PZ Myers. 2005 Dec 01. Signs of American decline. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/signs_of_american_decline/>. Accessed 2008 Dec 04.
Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Thursday, December 01, 2005
Signs of American decline
The brain drain is in operation.
Fallout from the corruption of secular science by the Bush administration and its religious allies continues to pile up. The latest is a particularly harmful blow: Two of the world's best geneticists will leave the National Cancer Institute and move not to Stanford University, which had heavily recruited them, but to Singapore's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology. The reason is simple: They will face far fewer restrictions on their research, which involves stem cells.
To be fair, we can't blame only Bush—it's also the culture.
They're leaving the institute because of restrictions on the use of stem cells imposed by the Bush administration. They had hoped to move to Stanford to take advantage of the $3 billion fund California voters approved for stem-cell research that circumvents the federal restrictions. Unfortunately, lawsuits by antiabortion groups have held up use of those funds.
I find this very depressing.
(via Three Way News)
Posted by PZ Myers on 12/01 at 10:18 PM
Politics • Science • 2 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
Politics • Science • 2 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
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"Unfortunately, lawsuits by antiabortion groups have held up use of those funds."
Hmm, anti-abortionists using the courts to overrule the clearly expressed will of the people. I'm sure there's an irony there but I just can't seem to put my finger on it.#: Posted by on 12/01 at 10:41 PM -
On the other hand, better that biologists should invade islamerfashist countries than the army.
#: Posted by on 12/01 at 11:16 PM
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The most recent suit was filed by a national anti-abortion group, which seeks to stop their work on the grounds that the civil rights of frozen embryos are violated by stem-cell research.
My God, that kind of argument deserves a Rule 11 sanction if any one ever did. If lawyers who argued such obviously frivolous, wasteful and dilatory cases were properly disciplined, we'd see these kinds of tactics quickly dry up.#: Posted by on 12/01 at 11:22 PM - In your experience do more students transfer into or out of the biology major? My uneducated guess would be that more students transfer out of the major. In Korea, university students choose their major when applying to schools. Changing their major is very difficult, and many students opt to reapply to college (which includes retaking the hellish college entrance exam) rather than to try to transfer their major to another field. My guess is that this contributes to a greater number of bachelor degrees in the natural sciences in Korea, hence why many more may be applying to the graduate schools in the US.
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ouchie. I guess I would count myself a product of the original "brain drain".
I moved to the US 6 years ago from the UK, mostly as a result of the gradual downspiral of British high tech industry that was set in motion in the seventies. It would be very unfortunate if it happened here too.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 12:23 AM - Why do we even need top genetecists and Cancer Institutes when we've got divinely-guided leaders and miracles? Besides, we all know the Rapture's coming soon anyway. And when it does, those science-types are all going to feel pretty silly that they wasted all that time pipetteing in their ivory towers.
- Doutdes, this can't account for much of the discrepancy, because there's also the question of how many people become science majors in the first place. In the USA, people who don't really know what to major in typically choose business or a social science subject; people who major in mathematics or science are usually those who are truly interested in these subjects. I don't know how it's like Korea, but here in Singapore, math and science are considered gut majors, with many people going into them by default. Even though here it's very easy to change majors within a faculty here, and fairly easy to change faculties as long as your academic progress is good, there are plenty of science/math majors here - 20% of the university, to be exact, compared with 2% in the USA.
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Geez, they're moving to Singapore to get more freedom?
Singapore is one of the more restrictive states (politically, personally, you name it). The fact that it's now attracting people away from America should be deeply worrying#: Posted by on 12/02 at 03:32 AM -
Singapore is one of the more restrictive states (politically, personally, you name it).
...in the developed world. It's still a lot freer than Saudi Arabia, Cuba, China, and Iran. -
Free movement of people is a good thing. Competition for brains is a very good thing. American scientists are an opressed and exploited class, a fact that was expressed through a vague liberalism. Moving moving to places where they are appreciated and are free to teach the truth (v.g. evolution) is the thing to do. American teachers and researchers, welcome to the free world!
#: Posted by on 12/02 at 05:43 AM
- Given that Singapore is an authoritarian regime that just executed an Australian for cocaine trafficking and is quite restrictive, those scientists may come to regret their decision. I suspect that they don't quite know what they're getting into, at least as far as their personal lives go. On the other hand, being favored elite in Singapore who were highly recruited, they might not feel the restrictions quite as much.
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Orac, the only reason I see that "they may come to regret their decision" is Singapore's repressive, savage, uncivilized, sadistically administered tax regime. They shall feel the restrictions like everybody else. No one escapes Singapore without having paid his taxes. On the good side, no one will ask you to teach "both sides of the controversy".
#: Posted by on 12/02 at 08:00 AM
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Agree with Orac that they don't know what they're getting into. The Singapore government is at a stage where it's offering big bucks to foreign talent willing to work here. Research-wise, eminent foreign scientists may get a freer hand than the locals do, but I suspect they might find the culture not to their taste.
#: Posted by on 12/02 at 08:00 AM
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While creationism is not an issue with the Singapore government, it actually is a fairly common belief amongst the local population. Evolution is surreptitiously ignored in school curricula, where biology consists mainly of memorising facts with little regard towards instilling real understanding. An acquaintance who took an introductory evolution course in a local university informs me that a third of the class were creationists who kept pissing the professor off with their questions.
#: Posted by on 12/02 at 08:07 AM
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Don't blame the american 'culture wars' for this one. Nobody is getting run out of town....and it's not like working at the NCI is some kind of cush dream job.
The root of the Singapore Exodus (sounds like a good Ludlum novel) is good ol' capitalism.
I mentioned this in another blog somewhere, you probably didn't see it: Singapore is going about installing a biomedical enterprise much the way a rich neighbor might hire a landscaper to install a beautiful Japanese garden by the end of a week.
Let me put it this way, it's like hitting the Megamillions jackpot. The amount of money thrown at the expatriots is absolutely unprecedented.#: Posted by fearless leader on 12/02 at 08:30 AM -
I read further after my post above
I agree w/Orac and Singapoream
The question for debate should be: if a Japanese garden is installed in one week, is it really a Japanese garden?#: Posted by fearless leader on 12/02 at 08:55 AM -
An idiotic bill introduced in the 2003-2004 session by the Rep. Tim Wilkins.
H.F. No. 2026, as introduced - 83rd Legislative Session (2003-2004) Posted on Feb 12, 2004
1.1 A bill for an act
1.2 relating to health; placing funding restrictions on
1.3 individuals and entities conducting research on human
1.4 embryos and certain stem cell lines; proposing coding
1.5 for new law in Minnesota Statutes, chapter 145.
1.6 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA:
1.7 Section 1. [145.426] [FUNDING RESTRICTIONS RELATED TO
1.8 RESEARCH.]
1.9 An individual or entity conducting research using human
1.10 embryos or human embryonic stem cells is not eligible for state
1.11 funding of any kind and for any purpose. This restriction on
1.12 funding does not apply if an individual or entity conducts
1.13 research using human embryonic stem cell lines eligible for
1.14 federal research funding and listed on the Human Embryonic Stem
1.15 Cell Registry established by the National Institutes of Health,
1.16 and does not conduct research using human embryos or other human
1.17 embryonic stem cell lines.#: Posted by Dump Bachmann on 12/02 at 09:18 AM -
About Singapore and creationism, the experience of A Singaporean Scientist is intriguing; my only experience with evolution here is a single microbiology class for non-majors, which considered evolution an obvious fact. But there were no class discussions there, so if a third of the people in the class were creationists, there would be no way for me to know that.
Now, the tax regime here is a heaven for foreigners. Income tax tops at 20%, and like in the US, you need to be very rich to pay the top rate. Citizens and permanent residents also pay something called CPF, a social security fund that goes directly to fund your retirement (without a common pool as in the US; if when you retire you only have three years' worth of CPF money, you're screwed); CPF is a completely flat tax equal to 33% of your income. If you only have an employment pass rather than a permanent residency or a citizenship, as I presume these researchers will, you will pay taxes so low that Grover Norquist would approve of them.
Similarly, although what's best known about Singapore is its executing people for drug possession and its lack of press freedom, these are among the least risible facts about this country. The only governmental restrictions my parents have felt are the censorship-induced delay of a day or two in the shipping of every DVD they order from Amazon, the ban on Sex and the City until shortly after we moved here, and the lack of chewing gum. If you're upper-class, drug-free, and not particularly subversive or a political activist, you have nothing to fear. This is why many Westerners view Singapore as some sort of paradise, where everything is harmonious, the government is efficient and corruption-free, and Western-style social problems are nonexistent.
However, if you're poor, the situation is completely different. Singapore's level of inequality is about the same as the USA's, or perhaps slightly higher. There is no unemployment insurance or minimum wage, and workers' protections are criminally low even by American standards. Worse, maids and a few more classes of workers don't even get these protections, so half of the country's maids get no days off. Strikes are illegal. Non-white ethnic minorities are being discriminated against; for example, many businesses require that their workers speak Mandarin not because it's needed but because it's a convenient way to keep Malays and Indians away. If you want a full scholarship to go to university, you have to study what your funding agency tells you to study.
Orac is basically correct: these scientists won't feel the country's problems, unless they're political activists, which I don't think they are. The Singaporean government is doing a superb job sweeping its social problems under the carpet and presenting an image of a perfect country. -
Alon: Really interesting post about Singapore. That place has always seemed an enigma to me.
About your other post though, where did you get those 20%/2% figures? In the universities I'm familiar with, biology alone accounts for 5-10% of majors.#: Posted by on 12/02 at 01:15 PM -
The National University of Singapore has statistics about its student makeup. As for American statistics, there's a file I looked at a few days ago that has plenty of statistics about American universities, including what percentage of students chooses what major. According to table 9, 0.8% major in mathematics, and 1.2% major in physical sciences; now I see that 5.2% more major in biological sciences, but when I wrote about the 2% figure I didn't remember that. It's not 20% vs. 2%, then, but 20% vs. 7%. In addition, in the USA 5.6% major in engineering vs. 24.3% at NUS (I don't know about Singapore in general), but 8.6% major in computer science in the USA vs. 7.8% at NUS.
As for Singapore, it's not that much of an enigma. Just run a thought experiment in which Grover Norquist, or another extreme Republican who's not a member of the religious right, gets a hold of a small country and can run it as he sees fit. Everything becomes self-evident, then: government officials who have salaries so high they amount to theft (the Prime Minister makes 1.1 million US dollars per year; ministers and members of Parliament make slightly less), social restrictions in the guise of stability and efficiency, obscene levels of inequality, lack of protections for workers, racial inequality that the government insists on ignoring and making sure everyone else ignores, and so on. -
fearless leader: The root of the Singapore Exodus (sounds like a good Ludlum novel)...
Almost an oxymoron, except for the "Road to..." stories.
... is good ol' capitalism.
Um, quite the opposite: this is the Government laying out the cash candy, right?
I suspect that if one of these Distinguished Invitees gets hassled by the creationists and complains about it to the right minister, all this "evolutionist oppression" that some creos moan about will be put in perspective real quick...#: Posted by on 12/02 at 05:58 PM - The culture here is way too technocratic for creationists and other fundamentalists to hassle biologists.
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I respect A Singaporean Scientist's report but I have never met a Chinese class where "a third were creationists who kept pissing the professor off with their questions." In fact, I never met Chinese students holding antiscientific opinions and/or openly disagreeing with their teacher. Maybe there is a new generation out there I never knew.
Regarding tax matters, my sources are Singaporeans. We spent a daylong tour with Singaporean tourists in Beijing which they dedicated to shedding tears and complaining about the taxman. Their rate was about 28 - 30%. Probably Alon makes reference to "Foreigners working in Singapore", a privileged category. Anyway, tax is an emotional, personal thing, what seems just and fair to one (particularly if the taxed person is not me), is armed extortion or expropiation of the family cow for the another.#: Posted by on 12/03 at 11:31 AM - Yeah, foreigners working in Singapore are in fact privileged, as long as they're of the upper-class variety as nearly all Westerners here are. I know how much my father pays in taxes; it's nowhere near 28-30% (actually these people probably pay 36-38%, since CPF breaks down into 20% paid by the worker and 13% paid by the employer). When I heard how low the income tax here was, I was shocked, being used to Israel, where income tax tops at 50% and social security and health insurance add 10% more. Anyway, the income tax on foreigners is what matters here, because these scientists aren't going to pay the taxes locals pay, live where the locals live, and send any children they might have to local schools.