The only thing more common than bogus science studies are media reports of how we are running out of scientists. We are constantly told that the West is producing fewer scientists than China and India. This is inevitably followed by warnings that we are "falling behind". This is extremely scary because...well I don't know why it's scary, but it is.
This morning the front page of my newspaper read, "Just one cigarette 'and you are hooked'". Apparently, if you smoke just one cigarette you will become an addict. Obviously this implies that even passive smoking is going to turn us into forty-a-day smokers. We are all doomed unless the government does something.
The scientists have come up with a theory that a single cigarette changes our "reward pathway." Just the memory of your experience has a "sleeper effect" which could be reawakened at any time - up to three years later. All this could be true, or it could be made up. The "scientists" surveyed children at South London schools and found that those who had experienced cigarettes when they were 11 were twice as likely to take up smoking by the age of 15.
Now even I, a student of the dismal science, know the difference between an empirical study and a survey. I also know that statistical relationships do not imply causality. What they have shown is that scientists who get a lot of money from the government tend to produce reports that give the government a mandate to do more. If I was a scientist I could call my anecdotal observations a theory and it would get printed in a newspaper.
Well, probably not. What scientists and the governments they serve can all agree on is that we need more scientists... and that government needs to do something to ensure this. This raises two questions.
- What is the correct number of scientists?
- Is government really the best institution to bring us up to this number?
The answer to the first question is: I don't know. For one thing it depends on how many people want to be scientists. Economic growth is about improving quality of life. It's no good if we have armies of scientists but they're all bloody miserable because they really wanted to be rock musicians. The "correct" number of scientists is where supply meets demand.
So what happens if China and India have more scientists than we do? The same things that happen if we have more computer programmers than they do. We trade. Everyone ends up better off and no one is forced to have a different career they did not choose for themselves.
If we did have a shortage of scientists then we would hardly turn to the government to solve the problem. Thanks to government spending our money to fix an imaginary lack of graduates, universities are giving out degrees in surfing while plumbers can earn £70k ($126k). In fact the only way I can imagine us having the wrong number of scientists is if government sets a target.
However there is one thing that government should do that would increase the supply of scientists to industry. Stop employing them to produce pointless scare stories at the taxpayer's expense.
Article comments
1 - AJD
I am a scientist, and for a while I was employed by the government. One thing is for sure is that in my subject - physics - there is a large shortage. Not of practicing research physicists - they can be imported from India, China and Eastern Europe. I mean graduate physicists - ones that go into careers that are not related to researching their discipline. The jobs that are not getting fileld are things like teaching. The number of teachers without qualifications in physics and maths yet teach it (even to A level) is unbeleivable. It isn't that we can't import scientists from abroad, but that we are nurturing a society that has no appreciation for science and what scientists do. Now that is a worry for the future.
2 - Duane
There are way more qualified physicists in the U.S. than there are long-term jobs for physicists. It's tough out there. So, at least in that field, I don't see the problem as "not enough scientists." It's better characterized as "not enough money to pay scientists to do science."
Should we do more science than we are doing right now? That's a different issue. It's debatable. But I'm not so sure that letting China and India do all the forefront research is going to be a good idea in the long run.
3 - Bliffle
We will have enough scientists when we stop treating scientists as inferiors, as nerds, as propeller-heads out of touch with the rest of society. And that will only happen when promotion paths are open to scientists so that their jobs are not determined by "C" students who can't pass a simple science course.
Our society has set aside science as a cubbyhole for misfits, freaks and people with low economic aspiration.
Science will only take it's proper place in US society when scientists cease being content to be oppressed by their inferiors for a few crumbs of pay and appreciation.
4 - duane
Bliffle, that is a can of worms. Scientists are portrayed as inferiors and nerds by the popular media. Check out any science class on a kid's TV show, and you'll see the sniffly weakling with high-waters excelling at science, but failing everywhere else, such as social siuations. They are portrayed as humorless, uptight, afraid of people, quick-tempered, and anal retentive. It wasn't that way when I was in high school, but that was a long time ago. It especially wasn't that way when I got to college. And doubly especially when I got to grad school. What I've decided is that the sniffly weakling misfits, if they are indeed out there, don't have the backbone and wherewithal to make it to the professional level.
Also, somewhat counter to the nerdy image is the evil scientist with pretensions of taking over the world. The irresponsible, power-hungry type, cut off from the real world, locked up in a laboratory performing diabolical experiments. Look at most any sci-fi movie these days. Science has run amok and unleashed all kinds of horrors. Look at computer and video games (Half-Life, for example).
Suffice to say that scientists are generally well paid for their labors, generally have a lot more freedom than your typical nine-to-fiver, and get to do pretty interesting stuff. Scientists are like anyone else. Good-looking, homely, fat, thin, pale, tanned, well-dressed, sloppy, rude, polite, arrogant, modest. It runs the gamut.
I could scoff at the way Hollywood portrays scientists, but I think it affects the way young students size up their possible professional paths. Science looks unpromising because of the media being saturated with negative images.
5 - Mark Richard Adams
AJD,
I think the shortage of teachers is due, at least in part, to the way the government has made teaching such an undesirable job. I have a friend who teaches science and she spends most of her time trying to keep discipline. Even at A-level you still have a mass of targets and paperwork to make the job unpleasant. I assume that if the job was more enjoyable there would be more supply and the teachers would do a better job and inspire more people.
As I said above, there isn't a "right number" of scientists. The problem is the government sets a target for demand but there is no market to set a price - hence the imbalance.
As you and others have said, we have a culture that does not respect scientists. That is partly Hollywood and popular culture but it is also a symptom of increasing technophobia. As I started out by saying, we are exposed to a new scare story every week that tells us to be frightened of progress.
I don't want to sound like a stuck record - blaming government for every problem. I can't guarantee that taking government out of the equation will create a new found respect for our scientists. However I am quite sure that the state is not making the situation better.