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Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

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Re: Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

#131

Post by juve1996 »

streptomycin wrote: post #122
juve1996 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers you cited also have a citation that leads to a 404 and are only for 1 year, in one specific state. Hard to draw any reasonable conclusion from that.

NJ has been doing it for decades, the Wikipedia article gives a pretty good overview. There's similar programs in other states, and many examples of poor/bad schools that get tons of funding. Such as basically every major city in the country. Possibly entire states and nearly every city for decades is not enough time, success may be right around the corner!

Again, I'm just asking for actual data, I'm not invalidating your claim, I'm asking for real support of it. I pointed out the Wikipedia article's citation links to a 404 - so I can't even validate (nor did you.) You've just accepted your premise, and what I've found is, "success is never around the corner" for those who have already made up their minds.

Good luck!

Re: Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

#132

Post by streptomycin »

juve1996 wrote: post #131
streptomycin wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NJ has been doing it for decades, the Wikipedia article gives a pretty good overview. There's similar programs in other states, and many examples of poor/bad schools that get tons of funding. Such as basically every major city in the country. Possibly entire states and nearly every city for decades is not enough time, success may be right around the corner!

Again, I'm just asking for actual data, I'm not invalidating your claim, I'm asking for real support of it. I pointed out the Wikipedia article's citation links to a 404 - so I can't even validate (nor did you.) You've just accepted your premise, and what I've found is, "success is never around the corner" for those who have already made up their minds. Good luck!

Actual data of what? The Wikipedia article talks about of different things and links to a lot of different things. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%252C31&q=a... are plenty of papers about the Abbott districts, it's been going on for decades, and that's just about NJ, similar things have been done many places. And not even all by the government. Zuckerberg gave $100 million to Newark, Bill Gates tried a bunch of stuff, but I haven't heard much from them lately, maybe they reached the same conclusion after seeing what their money achieved.

Re: Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

#133

Post by jhanschoo »

mrguyorama wrote: post #106
dr_dshiv wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Few would argue that America has the best healthcare system but the healthcare, hospitals and medical education are, perhaps, unsurpassed.

If that world class healthcare is only accessible to a small percentage of americans, does america really have world class healthcare?

It's useful to separate, as the parent commenter did, the notion of healthcare quality (for those who can afford it), and the state of public health.

Re: Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

#134

Post by Enginerrrd »

asabjorn wrote: post #72
anonporridge wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the scale of nepotism meritocracy, the US is probably much closer to meritocracy than most human societies have been. Are there examples of societies who have done meritocracy better, from which we can take ideas to improve our own system?

Do you think this remains true with DIE and affirmative action being implemented in all major employers, universities and institutions? It is not fashionable to point to the unmeritocratic treatment of Asians and white males, so I guess I will point out the emperors nakedness. Hiring people of all backgrounds that agree with a forced marxist outcome (diversity), firing people dissenting to Marxist forced outcome or s…

I'm not a huge fan of the form DIE practices take almost every time I've run into them, and I'm often even appalled it's gotten to this point, but I also don't think it is an all-or-nothing proposition.

A metric of diversity being applied to selection really doesn't mean it's the sole criterion. The effect isn't negligible, but neither is it fully-like wannabe egalitarian marxist systems where your parent's job or political affiliations forever determined your future status without negotiation.

There's definitely a scale between a meritocratic and egalitarian society.

Re: Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

#135

Post by [deleted] »

asabjorn wrote: post #72
anonporridge wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the scale of nepotism meritocracy, the US is probably much closer to meritocracy than most human societies have been. Are there examples of societies who have done meritocracy better, from which we can take ideas to improve our own system?

Do you think this remains true with DIE and affirmative action being implemented in all major employers, universities and institutions? It is not fashionable to point to the unmeritocratic treatment of Asians and white males, so I guess I will point out the emperors nakedness. Hiring people of all backgrounds that agree with a forced marxist outcome (diversity), firing people dissenting to Marxist forced outcome or s…

[deleted]

Re: Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

#136

Post by asabjorn »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #134
asabjorn wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think this remains true with DIE and affirmative action being implemented in all major employers, universities and institutions? It is not fashionable to point to the unmeritocratic treatment of Asians and white males, so I guess I will point out the emperors nakedness. Hiring people of all backgrounds that agree with a forced marxist outcome (diversity), firing people dissenting to Marxist forced outcome or s…

I'm not a huge fan of the form DIE practices take almost every time I've run into them, and I'm often even appalled it's gotten to this point, but I also don't think it is an all-or-nothing proposition. A metric of diversity being applied to selection really doesn't mean it's the sole criterion. The effect isn't negligible, but neither is it fully-like wannabe egalitarian marxist systems where your parent's job or po…

How do you think about DEI and affirmative action systematically discriminating against poor people from poor families with unfavored identities?

The problem is that although there is for instance merit to helping the poor, that is in direct conflict with DIE that will choose Colin Powell’s son over a multi-generation poor white son of a black father any day.

Likewise, affirmative action will choose to give Hillary Clinton’s daughter research funding over an Asian male from a poor railroad worker family.

If one really cared about class or generational injustice, then the poor white male and Asian male in the examples above would have not been systematically discriminated against using DIE&affirmative action

Re: Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

#137

Post by codethief »

> Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities?

Does it? What does "best" mean? If you look at any particular field in the sciences I am sure you will find several universities outside the U.S. with renowned/leading researchers from that field. (At least that's been the case in every field I've been in.)

The U.S. as a whole simply tends to have more researchers and participate in more fields than any other single country. But that's largely a matter of allocating resources, of which the U.S. and its universities obviously have plenty (more than any other country) for numerous reasons. But it doesn't say anything about the quality of the individual research being conducted.

Re: Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

#138

Post by mrguyorama »

jhanschoo wrote: post #133
mrguyorama wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that world class healthcare is only accessible to a small percentage of americans, does america really have world class healthcare?

It's useful to separate, as the parent commenter did, the notion of healthcare quality (for those who can afford it), and the state of public health.

It's only useful in that it allows the US to still claim they have good healthcare. I disagree that it has any other utility.

Re: Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

#139

Post by jhanschoo »

mrguyorama wrote: post #138
jhanschoo wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's useful to separate, as the parent commenter did, the notion of healthcare quality (for those who can afford it), and the state of public health.

It's only useful in that it allows the US to still claim they have good healthcare. I disagree that it has any other utility.

You're ignoring, willfully or not, that the notion of a good quality of healthcare is useful in many dimensions, e.g. where you might want to go to learn cutting-edge techniques and best practices, or receive them if you can afford them.

Re: Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

#140

Post by wutbrodo »

dougabug wrote: post #66
wutbrodo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think even the most Pollyanna-ish perspective claims that there's a global meritocracy. The smashing success of merit-based immigrants in high-income countries is a pretty undeniable signal that we're nowhere near the point where the marginal legal immigrant is less "meritorious" than the pop avg. I'm personally willing to bite the whole bullet and am an open-borders advocate. But it's a mistake to think that…

Immigrant populations aren’t generally uniform random samples of the rest of the world’s population. People with wealth, social capital, high levels of education (which correlates with family background), extraordinary athletic ability, etc. have a generally easier time of immigrating to this (or probably most) countries. Anti-immigration lobbies have tended to caricature and scapegoat low skilled, low income, “undes…

Yes, my comment doesn't assume a uniform sample.

In fact, it's predicated on there being a substantial filter applied to legal immigrants, such that they are highly successful in their destination country.

The performance gap between legal immigrants and natives is sizable, implying that marginal extra immigrants from loosening this filter would still outperform natives.

And the marginal extra immigrant outperforming the median native means that claims of a global meritocracy are farcical.

----------

> while touting their support for (limited) immigration of high skilled, well-heeled immigrants as evidence of that they aren’t simply against foreigners.

As mentioned, your comment isn't too related to my point. But to follow the tangent: This perspective seems like a consistent and defensible worldview? Wanting a Canada-like system that prioritizes economically-productive immigration is absolutely evidence against a bias against foreigners per se.

(I don't share this worldview. I think borders are something close to a crime against humanity. But I'm aware that mine is a radical position. The anti-immigrant boogeyman you describe sounds like a fairly logical extrapolation of a general belief in borders)

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