regard within the population.

[lemur]

What I believe happens when politicians and others in media start promoting science as an economic benefit is that a version of science is adopted that allows competitive status-achievement types to prove their merit and gain a good-paying position somewhere high on a corporate food-chain. What this means in practice is that severely anti-innovative thinkers come to utilize science as a means of job-securitization. This in turn creates a demand for highly institutionalized theories that are defined in a way that makes them challenging enough to weed out all but a hard-working elite. Those that make the cut may not be creative or innovative, but they will have proven themselves in an institutionalized system that they expect will be used to maintain their position in a rigorously controlled hierarchy of fiscal-distribution.

 

I'm afraid that this kind of science does not actually improve the base economy with innovation because it actually institutionalizes science in a way that stifles creativity and innovation, in favor of predictable career-outcomes that promote competition for job-security. The way that science improves the base economy, where resources are actually utilized to create economic value, is by analyzing existing economic practices and tweaking them or formulating alternatives that increase productivity along with efficiency. The problem with doing this is that when it gets done, lots of people complain about the fiscal crises that result from markets flooding with efficiently-produced goods and high-yield services. Then what you get is politicians and others wanting to create more jobs, even if doing so means promoting efficiency and resource-waste. Of course, they never openly state they're willing to increase inefficiency and waste to create jobs, but they simply emphasize the importance of job-creation over conservation of resources and labor-saving innovations.

[CharonY]

A nice discussion roughly pertaining to this topic.

 

Does college make you smarter?

[Marat]

Ever since the widespread panic of the late 1950s that the "Russians are getting ahead of us in science," there has been enormous emphasis in schools, universities, and educational funding on improving science education. Frankly, I'm getting sick of hearing this, especially since the problem seems always to be getting worse rather than better.

 

Look at all that has been done so far: There used to be competitions for poetry and rhetoric at high schools, but now these have disappeared and their place has been taken by science fairs. Every new university student knows that while there is excellent grant money available for science studies, the money available for the humanities and social sciences is minimal or non-existent. Every new university student also knows that by studying science he can secure himself a fair chance of getting a job and perhaps even a good job, but if he studies the poetry of Verlaine and gets a degree in French literature he is going to spend his life making not contributions to French literary criticism but instead just making french fries.

 

Yet with all these inducements we still can't increase the number of students who elect to do science. Perhaps the answer lies simply in the fact that not all people will want to do science however much inducement we provide, or that many people simply can't do science. We may well already have reached the maximum that social policy can do in increasing the number of science students in the kind of culture we have.

[lemur]

Ever since the widespread panic of the late 1950s that the "Russians are getting ahead of us in science," there has been enormous emphasis in schools, universities, and educational funding on improving science education. Frankly, I'm getting sick of hearing this, especially since the problem seems always to be getting worse rather than better.

 

Look at all that has been done so far: There used to be competitions for poetry and rhetoric at high schools, but now these have disappeared and their place has been taken by science fairs. Every new university student knows that while there is excellent grant money available for science studies, the money available for the humanities and social sciences is minimal or non-existent. Every new university student also knows that by studying science he can secure himself a fair chance of getting a job and perhaps even a good job, but if he studies the poetry of Verlaine and gets a degree in French literature he is going to spend his life making not contributions to French literary criticism but instead just making french fries.

 

Have you stopped to consider that the reason it is hard to get a job with a fundamental science or liberal arts degree is that these studies are "liberal" in the sense that they are not directly driven by economic interests. Thus, for a scientist or literary scholar to be truly free, they have to be independent of economic control, which in turn requires that they achieve economic sustainment through some other profession or means? Anytime you pay someone to do science or write, they are in a position of being forced to modify their research or other perspective to conform to the interest of their funding-source. Tenure is really the only means to protect academic freedom but even then, you are dependent on the investments of the university or research institute that funds your salary. The people who are most academically free are those whose income is entirely independent of their research/writing. E.g. if you get paid to paint houses, no one cares whether you research and write about black holes, basket weaving, or banana republics. Of course there could be cases where people would choose not to hire someone to paint their house just because they disagreed with their politics, but theoretically your client shouldn't have any interest in whether you're a republican or a communist or both at the same time.

 

 

Yet with all these inducements we still can't increase the number of students who elect to do science. Perhaps the answer lies simply in the fact that not all people will want to do science however much inducement we provide, or that many people simply can't do science. We may well already have reached the maximum that social policy can do in increasing the number of science students in the kind of culture we have.

Do you really want students who are induced to study your field? Wouldn't it make more sense to figure out what the purpose of your science is and then make a case for why your field shouldn't become a dead language? Actually, it might be more effective to do some research into what culture would be like if science faded and was eclipsed by other forms of culture. I.e. what would the world be like without science. I think it would be pretty bad, but I'm not exactly sure how since it is such a strong culture in "my world."