U.S. Is Losing Its Dominance in Science

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
U.S. Is Losing Its Dominance in Science
16
Mon, 05-03-2004 - 3:40pm
Shouls we be concerned; is this just the beginning of the decline?

By WILLIAM J. BROAD

Published: May 3, 2004

he United States has started to lose its worldwide dominance in critical areas of science and innovation, according to federal and private experts who point to strong evidence like prizes awarded to Americans and the number of papers in major professional journals.

Foreign advances in basic science now often rival or even exceed America's, apparently with little public awareness of the trend or its implications for jobs, industry, national security or the vigor of the nation's intellectual and cultural life.

"The rest of the world is catching up," said John E. Jankowski, a senior analyst at the National Science Foundation, the federal agency that tracks science trends. "Science excellence is no longer the domain of just the U.S."

Even analysts worried by the trend concede that an expansion of the world's brain trust, with new approaches, could invigorate the fight against disease, develop new sources of energy and wrestle with knotty environmental problems. But profits from the breakthroughs are likely to stay overseas, and this country will face competition for things like hiring scientific talent and getting space to showcase its work in top journals.

One area of international competition involves patents. Americans still win large numbers of them, but the percentage is falling as foreigners, especially Asians, have become more active and in some fields have seized the innovation lead. The United States' share of its own industrial patents has fallen steadily over the decades and now stands at 52 percent.

A more concrete decline can be seen in published research. Physical Review, a series of top physics journals, recently tracked a reversal in which American papers, in two decades, fell from the most to a minority. Last year the total was just 29 percent, down from 61 percent in 1983.

China, said Martin Blume, the journals' editor, has surged ahead by submitting more than 1,000 papers a year. "Other scientific publishers are seeing the same kind of thing," he added.

Another downturn centers on the Nobel Prizes, an icon of scientific excellence. Traditionally, the United States, powered by heavy federal investments in basic research, the kind that pursues fundamental questions of nature, dominated the awards.

But the American share, after peaking from the 1960's through the 1990's, has fallen in the 2000's to about half, 51 percent. The rest went to Britain, Japan, Russia, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and New Zealand.

"We are in a new world, and it's increasingly going to be dominated by countries other than the United States," Denis Simon, dean of management and technology at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, recently said at a scientific meeting in Washington.

Europe and Asia are ascendant, analysts say, even if their achievements go unnoticed in the United States. In March, for example, European scientists announced that one of their planetary probes had detected methane in the atmosphere of Mars — a possible sign that alien microbes live beneath the planet's surface. The finding made headlines from Paris to Melbourne. But most Americans, bombarded with images from America's own rovers successfully exploring the red planet, missed the foreign news.

More aggressively, Europe is seeking to dominate particle physics by building the world's most powerful atom smasher, set for its debut in 2007. Its circular tunnel is 17 miles around.

Science analysts say Asia's push for excellence promises to be even more challenging.

"It's unbelievable," Diana Hicks, chairwoman of the school of public policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said of Asia's growth in science and technical innovation. "It's amazing to see these output numbers of papers and patents going up so fast."

Analysts say comparative American declines are an inevitable result of rising standards of living around the globe.

"It's all in the ebb and flow of globalization," said Jack Fritz, a senior officer at the National Academy of Engineering, an advisory body to the federal government. He called the declines "the next big thing we will have to adjust to."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/03/science/03RESE.html?hp

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Tue, 05-04-2004 - 9:21am
For decades we've been at the bottom of the industrialized world when it comes to engineering. When I was in college, the engineering classes were 95% Asian & Indian (and 99% male). Other advanced science & math classes weren't so skewed, but they always had a very high percentage of Asians & Indians, too. Just look at how many science & math classes are taught by foreigners & immigrants. The science professor with an accent that no one can understand has become a cliche.

We definitely need to do something about the math & science programs in our public schools. They have always been weak overall, but in the past, their was room and opportunity for those who excelled. I'm not sure that's still the case since so many school districts have gone to inclusion.

However, I'm not sure this article presents the whole story. Just a couple months ago, I read an article about how Europe's scientific education & research had declined so much that it could no longer compete internationally. One of the examples I recall was about the German pharmaceutal industry which used to be the world leader. Now, Germany only has one major pharmacuetical corporation, and I also recall something about the number Asian patents compared to the US isn't really very impressive especially when you consider the comparative size of the populations.

Renee

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Tue, 05-04-2004 - 10:38am
<>

My children use to refer to the Asians as DAR, D--- Average Raisers. They had such excellent backgrounds that Americans couldn't compete.

IMHO, the problem is that math and science depend heavily on fundamentals which Asians learn by rote and practice. American education has abandoned these tried and true methods as obsolete and favor new methods that really haven't been successful. Until we learn to teach our children to excel, and parents learn to place a high value on educational excellence, we will continue to loose ground accademically.

Then I have another thought, that this is just an evolutionary trend. No country can keep bettering it's excellence without competition. Then I wonder if it really makes a difference in the broad world view.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Tue, 05-04-2004 - 11:32am
<>

In math I agree, but the one thing that the US educational system has traditionally excelled in and the Japanese one failed is scientific invention. That's the result of recognizing inviduality and encouraging creativity, experimentation, risk taking, and even failure as an acceptable part of persuing a goal.

The current educational trend to teach all students from special ed to gifted in the same classroom of course gives lip service for meeting each individual student's needs, but the reality is, in a class like that of 25 students with pressure to increase the lowest scores and failure rate, it doesn't happen and it's the most original thinkers and the best students whose needs are not met.

Renee

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-05-2003
Tue, 05-04-2004 - 2:08pm
The current educational trend to teach all students from special ed to gifted in the same classroom of course gives lip service for meeting each individual student's needs, but the reality is, in a class like that of 25 students with pressure to increase the lowest scores and failure rate, it doesn't happen and it's the most original thinkers and the best students whose needs are not met.

Well, for one I couldn't agree more, but of course this is exactly the problem that "No Child Left Behind" creates, it forces teachers to hammer home facts and memerization in order to pass extremely low level standard tests.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Tue, 05-04-2004 - 7:05pm
It predates NCLB by a good decade. NCLB is an attempt to redress some of the problems with the public school system, but it isn't perfect. The problem you have with it would be addressed simply by leveled classed, but since that isn't pc, everyone is forced to conform to the pace of the slowest members of the class.

Renee

Avatar for car_al
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 05-05-2004 - 7:17am
<>

Yes, we should be concerned, but sometimes the nation needs a wake up call to put it back on track. Remember how the Russian “Sputnik” fostered a renewed interest in math and science in the late fifties and sixties. It will take something similar to shock/inspire intelligent young people to give up the quest for “quick riches” that was so ingrained into society in the eighties and go into fields that require dedication and hard work but not necessarily any great financial reward.

As far as this being the beginning of a decline, I don’t think so; because, there are definitely intelligent and creative young people out there, who just have to be inspired and encouraged to make the choice to pursue careers in these somewhat neglected fields. But, I do agree with the other posters about some of the problems with the educational system. IMO the best and the brightest for many years have been choosing careers that bring not just satisfaction but real financial rewards and it will take these A+ students to decide to re-enter these less financially attractive fields.

C

Avatar for car_al
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 05-05-2004 - 7:21am
Of course the realization that the best and the brightest haven’t been pursuing science and mathematics during the past decades makes the re-start of our antimissile system without it having been tested a scary proposition.

http://nytimes.com/2004/05/04/science/04MISS.html

C

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Wed, 05-05-2004 - 10:30am
<>

Japan'e failure to innovate is not a result of their educational system, but a result of their socialization. In Japan the emphasis is on conforming to the group not focusing on the individual. Both have their drawback. The Japanese are not as adept at "digging a new hole" as they are at bettering the existing one. I don't think individualism is superior, just different.

I agree with your last paragraph, and would like to add that the size of the class is a primary means to success. Of course, if you limit class size you can better meet a students needs with respect to grouping. There are two factors that contribute to a child's success, expectations by the teacher, and competitive peers.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Wed, 05-05-2004 - 10:35am
<>

You have the symptom correct. However the problem is that educators can't agree on what teaching success is. It's like pornography, you can't define it but you know it when you see it. And complecating the problem is that what works in one case may be wrong in another.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Wed, 05-05-2004 - 10:45am
<>

You are correct. We place too much emphasis on material success. When my son went into engineering, I disourages him because, engineers don't make money. Even in the area of science it is the business executives that make the money not the laboring scientists. Also intellectual rights go to the company not the individuall. But this criticism is a cultural one. With science fairs and engineering competitions we have tried to balance the equation, without much success, media attention is minimal. The science fairs draw less attention than the weekly football game. As a nation, we are not interested in academic excellence.

Pages