Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 309 posts

Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

#61

Post by paxy »

jeffmcmahan wrote: post #49

The average Chinese is just as clever, if not more clever, than the average Westerner. They'll absolutely produce good results given good funding. But the tradition of the University is not Chinese; the Areopagitica is alien to mainstream Chinese civic and intellectual values; the inviolability of the right to interrogate the universe as a free, searching, essentially individual being is not part of the mentality dri…

Accepting Chinese and other international students is for the USA's own benefit, and not some form of foreign charity. We get some of the smartest people in the world who do great work here and finance a huge chunk of operating expenses of universities through high tuition fees. Plus loads of them stay back and work for or start companies right here rather than in their home countries.

Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

#62

Post by tacomonstrous »

hatmatrix wrote: post #50
throwaway713 wrote: post #36

The quality debate about scientific merit aside, if the U.S. wants to remain "the best", then we need to incentivize the best scientists and researchers in other countries to come here and become U.S. citizens. A lot of famous physicists, mathematicians, and logicians have done this over the past 100 years. Unfortunately, the attractiveness of becoming a U.S. citizen is waning because (1) current U.S. policies on sci…

> current U.S. policies on science are extremely unfavorable to foreign researchers To U.S. researchers also - the proposal funding rate is so low on account of the resource/PI ratio that many U.S. researchers are moving to Europe where there is greater promise of hard funding.

Yes, for instance, the NSF's budget has been static in nominal terms since the Bush years (or at least that's what the program manager told me the last time.i was on a panel). Getting a grant, especially for young researchers looking to establish a track record, is very difficult in this environment.

Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

#63

Post by tacomonstrous »

arcanus wrote: post #58
hatmatrix wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> current U.S. policies on science are extremely unfavorable to foreign researchers To U.S. researchers also - the proposal funding rate is so low on account of the resource/PI ratio that many U.S. researchers are moving to Europe where there is greater promise of hard funding.

The USA spends more on R+D in aggregate and more as a percentage of GDP than the European Union[1]. It is not substantially easier to get a Professorship or permanent research appointment in Europe than the USA, at least generally speaking. Without data to back it up, I don't see how this comment holds up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_research_...

What percentage is allocated to basic research? The US government is continuing to abdicate its responsibility towards funding it.

Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

#64

Post by somethingsimple »

bitxbit wrote: post #56
throwaway713 wrote: post #36

The quality debate about scientific merit aside, if the U.S. wants to remain "the best", then we need to incentivize the best scientists and researchers in other countries to come here and become U.S. citizens. A lot of famous physicists, mathematicians, and logicians have done this over the past 100 years. Unfortunately, the attractiveness of becoming a U.S. citizen is waning because (1) current U.S. policies on sci…

I think it comes down to US and UK in terms of general science research. I would include Japan but language is an issue (for many). Despite what the average math and science metrics in the US imply, I actually think it’s a direct result of more practical approach to education in the US. There are unbelievable opportunities for young students who want to excel in sciences. I was around graduate level research environm…

How hard it is to access it as an adult with a career? I'm an immigrant software engineer but I'd love to work in research (I think).

Is there a path other than a PhD at this point?

Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

#65

Post by privong »

hatmatrix wrote: post #50
throwaway713 wrote: post #36

The quality debate about scientific merit aside, if the U.S. wants to remain "the best", then we need to incentivize the best scientists and researchers in other countries to come here and become U.S. citizens. A lot of famous physicists, mathematicians, and logicians have done this over the past 100 years. Unfortunately, the attractiveness of becoming a U.S. citizen is waning because (1) current U.S. policies on sci…

> current U.S. policies on science are extremely unfavorable to foreign researchers To U.S. researchers also - the proposal funding rate is so low on account of the resource/PI ratio that many U.S. researchers are moving to Europe where there is greater promise of hard funding.

> the proposal funding rate is so low on account of the resource/PI ratio that many U.S. researchers are moving to Europe where there is greater promise of hard funding.

Funding rates are low in many (all?) fields of science in the US, but I agree with @arcanus that some data showing US researchers moving to Europe is warranted.

In my field (astronomy), jobs in the US are tough to come by, but jobs in Europe are generally even more difficult to get. There seem to be fewer jobs in Europe and those jobs are often reserved for people who are already "in the system" and worked at the hiring institution. So many of those jobs to go people who've put in their dues by hanging around, rather than hiring the best people.

Europe does have large European Research Council (ERC) grants which are typically a few million Euros per award. If you win one of those, you're good to go and can fund a sizable research group (at least in astronomy) and can probably use that as leverage to get a faculty job. But those grants are tough to come by.

I can't speak for other fields, but the vast majority of people I've met in astronomy that are moving to Europe are doing so because they're from Europe and want to head home. But the availability of research/faculty jobs there is not good, compared to the US.

Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

#66

Post by jeffmcmahan »

paxy wrote: post #61
jeffmcmahan wrote: post #49

The average Chinese is just as clever, if not more clever, than the average Westerner. They'll absolutely produce good results given good funding. But the tradition of the University is not Chinese; the Areopagitica is alien to mainstream Chinese civic and intellectual values; the inviolability of the right to interrogate the universe as a free, searching, essentially individual being is not part of the mentality dri…

Accepting Chinese and other international students is for the USA's own benefit, and not some form of foreign charity. We get some of the smartest people in the world who do great work here and finance a huge chunk of operating expenses of universities through high tuition fees. Plus loads of them stay back and work for or start companies right here rather than in their home countries.

Yes, I do recognize that. However, it also benefits the Chinese regime enormously, and I think a future in which that regime has the scientific and technological capacity that we currently have is unlikely to be good for humankind (not that Western governments have been perfect ... or even basically good).

Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

#67

Post by zoom6628 »

Lets not forget that China has over 3x the popn of USA so to surpass scientific output is to be expected at some stage. They havent got there yet because there is a history, culture and political environment to overcome and that will take a few more decades.

In the fields that i pay attention to (Im not a scientist, just a curious part-time pythonista) such as materials science, practical uses of AI and vision, it seems (just an opinion, dont ask me for stats) most of the work are coming from China scientists. In some other fields like programming languages, computer networking they seem significantly fewer. Of course this may be biased by my sources.

On a social level when one has a government where the top level politicians are mostly scientists and engineers this is a result to be expected. When govt is dominated by lawyers one can expect things go in other direction. China realised a long time ago that they had to educate and work to improve their position - productivity and improving standard of living comes from real productive stuff not from legislation.

My 2c.

Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

#68

Post by [deleted] »

throw2016 wrote: post #25
whatshisface wrote: post #2

> They document a rapid expansion between 2000 and 2016, as the Chinese share of global publications in physical sciences, engineering and math quadrupled. I really hate to risk being the guy who says "they will never best us," until they do, but in my field and many others Chinese papers are known to be of a lower quality standard and a lot more mill-like. This may come as a surprise to many, but the simple fact is…

There are a number of factors at play here. It's not that fraud, cheating and corruption does not happen here but it doesn't taint the entire system but when it happens elsewhere it tends to 'stick' to them. In this case you may have perceived fraud or lower quality in a specific area and you are generalizing it to entire Chinese academia when like everywhere in the world they have high quality and low quality instit…

[deleted]

Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

#69

Post by sixo »

bitxbit wrote: post #56
throwaway713 wrote: post #36

The quality debate about scientific merit aside, if the U.S. wants to remain "the best", then we need to incentivize the best scientists and researchers in other countries to come here and become U.S. citizens. A lot of famous physicists, mathematicians, and logicians have done this over the past 100 years. Unfortunately, the attractiveness of becoming a U.S. citizen is waning because (1) current U.S. policies on sci…

I think it comes down to US and UK in terms of general science research. I would include Japan but language is an issue (for many). Despite what the average math and science metrics in the US imply, I actually think it’s a direct result of more practical approach to education in the US. There are unbelievable opportunities for young students who want to excel in sciences. I was around graduate level research environm…

My immediate reaction to this is you _probably_ had well-off parents in or adjacent to academia, and (separately) are likely to be in the demographic majority here.

Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

#70

Post by whatshisface »

throw2016 wrote: post #25
whatshisface wrote: post #2

> They document a rapid expansion between 2000 and 2016, as the Chinese share of global publications in physical sciences, engineering and math quadrupled. I really hate to risk being the guy who says "they will never best us," until they do, but in my field and many others Chinese papers are known to be of a lower quality standard and a lot more mill-like. This may come as a surprise to many, but the simple fact is…

There are a number of factors at play here. It's not that fraud, cheating and corruption does not happen here but it doesn't taint the entire system but when it happens elsewhere it tends to 'stick' to them. In this case you may have perceived fraud or lower quality in a specific area and you are generalizing it to entire Chinese academia when like everywhere in the world they have high quality and low quality instit…

There once was a man whose house was burning down, having been lit by a fire that had started at his neighbors'. When the firefighters arrived he warded them off: "my house is burning?" he continued, contently, "their house is burning."
Post reply on HN