You Don't Need Science - Or Education - If You're Planning For A Nation Of Serfs
As the shutdown continues to harm U.S. science in myriad ways, I worry a lot that we’re on the cusp of a long-term decline in U.S. science.
U.S. research universities are the envy of the world. These research universities and the research they generate produce enormous economic benefits for us — see, e.g., Silicon Valley, biomedical research … Our research universities also attract the smartest students from around the world; they all want to come to the U.S. to pursue graduate studies. This in turn is one of the things that makes our universities so good — we get the world’s smartest students. I note that there are plenty of smart Americans, but there are not enough who want to get a Ph.D. to do all of the research our universities are doing.
Many of these foreign-born students return home after graduation, which is why if you go to China you’ll find their faculty is full of U.S. Ph.D.s. Because they’ve lived in the U.S. for several years, these faculty spread a positive view of the U.S., which is good for us. But here’s the kicker — we keep the very smartest of them. The most productive, most original, most entrepreneurial, etc. get faculty jobs here in the U.S. or jobs at gov’t labs. See @climateofGavin, @khayhoe and many others for examples.
This is the key advantage U.S. science has over other countries. When I worked at NASA Goddard, I marveled that you could walk down the halls and see people who were born all over the world. We’ve taken the smartest people from around the world and they work for us now! A lot of what Trump has done is diminishing the U.S. lead in science. This shutdown is harming science in numerous ways, and the immigration policies also make it harder and less attractive for very smart people to come to the U.S. e.g.,
At some point, smart people will say, “I don’t want to go there.” Perhaps that will make some Trump supporters happy, but I can assure you it will degrade our scientific enterprise and we will be worse-off for it. Many other countries would love to take the mantle of science leader away from the U.S. China, for example, is investing huge amounts of money in research and research infrastructure. If we’re not cognizant of these risks, the U.S. will become a 2nd-rate science power.
Below, Dr. Dessler at his best, explaining satellite temperature data.
EDIT
https://climatecrocks.com/2019/01/17/andrew-dessler-on-the-threat-to-american-science/#comments
= new reply since forum marked as read
