Why did the social prestige of science and engineering decline in the US? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why did the social prestige of science and engineering decline in the US?

#31

Post by jerf » Sat, Apr 02, 2011, 4:51 PM UTC

kmfrk wrote: post #6

Read Anti-Intellectualism in America by Richard* Hofstadter; it's as true and relevant today, as it was back then. The decline, if any, probably has to do with the fact that there wasn't a Cold War where scientists could participate directly against a tangible threat and common purpose: “The Sputnik was more than a shock to American national vanity: it brought an immense amount of attention to bear on the consequence…

Part of the problem is that the American distrust of intellectualism is itself not the irrational thing that those sympathetic to intellectuals would like to think. Intellectuals killed by the millions in the 20th century, and it actually takes the sophisticated training of "education" to work yourself up into a state where you refuse to count that in the books. Intellectuals routinely declared things that aren't true; catastrophically wrong predictions about the economy, catastrophically wrong pronouncements about foreign policy, and just generally numerous times where they've been wrong. Again, it takes a lot of training to ignore this fact. "Scientists" collectively were witnessed by the public flipflopping at a relatively high frequency on numerous topics; how many times did eggs go back and forth between being deadly and beneficial? Sure the media gets some blame here but the scientists played into it, each time confidently pronouncing that this time they had it for sure and it is imperative that everyone live the way they are saying (until tomorrow). Scientists have failed to resist politicization across the board, and the standards of what constitutes science continues to shift from a living, vibrant, thoughtful understanding of the purposes and ways of science to a scelerotic hide-bound form-over-substance version of science where papers are too often written to either explicitly attract grants or to confirm someone's political beliefs... and regardless of whether this is 2% or 80% of the papers written today it's nearly 100% of the papers that people hear about.

I simplify for rhetorical effect; my point is not that this is a literal description of the current state of the world but that it is far more true than it should be. Any accounting of "anti-intellectualism" that fails to take this into account and lays all the blame on "Americans" is too incomplete to formulate an action plan that will have any chance of success. It's not a one-sided problem.

If you want to fix anti-intellectualism, you first need to fix intellectualism and return it to its roots of dispassionate exploration, commitment to truth over all else and bending processes to find truth rather than bending truth to fit (politicized) processes, and return to great, foundational humility that even the press could not overplay into hubris. And they need to drop their blinders whereby they excuse away the damage that intellectuals have done while ignoring these ancient precepts and only crediting themselves their successes, because it cuts themselves off from the very object lessons that could help them return to this time-tested approach to science, which they still flatter themselves that they follow. If you fail to fix the intellectuals first, then all your effort to fix "Americans" is going to fail; you'll bend your efforts towards getting them to look at intellectuals seriously, but they'll end up coming to the same conclusions they already have about the value of intellectuals and you'll have wasted your shot.

I'm not holding my breath.

Re: Why did the social prestige of science and engineering decline in the US?

#32

Post by jleyank » Sat, Apr 02, 2011, 4:52 PM UTC

caseysoftware wrote: post #24

dwc wrote: post #2

Two books I've recently read are The Age of American Unreason by Jacoby [1] and Unscientific America by Mooney & Kirschenbaum [2]. Both are worth reading, but Jacoby gives a deeper and more thoughtful analysis and spends considerable time on historical roots and trends. This topic is tied heavily to politics, and I hesitate to get into that here. I will say this: science is about exploring, like math is about explori…

We have a government that generally believes we can legislate our problems away and that most people are incapable of taking care of themselves. When you start from that premise, everything that you do "for the good of society" or "because it's fair" ends up stepping on someone, usually those closer to the top. Alternatively, when you have leadership coming from fields where reason and making things better by creatin…

No, Jimmy Carter was a nuc. Navy, selected by Rickover, etc.

Re: Why did the social prestige of science and engineering decline in the US?

#33

Post by reemrevnivek » Sat, Apr 02, 2011, 5:14 PM UTC

scritic wrote: post #17

zaidf wrote: post #16

My pediatric surgeon dad who deals with kids everyday loves to chat with kids about their aspirations. In the US, vast majority of the kids want to become firefighters or cops. In contrast, when my dad practiced in India, majority of kids wanted to become doctors or engineers. It's probably hard to tell the cause from the effect. May be they both have a little bit to do with each other. But in Indian movies, for exam…

Heh. Some thoughts on this: http://cogsciresearch.blogspot.com/2010/04/math-phobia-pedag...

Excellent read! Here's the author's own summary:

> To sum up, my point in this post was to posit an "internal" explanation, rooted in styles of pedagogy, for why the best and the brightest high school students in the US do not opt for technical majors/careers in college, while those in India do so overwhelmingly. My explanation for this was that, in the US, it is the authoritarian nature of science education, especially when compared with the "creative" way other disciplines (like history or literature) are taught, that is responsible for the math-phobia. On the other hand, in India, the cultural logic of the same authoritarian style of science education works out differently because students can discern a "method" in it, and they can discern no such method in the other disciplines, just a series of facts. Consequently, the best and the brightest high school students in India are less likely to suffer from math-phobia.

Re: Why did the social prestige of science and engineering decline in the US?

#34

Post by BrentRitterbeck » Sat, Apr 02, 2011, 5:19 PM UTC

seltzered wrote: post #5

Read iTulip.com / the book "The post-castastrophy economy" I'd argue it was the rise of the FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) economy that grew very rapidly over the past 30 years. The FIRE economy is opposite to the classical producer - consumer economy. There's plenty of times I sometimes wish I just made money like my friends doing trading/finance/etc. instead of studying electrical engineering. I'd get to wo…

There are people with strong scientific, mathematical, and technological backgrounds working in the FIRE space. This is directly the result of a lack of funding for traditional science. FIRE didn't take people from traditional science. FIRE absorbed scientifically-inclined people who otherwise wouldn't have a place to put their background to use.

Fund traditional science more, and the prestige will come back. Traditional scientific research is expensive.

EDIT: Here's a recent link (a few months ago) that illustrates my point:

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-tevatron-is-shutting-down...

Re: Why did the social prestige of science and engineering decline in the US?

#35

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 02, 2011, 5:19 PM UTC

jleyank wrote: post #32

caseysoftware wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a government that generally believes we can legislate our problems away and that most people are incapable of taking care of themselves. When you start from that premise, everything that you do "for the good of society" or "because it's fair" ends up stepping on someone, usually those closer to the top. Alternatively, when you have leadership coming from fields where reason and making things better by creatin…

No, Jimmy Carter was a nuc. Navy, selected by Rickover, etc.

[deleted]

Re: Why did the social prestige of science and engineering decline in the US?

#36

Post by orijing » Sat, Apr 02, 2011, 5:25 PM UTC

jseliger wrote: post #28

zaidf wrote: post #16

My pediatric surgeon dad who deals with kids everyday loves to chat with kids about their aspirations. In the US, vast majority of the kids want to become firefighters or cops. In contrast, when my dad practiced in India, majority of kids wanted to become doctors or engineers. It's probably hard to tell the cause from the effect. May be they both have a little bit to do with each other. But in Indian movies, for exam…

In the US, vast majority of the kids want to become firefighters or cops. . . . It's probably hard to tell the cause from the effect. I think it's easy: jobs as scientists in the U.S. suck relative to other jobs. See here: http://www.miller-mccune.com/science/the-real-science-gap-16... ? for more. Basically, if you have the chops to get a job in science, you're probably better off doing something else (like med schoo…

> I think it's easy: jobs as scientists in the U.S. suck relative to other jobs. Consider that firefighters or cops get paid reasonably well; effectively can't be fired after a short probationary period unless they do something incredibly egregious because they're protected by unions; have jobs that demand physical activity, so they aren't just sitting in front of a screen all day; and, in the case of firefighters, have a level of social prestige that means (male) firefighters are almost universally admired by women.

But do you think the "vast majority of kids" take that as their main reason? Do you think they know the labor market dynamics? That the job is incredibly secure? Not so mentally demanding? Requires only a two-year degree?

I think that kids in majority think mostly about the act of being a police officer, rather than the auxiliary benefits of being one (financial security being one). Perhaps they are drawn by the power, the apparent admiration, or some desire to "serve his/her country."

Re: Why did the social prestige of science and engineering decline in the US?

#37

Post by bradshaw1965 » Sat, Apr 02, 2011, 5:27 PM UTC

awarzzkktsyfj wrote: post #29

bradshaw1965 wrote: post #10

The percentage of smart people working in finance trended much higher then science and engineering. Fake disciplines like "Financial Engineering" thus became paramount. Institutions supported these changes.

Just because people are making a lot of money in finance does not mean they are smart, or would be capable working as an engineer or scientist.

True. I'm simply using elite college enrollment as a proxy for "smart".

Re: Why did the social prestige of science and engineering decline in the US?

#38

Post by gamble » Sat, Apr 02, 2011, 5:34 PM UTC

jseliger wrote: post #28

zaidf wrote: post #16

My pediatric surgeon dad who deals with kids everyday loves to chat with kids about their aspirations. In the US, vast majority of the kids want to become firefighters or cops. In contrast, when my dad practiced in India, majority of kids wanted to become doctors or engineers. It's probably hard to tell the cause from the effect. May be they both have a little bit to do with each other. But in Indian movies, for exam…

In the US, vast majority of the kids want to become firefighters or cops. . . . It's probably hard to tell the cause from the effect. I think it's easy: jobs as scientists in the U.S. suck relative to other jobs. See here: http://www.miller-mccune.com/science/the-real-science-gap-16... ? for more. Basically, if you have the chops to get a job in science, you're probably better off doing something else (like med schoo…

It may depend on the area, but becoming a firefighter is unbelievably difficult these days. The competition is very intense.

My brother spent close to ten years applying to every firefighting job he could find. He has a four-year degree, a diploma from fire-fighting school, years of experience as a private firefighter on a military base and as an EMT, and he's a competitive bodybuilder. He finally gave up this year and went back to school to get his teaching certificate.

Re: Why did the social prestige of science and engineering decline in the US?

#39

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Apr 02, 2011, 5:39 PM UTC

karolisd wrote: post #18

kleiba wrote: post #12

I thought about the same question before, or in particular the social prestige of computer scientists. My best shot is: because you cannot make cool TV shows about computer scientists. There are lots of shows in which specific professions come across as cool - doctors, cops, lawyers (of all things)... on the other hand, whenever a computer scientist is portrayed in a show or a movie, what you get is the stereotypical…

Doctors, cops, and lawyers interact with other people in interesting ways. Scientists and engineers generally interact with machines in interesting way. Much more difficult to make a story about that.

I'm sorry, I can't do that, Dave.

Re: Why did the social prestige of science and engineering decline in the US?

#40

Post by juiceandjuice » Sat, Apr 02, 2011, 5:40 PM UTC

caseysoftware wrote: post #24

dwc wrote: post #2

Two books I've recently read are The Age of American Unreason by Jacoby [1] and Unscientific America by Mooney & Kirschenbaum [2]. Both are worth reading, but Jacoby gives a deeper and more thoughtful analysis and spends considerable time on historical roots and trends. This topic is tied heavily to politics, and I hesitate to get into that here. I will say this: science is about exploring, like math is about explori…

We have a government that generally believes we can legislate our problems away and that most people are incapable of taking care of themselves. When you start from that premise, everything that you do "for the good of society" or "because it's fair" ends up stepping on someone, usually those closer to the top. Alternatively, when you have leadership coming from fields where reason and making things better by creatin…

Steven Chu?