yesterday on the status of our educational system. This was more of a
rant than a speech. I’ve not seen Bill so worked up before. He might
even have been a bit over the top with this comment on our educational
system:
"The
guys at Enron never would have done this! I mean this is so blatant, so
extreme that, is anybody paying attention to what these guys do?"
I suppose it is a good thing when a guy like Gates gets involved in
matters of public policy. He’s spending his own money. He has no axe to
grind. But nothing is as clear as it appears. It’s not at all certain to
me that Big Bucks Bill is on the right track.
Central to Gates’ educational agenda is his belief that American schools
do not turn out enough scientists. That we will inevitably fall behind
places like China or India as they have more scientists than we do. Bill
believes that we should redouble our efforts to improve math and
science education. If we do that our future as the global leader in
science and technology is assured.
Actually that is not true at all. The acute problem we face is that there are too many scientists. This (long) article by Beryl Lieff Benderly tells a much different story than Mr. Gates. I few quotes from the piece:
It is not, as many believe, that the nation is producing too few scientists, but, paradoxically, just the opposite.
“There is no scientist shortage,” declares Harvard economics professor Richard Freeman.
Michael Teitelbaum of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, cites the “profound irony” of crying shortage — as have many business leaders, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates — while scores of thousands of young Ph.D.s labor in the nation’s university labs as low-paid, temporary workers, ostensibly training for permanent faculty positions that will never exist.
I loved these words by Susan Gerbi, Chair of molecular biology at Brown University. This lady is on the top of the heap of scientists in America:
"Obviously, the “pyramid paradigm can’t continue forever,” Like any Ponzi scheme, she fears, this one will collapse when it runs out of suckers
— a stage that appears to be approaching. There has been relatively
little attention given to possible solutions for the scientist glut — in
no small part because the scientific establishment has been busy
promoting the idea that the U.S. has a shortage of science students."
So are we creating a Ponzi scheme of scientists? Or are we critically
short of scientists? I don’t really know. The evidence is pretty clear
that there is a very big glut today. And there is every indication the
glut will get bigger. These folks better find something “Big” to do. I
see no new “cutting edge technology” that is going to suck up the supply
of the underemployed scientists. We’ve already invented all the “good”
stuff. Inventing more stuff that extends lives is really not all that
helpful at this point.
B&M Gates Foundation puts $$$$$$$$$$$ into new media learning @ Florida Virtual School. Seems like a worthy investment.
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/content/gates-foundation-throws-...
Holy SHIT Bruce!!
Convuluted at BEST...
If you're saying universities are pumping out too many suckers, then so are Cosmetology Schools, Massage Therapy schools, CPA programs, etc. Why in the world would you single out scientists.
If you're saying that it is the job of each university to find a job for every dumb slouch they teach (rob) then again I say HOLY SHIT, Bruce!!! You have got to know better than that. Like any other investment, education is a Caveat Emptor proposition.
What this world desperately needs is problem solvers. "Scientist" may not necessarily synonimous with "problem solver" but its an ass-load closer than "Journalist" or "Investor" or "government worker".
What axe do you have to grind with scientists??? Sheesh!
I have no axe to grind. Just connecting the dots between Bill G and the article I cited.
Why do people from China want to send their children to the States for school?
"PISA scores are on a scale, with 500 as the average. Two-thirds of students in participating countries score between 400 and 600. On the math test last year, students in Shanghai scored 600, in Singapore 562, in Germany 513, and in the United States 487.
In reading, Shanghai students scored 556, ahead of second-place Korea with 539. The United States scored 500 and came in 17th, putting it on par with students in the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and several other countries.
In science, Shanghai students scored 575. In second place was Finland, where the average score was 554. The United States scored 502 — in 23rd place — with a performance indistinguishable from Poland, Ireland, Norway, France and several other countries."
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/12/07/education/07education_graph...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/education/07education.html?_r=1
Hmmmm......pump up the supply...demand stable or down since we don't manufacture or design shit anymore................pretty soon all these scientists are much less expensive?
We have no MANUFACTURING, nor GOVT BUILDING SHIT to USE THEM.
Once we do, we WILL have a shortage. But it's like this, if nothing is being done, 1 worker at a closed down place is 1 too many needed for the job that doesn't exist.
Now, if you consider we need the following DONE.
NAWAPA
Space Program
FUsion program
Meg-lev construction
10,000+ Nuclear Reactors
ETC
So, we have TOO many for the PONZI system that doesn't build anything real but paper.
We have TOO FEW for a REAL system that DOES build the things we need, that are real.
This just goes to show you, the allocation of resources in the ponzi system through the ideology of Fascist Imperial Monetarism, is ALL FUCKED UP.
As for Gates, he is a Fascist, and believes in BIGGER class sizes, and more sophistry. TESTS DON'T FUCKING MATTER. THEY BARELY TELL YOU SHIT. USING THEM AS EVIDENCE FOR PAY IS RETARDED. Gates is RETARDED.
++++
Thank you .
Holy crap! Talk about an inherent and moronic "bait and switch" question. What a setup.
The question is not "do we have enough scientists and engineers to fill job openings". The question is "do we do enough science and engineering".
Even that formulation is massively defective, because it ignores the question "who does these scientists and engineers work for, and what are these scientists and engineers doing"?
As a scientist and engineer [of sorts] since elementary school, and a life-long scientist and engineer, I certainly don't want any more so-called "scientists" or "engineers" working for government. Most of these so-called "scientists" and "engineers" are paid and forced to become apologists for whatever government agenda they work on. They are not scientists or even rational... they are paid rationalizers for an evil empire.
And how many "scientists" and "engineers" do we want practicing "Nazi science" of the kind government [contractor] scientists are? I mean, developing and testing torture techniques, biological weapons, chemical weapons, mind control, chemtrails, etc? As far as I'm concerned, zero.
The real problem this article should address is the pitifully tiny number of real scientists and real engineers developing honest, benevolent technologies and products. That activity is indeed grossly less than it was before the 1990s, and grossly less than it should be in an advanced technological world.
Ask the right questions.
And ignore Bill Gates. He's a fascist totalitarian NWO fraud.
I respect your vigor. I also (try) understand unproven ideas. Shorten your remarks. Please? We are financial people. Way under you!!!
gates fears cannot speak the truth, the fact that these esteemed schools of so called higher education are doing it to themselves by teaching (what to think vs how to think) the result: turning out an abundance of idealist non thinking progressive freeloaders..
well said
The U.S. can't be expected to solve all the world's problems using science and technology. I've often wondered when the other powers (ie China, India) are going to chip in with some major discoveries of their own in energy, medicine, etc. that they can share with the rest of the world like Americans do.
Science and engineering in the context of solving global issues just seems to me a misguided place for TPTB to skimp. It reminds me of something I saw a while back concerning underpaid airline pilots.
D-Falt
I believe the scientists have had more than their share of weasal cock. I also believe the federal government has royally screwed the pouch. Maybe in the comming reconstruction the present system will be replaced by one that allows the scientists the lattitude to push the envelope for the benefit of society instead of the military industrial complex.
Bruce again nice piece. You are a pleasure to read.
(d)
No, President Eisenhower explained quite eloquently the manner in which future American science would suck on shriveled weasal cock.
<a href=http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm>HT: McAdams University</a>
The problem as I see it is that the individual is not appreciated. Education as it stands now is the endeavor to get people to function within the herd. A human being's place in society is being dictated by the experts. Going through the educational system you are given a battery of tests to determine an area you are best suited to be employed. You are herded from the very beggining. If you deviate from the herd mentality the rest of the herd closes in to keep you out. If at that time you don't come back on bended knee begging for forgiveness the herd will try to have terminated and usually the herd is successful at having you eliminated.
There are many thoughtfull concepts here but many come back to needing a moral strong government. I say we need only moral strong leaders that can help in the cultivation of thoughts that lead to the breakthroughs that help advance society and to provoke the mind to expend to limits that were once thought unattainable. On reading history you find that yes history repeats itself and you ask yourself 'why' ? Technology has advanced exponentailly but human behavior is at a standstill. Since recorded history human behavior has not advanced. My theory behind this standstill in behavior is that the importance of the individual is always put beneath the importance as being part of the heard.
What will happen with these new scientists? Like mentioned in other responses they will be put on a scientific assembly line and sapped of all creativity. Untill we are truly free and valued as individuals history will once again repeat itself.
Oh yeah and screw government.
Always consider the source. Allow me to translate Bill Gate's comments: "Give me more H1B visas so I can import smart, cheap labor from Asia and India.
There is a major labor war going on in CS. Big tech companies are driving up salaries dramatically, and small tech companies are having a really hard time competing. If you want to guarantee your kid a six figure job out of college, drill math into them and convince them to get a CS degree.
There is both a shortage and a surplus of "scientists". There is a shortage of applied science majors, and a surplus of people doing marginally useful theoretical research.
Not what i see. Large tech companies are laying off groups of 80-130K CS people in USA and replacing them with groups of 15-25k CS people in India and China etc.
(d)
Our public primary and secondary education system is embarrassing. Intelligent kids are bored to tears and often turned off quite early by this mindless busywork and teaching to multiple choice testing.
I picked up a two dollar video game on a disc that had the states and capitals on it. It was like a jigsaw puzzle and you could also match capitals to states. My kids learned the state capitals in about three hours total time spread out over five days.
The average teacher is pretty stupid and inefficient. I don't see many 33 ACT scores that are failry typical in my profession. If they were any smarter they would be making the big bucks like the rest of us. I would love to teach, but I will never take such a huge pay cut. In my professional school I was hired as a tutor for the at risk students (the minorities), and none of them failed the two years that I tutored, because I understand learning theory and cognitive psychology. That was the first time our school had zero failures in first and second year coursework.
I am just about ready to home school my kids. As an athiest I would be atypical as a home school parent! But I want my kids to be ready to take on the prep school kids at the Ivy league, and they won't be able to do it if they stay in this mind numbingly awful public schools in my area, and there aren't any Ivy prep level private school choices where I live.
I look at salaries to figure out where the shortages are. I went to MIT.
It is obvious to me that under the current monetary system there is a shortage of bond traders and silver miners.
LOL
there is no free market in teachers. Price signals don't work in the teaching market because it is essentially a government monopoly.
According to Chef on SouthParks Parents, (It taaks about tree fitty) Scientists to screw in a light bulb. I hope every one had a prosperous week.
Bruce,
If Bill Gates is on a rant, there is most likely a problem. He has put his money where his mouth is on this subject - actually he put his money there first.
We have too many scientists. Too many that want to do "pure" research for the government or a university in an assigned box well within their comfort limits. Example: ITER project in the south of France - an internationally government funded effort 20 years in planning and execution based on an outdated approach (Tokamak).
The "out-of-the-box" thinkers tend to be swinging for the outfield wall and the "next big thing". Example: Biotech scientists working on immortality (a solution that creates more problems than it fixes) and reversing grey hair by turning back on the gene that produces pigment in the hair follicle (ok, I'd buy it too but it isn't worth the Nobel prize it will probably get).
Engineers - we used to DOMINATE this field because we took kids with their brand new degrees and made them spend another 4 - 6 years really learning applied engineering before we expected them to be able to make significant contributions. Now we take them fresh out of college, sit them at a computer and expect miracles while we use engineers and designers in India who spend the first 4 - 6 years leaning applied engineering ....
barliman
we need scientists and engineers that will work for $18k a year....that way the corporations will make more profit.
but we also need government workers making $100k to teach the $18k students.....makes perfect sense to me....
++
There's a story going around that is said to be from the 1890s about a U.S. official who wanted to shut down the patent office because everything had been invented.
Believe me, the Large Hadron Collider would not have been built if no practical result could be predicted. Too expensive to do that for pure curiousity.
Whats important in science
Elites: Biology (Control over life and thus food)
Sheep: Energy (Gas in tank, electricity,...)
Therefore, I will study Biology. There is no saving the masses. Only how they can be quietly disposed of.
thats the most asshole comment I have seen here in a while.
Everybody/everything needs Energy...
Also, if you plan to study biology these days then you have to study physics in a big part, there is no separation from physics and biology if you look at it on a microscopic level. Its all thermodynamics!
If humanity solves energy-problem for good... then there will not be any other problem for a long time.
We don't need scientists according to the GOP all we need is God and the Bible.
You forgot Bush, Walker, Kock, and all the other bogey men like God and the Bible your media machine is feeding you to rant about.
Does anyone actually think on their own out there anymore?
Well, inform us. What do the Democrats say?
Like it matters!
Is seems to me, and has seemed for a long time, that the problem in the USA is that too many people go to college.
Perhaps it's time to rethink whether a college education is worth what we pay for it (i.e., the payback on the investment), and figure out if could we need a larger number of alternative choices.
It seems clear the country is not only past its growth phase but is morphing into something less than it has been. If fewer people with college-related skills are needed, we ought to analyze what we do need and take steps to make sure kids coming out of school are going to be fit for jobs as they will be rather than as they were 20 years ago. Maybe, in fact, the whole concept of school should change. What we have now isn't about education. We forced to pay not for the education of our kids but for an increasingly excessive number of pensions and benefits for people from whom our kids learn little, if anything.
If the schools are only doing the job we needed them to do 50 years ago, why not scrap the system and start over WITHOUT THE GOVERNMENT INOVOLVED... WHY NOT GET INDUSTRY INVOLVED, INSTEAD?
Do your homework, the industrial revolution and industry itself brought about public schools. As technology got more advanced, industry wanted someone else to pay for the training and skills required to do business.
And the students are no longer supposed to think for themselves. They're trained cogs for the machine.
Unfortunately, reading through the many hallowed threds on this site, that is obviosly so true.
The great scientists of the past had in many cases benefited from a classical education - now it seems we produce scientific automans with little imagination.
Also science is too applied now due to cost pressures - Bell labs of old payed scientists in many cases to do their own thing - the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation comes to mind.
Prof. James Lovelock summed it up well in the BBC's 'Beautiful Minds' documentary:
"Nearly all scientists nowadays are slaves. They are not free men or women. They have to work in institutes, universities, government or industry, and they have to work on a specific problem. Very few of them are free to think 'outside the box', so to speak."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00s04qp/Beautiful_Minds_James_Love...
Well stated...it is clear from this and other comments that you get it
Generally, here I am fed up with 'HR'. Supposedly stands for human something.
Here is a bloating division of the humble accounting department. (Pick your area - pvt or govt! - who gives Cheif of Staff so much damn power?!) Give salesmen and lawyers control over the gate and suddenly 'HR' deserves VP posts, wastes money flying to 'HR' conferences on 'HR' methods, and helps The Lawyers and Mgmt reduce headcount in inventive ways.
Fuck the Catbert!
(Pardon stron glanguage!)
X.
Nor does a high IQ always translate into a high net worth.
All that and we're still not a type 1 civilization. Does anyone else get the sensation that we should be further along with respect to progress in that arena than we actually are? I believe that we're either going to become a space-faring society, or we will get to choose between extinction and a stone age revival. Either way, darkness closes in.
We should be, but folks don't "believe" that there really are "experts" anymore. They don't want to accept that, amazing as it is, there really are people who have worked and studied in areas critical to our survival (like energy and agriculture) for 20, 30, 40, or even 50 years and really are 1) smarter than them and 2) know the limits and true benefits of technology today and to come.
Much easier for folks to "believe" what the mind can comprehend instead of what it can not, or what may, in fact, be a very unpleasant situation.
Sorry, I don't buy the great scientists garbage. Agriculture? Scientists are destroying agriculture with their inability to understand soils and the organisms that reside in them. Recent study out of England has identified a new virus that is affecting GMO seeds only and causing seeds to not grow and young plants to die.
Science acts first and understands later in an attempt to create financial gains as quickly as possible. Medicine and drugs are another great example.
Energy? You will have to pull them kicking and screaming from oil and coal.
It is science and in it's arrogance that continues to think it can solve problems inorganically. It is science that prostitutes itself and sells out to the point of lying about results to get the answer they will be paid for. Cigarettes anyone?
Science and scientists need a huge kick in the ass. They need to find solutions without side effects- which requires study OVER TIME. They need to be separated from the economics and finance of science and focused on results.
Science is so caught up in it's "great minds" egotism, it fails to see that it has failed to add as productively to the human condition as it could have. Science needs humility.
dude you are an idiot....science isnt the enemy, it is the corporations that control the work of scientists that is the bad guy.
if science is evil...go live in cave...
Dude, your statement is a prime example of what I'm talking about. Blame the corporations, but not those that labor for and profit from that corporation?
You're inability to assume responsibility is what leads to the scientists that prostitute themselves and falsify results for financial gain- humanity be damned.
You believe in science like a religion and like religion, your faith can blind you to the realities. There are great benefits to religion, but seeing past the problems in dogma in order to protect the whole is as big a problem in science as it is in religion.
NPK. The worst agricultural theory ever foisted on farmers and mankind.
Xrays. First used to cure cancer. That worked out well.
Flouride in water is perhaps one of the worst examples of population poisoning ever perpetrated on Americans. Yes, they found enough scientists to sell themselves for a dollar.
The list is forever. Just as long as the list for great advances. We have a problem with process. We practice before we know what the results will be. Scientific method needs another step: in the presence of observable evidence to the contrary, new breakthroughs should require testing over time to insure full knowledge of the effects.
Further, science needs to find expression through natural processes, in complement to nature, not in spite of it.
Otherwise, I'll be quite happy in the cave. By the way, if you knew anything about caves you would know they make excellent homes. Energy efficient, less toxicity and ideal use of an existing natural resource.
"The list is forever. Just as long as the list for great advances. We have a problem with process. We practice before we know what the results will be. Scientific method needs another step: in the presence of observable evidence to the contrary, new breakthroughs should require testing over time to insure full knowledge of the effects."
I suspect many on your list of failures are in reality this extra process step you propose; 'breakthroughs' in a highly controlled lab environment that do not translate into real-world success. If you are a rat with cancer, we probably have a cure.
"Further, science needs to find expression through natural processes, in complement to nature, not in spite of it."
Sounds great! Now...who will fund this?
"Sounds great! Now...who will fund this?"
well, imagine a world where we weren’t taxed to death. Imagine if we had a say as to how they spent our trillions of dollars on R&D. I agree that much of scientific research is funded by defense spending. The entire defense budget comes from tax dollars. Thus, you and I are directly supporting the squandering of our hard-earned capital through this process, simply by continuing to pay our taxes. I’m all for a tax revolt, I just don’t believe that anyone would have my back. We aren’t ready to do that on a meaningful scale, and I’m not ready to rot in prison just yet. To answer your question, private scientific research companies could take the place of the MIC’s research arm (although I think we might have a difficult time getting the MIC to see that as a good idea). Individuals invest in the Sci R&D company if the company is working on a project that the investor is interested in. If the project is successful, then you get a return. If the company is bunk and goes belly up, then you eat the loss like with any other bad investment.
The question you should ask is why does the government dictate what we spend our research dollars on? They seem to always choose 'weapons systems'.