Some US scientists consider moving overseas to continue their research(forbes.com)
forbes.com
Some US scientists consider moving overseas to continue their research
http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetraedupree/2013/09/25/us-scientists-are-leaving-the-country-and-taking-the-innovation-economy-with-them/
8 comments
"jobs, dicoveries, and innovation" from particle physics? Really?
I'll go with jobs, but only tax-financed ones. I'll go, tentatively, with discoveries, although everything to come out of the LHC so far is simply confirmation of the same old Standard Model we've known since the 70s. The SSC would have been able to probe higher energies, but as things are standing, there is no indication of new physics; if it exists, it could easily be out of range for both the LHC and the hypothetical SSC.
More to the point, the economic value of those discoveries is almost certain to be 0, for simple reasons of scale.
As for innovation, what has particle physics brought which would not equally well be brought by any number of other large scale technological projects? We all know the "WWW invented at CERN" story, but surely we also all realize that the physics input to the WWW was exactly 0, that any large organization needing to handle large number of documents over a heterogeneous network would have come up with something similar, that others probably did, and that the real reason CERN's solution took off was it's being free open source?
Particle physics is a luxury. At best, it's pursued for reasons of intellectual curiosity. Trying to portray it as an economic engine is not going to convince anyone worth convincing.
I'll go with jobs, but only tax-financed ones. I'll go, tentatively, with discoveries, although everything to come out of the LHC so far is simply confirmation of the same old Standard Model we've known since the 70s. The SSC would have been able to probe higher energies, but as things are standing, there is no indication of new physics; if it exists, it could easily be out of range for both the LHC and the hypothetical SSC.
More to the point, the economic value of those discoveries is almost certain to be 0, for simple reasons of scale.
As for innovation, what has particle physics brought which would not equally well be brought by any number of other large scale technological projects? We all know the "WWW invented at CERN" story, but surely we also all realize that the physics input to the WWW was exactly 0, that any large organization needing to handle large number of documents over a heterogeneous network would have come up with something similar, that others probably did, and that the real reason CERN's solution took off was it's being free open source?
Particle physics is a luxury. At best, it's pursued for reasons of intellectual curiosity. Trying to portray it as an economic engine is not going to convince anyone worth convincing.
You know...I just don't think that's the case. We can't predict what products or societal changes particle physics will result in until we actually do the research (the Schrodinger's Cat of research?).
One thing is for sure: if we don't do the research, we won't know any more, and we won't have gained any further understanding of the universe. I just don't think understanding our universe, and the world we live in, is a luxury.
One thing is for sure: if we don't do the research, we won't know any more, and we won't have gained any further understanding of the universe. I just don't think understanding our universe, and the world we live in, is a luxury.
The funding is in other areas. Work for the NSA, CIA, Homeland Security or Military. They spend a lot of money on innovation.
Just one example: The F-35 fighter plane project has an estimated cost over its lifespan of 1.5 trillion (no joke) dollars.
Another example: the Virginia Class fast-attack submarine. 2 billion a piece. Around 30 are planned.
Who cares about a superconducting super collider? It's even peanuts in terms of money. Fusion reactor? Renewable energy? Infrastructure?
You are at the wrong side of innovation.
Just one example: The F-35 fighter plane project has an estimated cost over its lifespan of 1.5 trillion (no joke) dollars.
Another example: the Virginia Class fast-attack submarine. 2 billion a piece. Around 30 are planned.
Who cares about a superconducting super collider? It's even peanuts in terms of money. Fusion reactor? Renewable energy? Infrastructure?
You are at the wrong side of innovation.
I care a good deal about it. I think we would be farther ahead with fusion research had we built it. Innovation is not just market-ready technology, it requires fundamental research as well, much more of which seems to be going on elsewhere these days.
I think lispm was being facetiously hyperbolic with his "who cares" comment.
This might be as bad as the time Bush was reelected and all the scientists moved to Canada! Or when all those hardworking small business owners fled the country after Obama's election - we still haven't recovered from that one.
In all seriousness, the title should be fixed. Scientists telling a survey they might leave != scientists leaving.
Incidentally, here is data on science funding over time. For anyone wanting to make political points (which appears to be everyone else commenting so far), the data probably doesn't map onto your narrative all that well.
http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/fy2013/hist13pDefNon.pdf
http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/fy2013/hist13pAgcyRes.pdf
In all seriousness, the title should be fixed. Scientists telling a survey they might leave != scientists leaving.
Incidentally, here is data on science funding over time. For anyone wanting to make political points (which appears to be everyone else commenting so far), the data probably doesn't map onto your narrative all that well.
http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/fy2013/hist13pDefNon.pdf
http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/fy2013/hist13pAgcyRes.pdf
"For anyone wanting to make political points (which appears to be everyone else commenting so far), the data probably doesn't map onto your narrative all that well."
Right. Because it's not like you're trying to make a (conservative) political point every time I see one of your comments.
The problem with the data you've cited is that it actually shows the problem you're dismissing: science funding has declined in real terms (let alone inflation-adjusted terms) since the end of the Clinton administration. There's been a huge bloodletting -- across the board -- over the last 13 years. An entire generation of US scientists has been decimated by pointless budget cuts.
If you don't know anything at all about science, you might look at the overall trend of this graph and say: "science funding has gone up since 1976, so shut up and stop whining". This is the simpleton's interpretation of the graph. A more nuanced interpretation is that we invested billions of dollars into training of new scientists starting in the Clinton administration (~1996), and right about the time those new scientists hit the point in their careers when they needed funding to really get their labs started (~2000), we stranded them. There's an entire generation of scientists with structural under-employment because of this phenomenon, and yes, they're leaving the country (I personally know a few who have, and I can't fault their reasoning. You go where you can work. If I were still doing science, I'd probably be gone, too.)
But that's not even the most important story. An intelligent observer looks at this graph and says: the US budget for 2013 is $3.8 TRILLION. We spend $600 BILLION on the department of defense, and nearly $900 BILLION on Social Security (aka: old people who contribute almost nothing to the growth of the economy). Yet we're trying to "save money" by shaving a few tens of billions (that's 0.8% of total federal spending, in case you're bad at math) off of the one tiny part of our government that has consistently delivered outsized real returns to the economy. Any economist -- conservative or liberal -- will tell you that you don't make your budget by nibbling at the smallest line items while ignoring big expenses.
This is what we call "cutting off your nose to spite your face". Stupid, pointless, and definitely not conservative.
Right. Because it's not like you're trying to make a (conservative) political point every time I see one of your comments.
The problem with the data you've cited is that it actually shows the problem you're dismissing: science funding has declined in real terms (let alone inflation-adjusted terms) since the end of the Clinton administration. There's been a huge bloodletting -- across the board -- over the last 13 years. An entire generation of US scientists has been decimated by pointless budget cuts.
If you don't know anything at all about science, you might look at the overall trend of this graph and say: "science funding has gone up since 1976, so shut up and stop whining". This is the simpleton's interpretation of the graph. A more nuanced interpretation is that we invested billions of dollars into training of new scientists starting in the Clinton administration (~1996), and right about the time those new scientists hit the point in their careers when they needed funding to really get their labs started (~2000), we stranded them. There's an entire generation of scientists with structural under-employment because of this phenomenon, and yes, they're leaving the country (I personally know a few who have, and I can't fault their reasoning. You go where you can work. If I were still doing science, I'd probably be gone, too.)
But that's not even the most important story. An intelligent observer looks at this graph and says: the US budget for 2013 is $3.8 TRILLION. We spend $600 BILLION on the department of defense, and nearly $900 BILLION on Social Security (aka: old people who contribute almost nothing to the growth of the economy). Yet we're trying to "save money" by shaving a few tens of billions (that's 0.8% of total federal spending, in case you're bad at math) off of the one tiny part of our government that has consistently delivered outsized real returns to the economy. Any economist -- conservative or liberal -- will tell you that you don't make your budget by nibbling at the smallest line items while ignoring big expenses.
This is what we call "cutting off your nose to spite your face". Stupid, pointless, and definitely not conservative.
Your response is excellent. I do however have one nitpick. Social Security is not a budget expense. I know it's listed as one but it shouldn't be. Social Security is an actuarially sound self-funded pension system. There is a slight under funding right now however its payments are not budgetary items.
A fair point. I just went to the FY2013 federal budget numbers, but didn't think about the fact that social security has a rather large tax of its own, and is therefore (mostly) "funded".
That said, every dollar we spend is a dollar that we could be spending on something else, so I think it's still fair to consider the expense of social security relative to other things we buy. We obviously can't abandon old people, but if someone said to me "we should find a way to cut social security by 0.8% to restore science funding", I'd be inclined to think it was a good idea, all other things being equal.
I'm definitely not a doctrinaire liberal -- I think we should have a social safety net (including things like single-payer health insurance), but I think we have plenty of other places we can look to balance the books before we start cutting into science and technology.
That said, every dollar we spend is a dollar that we could be spending on something else, so I think it's still fair to consider the expense of social security relative to other things we buy. We obviously can't abandon old people, but if someone said to me "we should find a way to cut social security by 0.8% to restore science funding", I'd be inclined to think it was a good idea, all other things being equal.
I'm definitely not a doctrinaire liberal -- I think we should have a social safety net (including things like single-payer health insurance), but I think we have plenty of other places we can look to balance the books before we start cutting into science and technology.
The data is adjusted for inflation - that's what "in billions of constant FY 2012 dollars" means. Funding rose about 50% in the early 2000's and leveled off after that. The only bloodletting has been recent - 2010-2012 or 2011-2013 (the xticks on the graph confuse me).
I'm not sure what political point you think I'm trying to make. As for spending on science relative to wealth transfers, I agree with you. I'm not sure why you wish to imply I don't.
I'm not sure what political point you think I'm trying to make. As for spending on science relative to wealth transfers, I agree with you. I'm not sure why you wish to imply I don't.
"The data is adjusted for inflation"
Yes, that's why I said "in real terms". The situation is worse in inflated dollars -- even if we'd held the budgets steady in real dollars, we'd be losing to inflation.
"Funding rose about 50% in the early 2000's and leveled off after that."
Non-defense R&D climbed from 1996-2003, then declined. Defense R&D increased from 2001-2003 (thanks mainly to 9/11), held steady for most of the decade, and began to decline in 2010. Defense R&D is not spending on "science" by any conventional definition (most of that money goes to the defense industry), but it does employ some scientists, so we count it.
"I'm not sure what political point you think I'm trying to make."
You were arguing that the data doesn't support the thesis of the story, and implied that those who supported the thesis were making "political points" (at the time of your comment, almost all of the other comments were in support of the thesis).
Yes, that's why I said "in real terms". The situation is worse in inflated dollars -- even if we'd held the budgets steady in real dollars, we'd be losing to inflation.
"Funding rose about 50% in the early 2000's and leveled off after that."
Non-defense R&D climbed from 1996-2003, then declined. Defense R&D increased from 2001-2003 (thanks mainly to 9/11), held steady for most of the decade, and began to decline in 2010. Defense R&D is not spending on "science" by any conventional definition (most of that money goes to the defense industry), but it does employ some scientists, so we count it.
"I'm not sure what political point you think I'm trying to make."
You were arguing that the data doesn't support the thesis of the story, and implied that those who supported the thesis were making "political points" (at the time of your comment, almost all of the other comments were in support of the thesis).
The situation is worse in inflated dollars -- even if we'd held the budgets steady in real dollars, we'd be losing to inflation.
Read the graphs. We increased funding 50% in real (i.e. "constant FY 2012") dollars, in nominal dollars it increased marginally more (inflation wasn't that important). The bulk of the increase was in the NIH - look at the second graph which breaks it out by agency.
Defense R&D includes a lot of basic science, I have no idea where you get the idea it doesn't. For example, this paper of mine (http://arxiv.org/pdf/0708.0635.pdf) has support from the Air Force. A lot of work in computational electromagnetism and operations research (to name two fields I know moderately well) is funded by the military.
Read the graphs. We increased funding 50% in real (i.e. "constant FY 2012") dollars, in nominal dollars it increased marginally more (inflation wasn't that important). The bulk of the increase was in the NIH - look at the second graph which breaks it out by agency.
Defense R&D includes a lot of basic science, I have no idea where you get the idea it doesn't. For example, this paper of mine (http://arxiv.org/pdf/0708.0635.pdf) has support from the Air Force. A lot of work in computational electromagnetism and operations research (to name two fields I know moderately well) is funded by the military.
"Read the graphs. We increased funding 50% in real (i.e. "constant FY 2012") dollars, in nominal dollars it increased marginally more (inflation wasn't that important)."
You mean from 1976(/1996) to present? Yeah, I got that. My original comment was about why that's a pointlessly superficial way of looking at the data.
"Defense R&D includes a lot of basic science....for example, this paper of mine..."
...was mostly funded by the NSF, if the footnote is to be believed. That's not defense money.
In any case, I never said that defense research doesn't involve any science, I just said that most of it goes to defense contractors. I hate to break it to you, but the government didn't double defense R&D after 9/11 in order to increase the number of papers being written on antenna theory. Most of that money went toward things like airport bomb-sniffers and futuristic weapons systems. I'm sure you can find some pure-science papers that were written with that money, but that wasn't the point of the funding.
You mean from 1976(/1996) to present? Yeah, I got that. My original comment was about why that's a pointlessly superficial way of looking at the data.
"Defense R&D includes a lot of basic science....for example, this paper of mine..."
...was mostly funded by the NSF, if the footnote is to be believed. That's not defense money.
In any case, I never said that defense research doesn't involve any science, I just said that most of it goes to defense contractors. I hate to break it to you, but the government didn't double defense R&D after 9/11 in order to increase the number of papers being written on antenna theory. Most of that money went toward things like airport bomb-sniffers and futuristic weapons systems. I'm sure you can find some pure-science papers that were written with that money, but that wasn't the point of the funding.
You mean from 1976(/1996) to present?
From about 2000 to 2010 it went from $100B to $150B and dropped to $140B after the "bloodletting".
Your "more nuanced interpretation" that "training of new scientists starting (~1996), and when they needed funding to really get their labs started (~2000), we stranded them" is simply wrong.
From about 2000 to 2010 it went from $100B to $150B and dropped to $140B after the "bloodletting".
Your "more nuanced interpretation" that "training of new scientists starting (~1996), and when they needed funding to really get their labs started (~2000), we stranded them" is simply wrong.
The main thing that jumps out at me from this graph is that (irrelevantly) that we've tripled NIH spending in real terms over the last 25 years but have seen relatively small gains in life expectancy and things like infant mortality have largely stayed static, suggesting we're into an era of diminishing returns :-/
As for scientists leaving the country, I half-agree with you. It's not a sudden crisis in the US, but has more to do with the improving and more competitive economies of other nations, which in turn makes them more attractive places for scientists to work. In the past, you could assume that people would come to the US because it was the best place for academic freedom and to have a financially rewarding science career. Now that there is more competition, we should probably be looking for ways to maintain that status rather than resting on the assumption that we're #1.
As for scientists leaving the country, I half-agree with you. It's not a sudden crisis in the US, but has more to do with the improving and more competitive economies of other nations, which in turn makes them more attractive places for scientists to work. In the past, you could assume that people would come to the US because it was the best place for academic freedom and to have a financially rewarding science career. Now that there is more competition, we should probably be looking for ways to maintain that status rather than resting on the assumption that we're #1.
I think that the headline of the article might be link bait but there are much more salient points made within the text.
The title isn't descriptive of the article. The author discusses serious issues with decreasing funding of science in the US, but there is no exodus of scientists.
Let's hope Mars can be the national (I include Canada because of the close relationship) project that fuels science and innovation for our generation.
Let's hope Mars can be the national (I include Canada because of the close relationship) project that fuels science and innovation for our generation.
"there is no exodus of scientists."
If there's one thing American's like its creating their personal identity solely using their job title. I believe the article assumes domestic readers know this peculiarity. The article is full of "Fifty-five percent know a colleague who has lost a job or expects to soon." and “I have just laid off my technician and will lose my postdoc in six months,”
There are no open jobs, and those unemployed workers will have to do "something" if they intend to eat and obtain medical care and shelter. So I would assume once they're hired as day care workers or bartenders or waiters, displacing the mere high school diploma holders, they'll no longer be considered scientists, but be considered taxi drivers or whatever.
There should be data on numbers employed, or fraction of the population employed, or salaries in those fields. For example if there were an extreme shortage of biology grads, you'd expect to see starting salaries for the DNR around $200K or so. Oh wait, most of those grads end up at Starbucks.
If there's one thing American's like its creating their personal identity solely using their job title. I believe the article assumes domestic readers know this peculiarity. The article is full of "Fifty-five percent know a colleague who has lost a job or expects to soon." and “I have just laid off my technician and will lose my postdoc in six months,”
There are no open jobs, and those unemployed workers will have to do "something" if they intend to eat and obtain medical care and shelter. So I would assume once they're hired as day care workers or bartenders or waiters, displacing the mere high school diploma holders, they'll no longer be considered scientists, but be considered taxi drivers or whatever.
There should be data on numbers employed, or fraction of the population employed, or salaries in those fields. For example if there were an extreme shortage of biology grads, you'd expect to see starting salaries for the DNR around $200K or so. Oh wait, most of those grads end up at Starbucks.
I'm having a hard time finding any data that support the conclusions of this article.
My mom is an immunologist, and in 1999 my family moved from France to the US due to better opportunities for her as a scientist.
My mom is an immunologist, and in 1999 my family moved from France to the US due to better opportunities for her as a scientist.
Sick and aging people are a growth industry for the next 20-30 years, thanks to the demographic bulge the country experienced following WW2 resulting in a large and wealthy generation known as the 'baby boomers,' who are now retiring en masse. Other developed economies had similar demographic bulges, but none large as the US or with the same sort of competitive medical services market. As I pointed out above, funding for health research (through the NIH) has tripled over the last 25 years.
The picture is not as rosy for scientists outside the medical field.
The picture is not as rosy for scientists outside the medical field.
It's not just the funding. The politics in science (I don't know about internationally, but definitely here in the US) can be pretty ridiculous.
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In the old days, as a scientist, if you studied hard and worked hard, before you got downsized for being too old, you might make local management rich. They happen to own the government. No great surprise the feds back student loans and encourage the myth of a STEM shortage, feed more minds into the gristle mill. You don't need some kind of actively managed centrally controlled conspiracy, you just need individual actors following their own pocketbooks.
In the modern era, lets say post 1990, as a scientist, if you studied hard and worked hard, before you got downsized for being too old, you might make some factory owner in China who stole your idea and research, and the Chinese .gov bribe takers, very rich. The local management makes all their money off non-scientific stuff like social networks and chat programs, so they certainly don't need science, they've pivoted out of the physical market and left it for the Chinese. Because the rich guys own the government, the .gov also don't care much anymore.
The best hope for modern scientists is to hope for sponsorship / patronage from the Chinese government and hope they can outperform the more numerous locals. Good Luck, you'll need it.
In the modern era, lets say post 1990, as a scientist, if you studied hard and worked hard, before you got downsized for being too old, you might make some factory owner in China who stole your idea and research, and the Chinese .gov bribe takers, very rich. The local management makes all their money off non-scientific stuff like social networks and chat programs, so they certainly don't need science, they've pivoted out of the physical market and left it for the Chinese. Because the rich guys own the government, the .gov also don't care much anymore.
The best hope for modern scientists is to hope for sponsorship / patronage from the Chinese government and hope they can outperform the more numerous locals. Good Luck, you'll need it.
Jiminy cricket, guys, enough with the linkbait on HN already.
1 in 5 scientists have considered leaving the U.S. That's the news here, if there is news. By way of comparison, another recent study shows 9% of the total population has considered leaving. People consider lots of things, and surveys show all kinds of nifty trends, like the percentage of people who believe we have been visited by aliens, or those thinking the moon landing was faked -- both of which, last I checked, had more traction in the public than the idea of leaving the country. People believe weird shit and hold interesting opinions. Film at 11.
So the title doesn't match the essay. But wait! That's not all! The body of the text, supposedly from a non-partisan viewpoint, is pretty much an attack on one of the political parties in the U.S. I won't spoil the surprise for you, but I bet you can guess.
Among the shifting and meandering logic, we get a nice confusion of whether or not funding equals science (the two are not necessarily related) and a nice slam across corporate America's face with the old "They're just in it for the profits" routine.
All fairly normal and pedestrian rhetoric, but nothing much newsworthy, nothing with a supporting argument for the thesis, and nothing, frankly, that interesting. Unless you want to make a call for political action as part of supporting some political message, which this author does. That's great, but I'm not sure what to do with it on HN. Argue politics with all the usual players taking up the usual roles? Not so much. At least for me.
1 in 5 scientists have considered leaving the U.S. That's the news here, if there is news. By way of comparison, another recent study shows 9% of the total population has considered leaving. People consider lots of things, and surveys show all kinds of nifty trends, like the percentage of people who believe we have been visited by aliens, or those thinking the moon landing was faked -- both of which, last I checked, had more traction in the public than the idea of leaving the country. People believe weird shit and hold interesting opinions. Film at 11.
So the title doesn't match the essay. But wait! That's not all! The body of the text, supposedly from a non-partisan viewpoint, is pretty much an attack on one of the political parties in the U.S. I won't spoil the surprise for you, but I bet you can guess.
Among the shifting and meandering logic, we get a nice confusion of whether or not funding equals science (the two are not necessarily related) and a nice slam across corporate America's face with the old "They're just in it for the profits" routine.
All fairly normal and pedestrian rhetoric, but nothing much newsworthy, nothing with a supporting argument for the thesis, and nothing, frankly, that interesting. Unless you want to make a call for political action as part of supporting some political message, which this author does. That's great, but I'm not sure what to do with it on HN. Argue politics with all the usual players taking up the usual roles? Not so much. At least for me.
The Forbes article paints a picture of a United States full of ambition and curiosity driving innovation. That part exists, but it has just as long been a country of puritanism, self-righteousness, and fundamentalism.
The article points to politics as a major problem. That politics reflects this tradition among the people. A large fraction of the population here genuinely dislikes science, no matter how much they like the computers and cd players it brought.
I grew up liking idealism because I thought I was right about so many things. I since dropped my need to be right a priori in favor of what works after testing. Politics in this country does have an idealistic view of the individual -- each person should do for him or herself and anyone helping them will decrease their ability to achieve and lower their motivation. Healthcare, welfare, education, and so on are viewed by a large block of voters as detrimental to the nation. We, as a nation if not readers of this site, stick to this principle in the face of nearly the entire world providing evidence to the contrary.
We put down other countries for doing things against our ideals, saying they don't work, even as they pass us in countless measures of quality of life and community.
Choosing idealism in the face of contrary evidence of what works is a recipe for disaster.