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China Expands Research Funding, Luring U.S. Scientists and Students

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Re: China Expands Research Funding, Luring U.S. Scientists and Students

#161

Post by netheril96 »

asabjorn wrote: post #131
citilife wrote: post #3

I don't really think China is luring too many U.S. scientists... Most of the scientists I know pretty much ignore research out of China, because a large portion of it is just not replicable (and / or lies).

When I did research and at grad school a large percentage of my peers were either Asian American or Asian, with a large percentage being immigrants from China. As a researcher in the US you spend too much time writing grants and now equity initiatives introduce extra risk in the tenure system for anyone of the wrong identity. I would not underestimate the lure of easy access to grants and a less politicized tenure tr…

China's current academic system is mostly a copy of that of the United States, and all of the current reforms are pushing further to be more like the United States. Whatever flaws of American grad school are and will be in China's grad school.

Re: China Expands Research Funding, Luring U.S. Scientists and Students

#162

Post by [deleted] »

monocasa wrote: post #53
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work with lots of Chinese scientists and they say they are never going back. They don't trust Chinese papers or labs at all.

Wouldn't there be an implicit bias towards those who don't want to return? The others made their way back to China.

[deleted]

Re: China Expands Research Funding, Luring U.S. Scientists and Students

#163

Post by ylem »

citilife wrote: post #3

I don't really think China is luring too many U.S. scientists... Most of the scientists I know pretty much ignore research out of China, because a large portion of it is just not replicable (and / or lies).

In condensed matter physics, there is a lot of good and original work coming out of top Chinese universities and being published in top journals. Also, for those in the 1000 talents programs, the startup grants that they receive are draw dropping.

Re: China Expands Research Funding, Luring U.S. Scientists and Students

#164

Post by ylem »

r0m4n0 wrote: post #141
DevX101 wrote: post #123

The bigger impact isn't luring U.S. scientists to China. It's keeping top Chinese scientists/students in China. Chinese grad students/postdocs are highly represented at elite U.S. universities. With recent political changes in the U.S. making more difficult for international students to come to the U.S. or at least giving the impression that the U.S. is not as friendly to immigration, enrollment from international st…

I am employed by one of the big tech companies in the bay and was recently chosen to interview candidates for our new grad program. I was astonished by how many top of class graduate students we brought into the program that had identical backgrounds. Around 90% had studied in and were from China, usually undergrad there and Ivy League grad school with close to perfect GPAs. If they are keeping their students, I have…

The American Physical Society recently found that international enrollment in graduate physics programs I'd down by around 10%. But, it's uneven. At say Harvard or Stanford, things are probably still fine, but a smaller institutions, it can be much greater. What's worrisome (as an American) is that these trends may not be reversible

Re: China Expands Research Funding, Luring U.S. Scientists and Students

#165

Post by shalmanese »

r0m4n0 wrote: post #141
DevX101 wrote: post #123

The bigger impact isn't luring U.S. scientists to China. It's keeping top Chinese scientists/students in China. Chinese grad students/postdocs are highly represented at elite U.S. universities. With recent political changes in the U.S. making more difficult for international students to come to the U.S. or at least giving the impression that the U.S. is not as friendly to immigration, enrollment from international st…

I am employed by one of the big tech companies in the bay and was recently chosen to interview candidates for our new grad program. I was astonished by how many top of class graduate students we brought into the program that had identical backgrounds. Around 90% had studied in and were from China, usually undergrad there and Ivy League grad school with close to perfect GPAs. If they are keeping their students, I have…

How many of them will still be at your company in 3 years time though? Chinese companies are realizing that students with a little bit of work experience at Western firms are a lot more valuable than new grads (especially because a lot of new grads nowadays are kids of rich parents who couldn't hack it in the Chinese education system).

Smart, ambitious Chinese students are now planning the right new work experiences in the US with an eye towards returning back to China as a junior VP at Tencent or Alibaba when they go back. The way to retain them in the US is to give them the same career opportunities here but a lot of Chinese students are realizing they can climb the ladder a lot faster and further in China and making the rational choice to go back.

Re: China Expands Research Funding, Luring U.S. Scientists and Students

#166

Post by jjcc »

r0m4n0 wrote: post #141
DevX101 wrote: post #123

The bigger impact isn't luring U.S. scientists to China. It's keeping top Chinese scientists/students in China. Chinese grad students/postdocs are highly represented at elite U.S. universities. With recent political changes in the U.S. making more difficult for international students to come to the U.S. or at least giving the impression that the U.S. is not as friendly to immigration, enrollment from international st…

I am employed by one of the big tech companies in the bay and was recently chosen to interview candidates for our new grad program. I was astonished by how many top of class graduate students we brought into the program that had identical backgrounds. Around 90% had studied in and were from China, usually undergrad there and Ivy League grad school with close to perfect GPAs. If they are keeping their students, I have…

I can explain where your astonishing comes form(maybe off topic): there are something to do with how China built the nation yet not quite visible to westerners.

There are many factors. One important factor which amplifies other factors is related to big number theory: quantity is translated into quality. Average Chinese are not quite different from other nationals.(Let's put down controversial conclusion for now) . However China has 1.3 billion people. With such a big number , a small shift of the average on the IQ bell curve doesn't matter. What you have met are a vary small portion of top talent from China. As analogy, you can image a typical top NBA athlete would be black. But with 1.3 billion people there exists a Yao Ming who is not a typical Chinese.

Then why it happened recently? That's related to last 30 years rapid development.But that's invisible part. China not only build road , bridge, bullet train, etc. more importantly which also matches Chinese traditional value: China invest heavily in Education. In 80's (i.e. my generation ) only 5-10% of high school graduate can be accepted by limited universities at the time. But money poured into Education increased year by year incrementally like crazy. Today there are enough universities to provide any qualified students an opportunity for education. The consequence is there's a big change on human capital. This is not limited to what you observed but also in other areas. For example, China is exporting the infrastructure building expertise all over the world. Quite often the builders have to bring whole teams from China because qualified teams are only available there. Those are experienced skill construction workers but not academically competitive students.

The significant increase in human capital is less visible than infrastructure improvement, yet it has a bigger impact

Re: China Expands Research Funding, Luring U.S. Scientists and Students

#167

Post by ezconnect »

citilife wrote: post #3

I don't really think China is luring too many U.S. scientists... Most of the scientists I know pretty much ignore research out of China, because a large portion of it is just not replicable (and / or lies).

You need to read/speak their language to get the good research materials.

Re: China Expands Research Funding, Luring U.S. Scientists and Students

#168

Post by quotemstr »

gus_massa wrote: post #149
quotemstr wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you had the option to grant your child the ability to live to 150 in perfect health, and if, experimentally determined, the risk of negative side effects were the same as, say, postponing childbirth by five years, would you withold this advantage from your child, sentencing him or her to a shorter and more miserable life? How could a responsible parent choose to do that?

> and if, experimentally determined, the risk of negative side effects were the same as, say, postponing childbirth by five years, To determine that some change is safe during the expected 150 year of life, you must measure the effects during … at least 150 years (preferability more). How would be you sure that there are no tradeoff? Perhaps it reduce the chance of reproduction by a 1%. Perhaps it affect the ability…

You can imagine an infinite set of negative consequences of practically any action --- your choice of breakfast cereal, via a chain of consequences, might cause the end of the world. Still, we make choices, because we have to terminate the chain of hypothetical situations at some point, using the heuristic that without a specific reason to believe that some effect happens, it doesn't.

With respect to the topic under discussion: absent any particular reason to suppose that this kind of gene editing causes your hypothetical wartime probability difference or your hypothetical 1% fertility drop, there's no reason to use the possibility of these effects to ban the treatment, since there's as much reason to believe you're making these things less likely as reason to believe that you're making these things more likely.

Regarding changes being advantages: do you really believe, deep down, that being weak is just as useful as being strong? That being resistant to disease is just as good as being vulnerable? That being dumb is just as good as being a genius? Give me a break: I can't seriously entertain the idea that we don't know which traits we'd want our children to have, given a choice.

Re: China Expands Research Funding, Luring U.S. Scientists and Students

#169

Post by Foobar8568 »

jjcc wrote: post #166
r0m4n0 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am employed by one of the big tech companies in the bay and was recently chosen to interview candidates for our new grad program. I was astonished by how many top of class graduate students we brought into the program that had identical backgrounds. Around 90% had studied in and were from China, usually undergrad there and Ivy League grad school with close to perfect GPAs. If they are keeping their students, I have…

I can explain where your astonishing comes form(maybe off topic): there are something to do with how China built the nation yet not quite visible to westerners. There are many factors. One important factor which amplifies other factors is related to big number theory: quantity is translated into quality. Average Chinese are not quite different from other nationals.(Let's put down controversial conclusion for now) . H…

And also the competition to get into good school etc. Basically a student life doesn't start at 18, 16, or 12, but 2years old, if not one and half (interviews for kindergarten). Constant ranking, placement exams, number of school hours etc makes western education pathetic. At the end of P1, Chinese kids are supposed to read something like 800 Chinese words, write 60% of them (if my memory serves me well), in France/Switzerland, most kids can barely read at that age. And poor them if you even think to enforce that. We are destroying generations if the parents don't realize how fucked up is our system: education is a building process, with layers and layers of foundation.

Re: China Expands Research Funding, Luring U.S. Scientists and Students

#170

Post by TangoTrotFox »

eiaoa wrote: post #23

[flagged]

Just to provide some historical context, our space program that ultimately put a man on the moon was largely driven by Nazi science. In particular, Wernher von Braun was a key figure in the design and development of the Nazi's V-2 ICBM, receiving accolades and rewards directly from Hitler himself for his successes. After WW2 he, along with hundreds of other Nazi scientists and engineers, were secretly recruited (see: operation paperclip [1]) to the US where he worked on ballistic missiles before eventually moving onto NASA where he served as the chief architect of the Saturn V that brought us to the moon.

Braun was primarily interested in space travel, but it does lead to a good satirical quote, "I aim at the stars, but sometimes I hit London."

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

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