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Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

#51

Post by nyeah »

dixie_land wrote: post #27
cle wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans think "supporting universities" is not necessarily the same as "supporting science."

to be fair universities nowadays are more interested in supporting identity politics and liberal ideology than supporting science

Ok, there probably are folks who can't differentiate between the Physics department and the Sociology department. Or who can tell the difference but who attack both anyway.

The problem for science is those folks. Right? The universities are actually teaching and advancing science. They're not the problem. The Pol Pot types are the problem. We know this very well from history.

Re: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

#52

Post by cogman10 »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #2

The US is lagging by every reasonable measure. What has changed is primarily 2 things: 1) People in positions of authority are now openly anti-progress in an effort to pacify entrenched interests. 2) These same people are also openly anti-immigrant. In the past, a lot of science in the USA has been imported from other countries by way of immigration. Less science equals less/inferior technology which equals smaller e…

3) We've exported scientific talent.

4) We've destroyed the public scientific job sector.

If your field of science isn't related to something the US military is interested in, you better have a degree in something directly related to pharmaceuticals.

A lot of the US's leadership in science was based purely on the momentum it gained from the progressive era and the cheap education we used to have. Ever since roughly Reagan, it's been slowly eroded to today's sorry state.

When I went to school, the promise was "get a degree in anything, it'll pay for itself". Now, gen z is actively choosing to avoid college because the ROI is horrendous.

Re: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

#53

Post by programjames »

b65e8bee43c2ed0 wrote: post #21

there's science as in "STEM" and there's science as in "trust the science". virtually everyone supports the former.

Not really, there's been a pretty effective culture war saying, "STEM degrees are actually useless, you need to know how to have a human connection." Only around 25% of Bachelor's and Master's degrees are in STEM fields, though it shoots up to 65% of PhDs. It seems to be pointing towards most people not supporting STEM, and advocating for students to not go into STEM, despite having some of the most lucrative (in expected value) majors.

Re: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

#54

Post by SoftTalker »

dixie_land wrote: post #27
cle wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans think "supporting universities" is not necessarily the same as "supporting science."

to be fair universities nowadays are more interested in supporting identity politics and liberal ideology than supporting science

Many are doing a quick about-face on that stuff though. They just do whatever they are told so that the grant money keeps coming in.

Re: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

#55

Post by mmooss »

diego_moita wrote: post #6

Everyone in the world "supports" science, exactly the same way everyone "supports" healthy lifestyles, democracy and other "good things". The problem is that everyone has a different idea of what these good things are. For some, science is vaccines, understanding global warming and the theory of evolution. Others will say that real science is denying global warming, creationism, anti-vaxers or homeopathy.

> Others will say that real science is denying global warming, creationism, anti-vaxers or homeopathy.

I haven't heard their advocates refer to those things as science, but rather they criticize science's validity.

Re: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

#56

Post by orev »

mmmBacon wrote: post #24
jqpabc123 wrote: post #2

The US is lagging by every reasonable measure. What has changed is primarily 2 things: 1) People in positions of authority are now openly anti-progress in an effort to pacify entrenched interests. 2) These same people are also openly anti-immigrant. In the past, a lot of science in the USA has been imported from other countries by way of immigration. Less science equals less/inferior technology which equals smaller e…

By what metric is the US lagging? By any objective measure we can see the dominance of US technology. I think it’s most of the rest of the world that’s being left behind; Europe in particular. If what you’re saying is true the US economy would also be flagging but it’s not. If what you’re saying is true, you’d see the list of the world’s most valuable companies dominated by non-US firms. I think you are confusing the…

Science creates the seeds, and what you’re citing are the fruits of seeds that were planted decades ago. Big tech only exists because of random science investments that were made long ago.

The metric isn’t how much fruit you have now, but how well you’re preparing the soil and planting the seeds for the next generation.

Re: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

#57

Post by programjames »

mmooss wrote: post #50
programjames wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like an arrogant American take. The United States primary and secondary schools are middling at best, and that has been showing through to its universities. Foreigners were already choosing Chinese universities. It's not like the recent administration could just "keep pulling", what do they have to appeal with? Obviously shutting off the flow of any and all talent is stupid, but it's a little arrogant to preten…

American universities led the world, without competition as a whole (there were a few individual universities elsewhere). Look at any ranking of universities worldwide, such as Times Higher Education.

That is true. It is also true that their primary and secondary schools were quickly dropping in rank relative to other countries in the 2010s, and their universities were following in the COVID/post-COVID era.

Re: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

#58

Post by vovavili »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #48
checker659 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're (still) Americans.

Yes but the point is that anti-immigrant demagoguery is about to slow immigration and weaken our future.

That seems like a wildly irrelevant claim in the context of this conversation.

Re: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

#59

Post by tanderson92 »

cogman10 wrote: post #42
fxtentacle wrote: post #3

The US has become a world leader in suing curious people into submission. As soon as you touch any commercially available tech and do anything that the manufacturer dislikes, you're at risk, thanks to § 1201: "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." Extending your digital camera with new firmware? Illegal. Inventing a custom ink or add…

These are bad things but I have a hard time seeing these as the reason why science is lagging. Science is lagging in the US because the US has destroyed viable careers in science. Who does the hard work to get PHd in a scientific field knowing that they'll be saddled with hundreds of thousands of jobs in debt and that there's a good chance that they'll have no employment opportunities after the fact. Especially with…

People do not graduate with a STEM PhD with hundreds of thousands in debt; that is not how the education system works pretty much anywhere in the world.

Re: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging

#60

Post by mmooss »

programjames wrote: post #57
mmooss wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American universities led the world, without competition as a whole (there were a few individual universities elsewhere). Look at any ranking of universities worldwide, such as Times Higher Education.

That is true. It is also true that their primary and secondary schools were quickly dropping in rank relative to other countries in the 2010s, and their universities were following in the COVID/post-COVID era.

I think the primary and secondary schools were well behind long before the 2010s.

> their universities were following in the COVID/post-COVID era

I haven't heard of that. Where can I find more about it, if you remember?

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