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We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science

theguardian.com

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Re: We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science

#61

Post by mulmen »

inglor_cz wrote: post #40
beloch wrote: post #25

>"Billions of dollars have been wiped from research budgets, almost 8,000 grants have been cancelled at NIH and the US National Science Foundation alone, and more than 1,000 NIH employees have been fired." ---------------- Scientists go where science is funded. A large proportion of U.S. scientists are also immigrants, who will tend to go where immigrants are welcomed.

Not everything is about money. The killer app of the US used to be that the US was rich and welcoming to foreigners and politically quite free. China or Saudi Arabia can wave their money around, but at least some people will be repulsed by the obligation to keep their mouths shut and praise the Dear Leader. Their cultural insularity does not help either. You can live in China, but you will never be accepted as Chines…

> China or Saudi Arabia can wave their money around, but at least some people will be repulsed by the obligation to keep their mouths shut and praise the Dear Leader.

I mean we are literally putting people in concentration camps right now. Kinda hard to take the moral high ground at the moment. Scientists are fleeing the United States for their safety, just like they did from 1930s Germany.

Re: We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science

#62

Post by ProjectArcturis »

mtsr wrote: post #29
ProjectArcturis wrote: post #20

This kind of Level 1 analysis misses what is really going on. "Brain drain" is not really a concern. There is a tremendous glut of talented biomedical researchers. We have been overproducing them for decades. Even before the cuts, it was incredibly hard to go from a PhD to a tenured professorship. 5-15% would achieve that, depending how you measured. The cuts have made things worse, but European/RoW funding is even s…

You are forgetting that tenured researchers often need lots of PhD students to actually do their research. So that ratio of 8 PhDs to a tenured researchers could actually be pretty good.

Pretty good for the professor, not so good for the students.

Re: We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science

#64

Post by inglor_cz »

dylan604 wrote: post #56
inglor_cz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything is about money. The killer app of the US used to be that the US was rich and welcoming to foreigners and politically quite free. China or Saudi Arabia can wave their money around, but at least some people will be repulsed by the obligation to keep their mouths shut and praise the Dear Leader. Their cultural insularity does not help either. You can live in China, but you will never be accepted as Chines…

> The US was quite unique Well, based on the current admin and supporters, only part of the US was unique

That is a trivial observation. A nation of such size can hardly be a hive mind with totally homogeneous politics.

Re: We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science

#65

Post by bluGill »

dylan604 wrote: post #56
inglor_cz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything is about money. The killer app of the US used to be that the US was rich and welcoming to foreigners and politically quite free. China or Saudi Arabia can wave their money around, but at least some people will be repulsed by the obligation to keep their mouths shut and praise the Dear Leader. Their cultural insularity does not help either. You can live in China, but you will never be accepted as Chines…

> The US was quite unique Well, based on the current admin and supporters, only part of the US was unique

That has always been true, and for everywhere. However very few countries are anywhere near as accepting for foreigners as the US as a whole despite the many who are not. Canada is just as accepting from what I can tell - I don't know enough about Australia to know. Most other countries are far worse - though many will not admit it just how bad their country is.

Re: We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science

#66

Post by Bukhmanizer »

inglor_cz wrote: post #64
dylan604 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US was quite unique Well, based on the current admin and supporters, only part of the US was unique

That is a trivial observation. A nation of such size can hardly be a hive mind with totally homogeneous politics.

You’re right best reserve such observations for small nations like China

Re: We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science

#67

Post by lgleason »

If you create an economic incentive to go into math an science you will have no trouble attracting good people. But, for years, it has been a race to the bottom where the US over-produced researchers, scientists etc.. But then to put salt in the wound it also imported more of them to drive the wages down further. As more people have flooded in to STEM at bargain basement prices, the quality of the research has also gone down.

All of this was by design so that big corporate interests could get cheap labor and increase profits. Since the US government is for sale to the highest bidder, and the corporations have no loyalty to the country, they will feed off the host until it can no longer sustain itself and then look for another host to feed off of.

Re: We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science

#68

Post by dylan604 »

inglor_cz wrote: post #64
dylan604 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US was quite unique Well, based on the current admin and supporters, only part of the US was unique

That is a trivial observation. A nation of such size can hardly be a hive mind with totally homogeneous politics.

Yeah. And? So?

When the part of the country that was less unique took power, they immediately did what everyone else that was not unique did and became unwelcoming of foreigners.

I guess to you other countries that the US is becoming more like would also not be of a hive mind by having people that are welcoming of foreigners. Where's your hive mind comment about that part of the original comment?

Re: We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science

#69

Post by dougfelt »

inglor_cz wrote: post #64
dylan604 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US was quite unique Well, based on the current admin and supporters, only part of the US was unique

That is a trivial observation. A nation of such size can hardly be a hive mind with totally homogeneous politics.

Yet China is 3 times as big and you are quite comfortable treating it this way

Re: We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science

#70

Post by lvl155 »

I am pretty sure we are still attracting top talents. We are not, however, attracting good to mediocre talents. Is that a good thing? What’s going to happen to all these mediocre graduate programs spread out all over the country where they simply existed to satiate foreign demand?
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