Comments on Are American Scientists an Endangered Species?

• Same old Same old
• Posted by Charles on July 2, 2007 at 5:50am EDT

• There may or may not be a "crisis" in the number of scientists. Certainly the percentage of science degrees granted in the US as a percentage of the whole is going down; but degrees granted are going way up, in absolute terms. And the quality of degrees from many places in India and China are not even roughly comparable with US (or European) degrees. And many of the best graduates from places like China and India want nothing better than to come to the US for life. But the article mentions none of this. Instead it exhibits the typical rhetoric and alarmism of these sorts of warnings. Given that we've been hearing these concerns about the "death of US science" since Sputnik, I think we have reason to be skeptical until all the evidence is given, evidence both for and against. It's ironic that scientists, who pat themselves on the back for their hard empiricism, seem unable to confront the complexity of this problem.

• Silent Sputnik?
• Posted by P.F. Corey on July 2, 2007 at 7:40am EDT

• There is cause for concern--and a need for a call to action--to address the widening science gap bewteen the US and many foreign countries. But the article misses the mark in a couple of critical areas. First, the US has always had a tradition of "importing" much of its best science talent. "There are no Einsteins gracing the cover of Rolling Stone"??--If I recall correctly, Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany. While science talent is indispensable to our competiveness in the world economy, the far bigger concern, it seems to me, is the growing scientific illiteracy within our non-scientific population. At best, our higher education system is merely treating the systems. The problem emanates out of our K-12 system; the exposure to science, and for that matter, all things STEM, is to little, to late...to light. I read somewhere that the fall of most great "empires" was attended by an increased interest in astrology, mysticism and the occult. When we look to the night sky and not the lab for answers we do see the light--of stars that have burned out a long time ago.

• Econ 101
• Posted by Joe on July 2, 2007 at 7:40am EDT

• Those are all very trendy cause celebs but, the fact is that most undergrads are not aware of the creatonist museum or the "attack" on science, and if they are they just see it as more politics, which it is.

  What they are aware of is the fact that it takes 10 years living in abject poverty to get a PhD in the sciences after which, if they are lucky, they can get a postdoc for $30K/year and then, if they work really hard, get a tenure track position for $60K.

  Meanwhile, they can go to law school for 3 years and then start at $100K, or get their MBA and start at $90K, both with a possibility of making $1M/year if they work really hard.

  It doesn't take Einstein to figure this out!

  The Chinese and Indians on the other hand realize that a STEM career is a really good way out of the country, while studying American Law or American business is much much harder to do while in China or India.

• Endangered American Scientists
• Posted by Jim on July 2, 2007 at 8:40am EDT

• A couple of observations from, apparently, one of the last of a dying breed--the American male scientist

  1) I suspect that the decline in our numbers has less to do with an absolute decrease in the number of Americans (male or female) seeking science careers and more to do with the dramatic increase in the overall number of Americans going to college. That and, as pointed out by Econ101, the extraordinary amount of time and effort required to achieve a PhD in the sciences in the pursuit of an alarmingly modest financial carrot if, indeed, a job can be found at all.

  2) The author seems to put an awful lot of the blame on the current presidential administration for the erosion of the "authority and autonomy of science". Was there a golden age of scientific authority and autonomy--in this country or elsewhere--that I'm not aware of? A time when scientific rationalism held sway amongst leaders and the average citizen without challenge?

• Autonomy of Science
• Posted by Cal on July 2, 2007 at 9:25am EDT

• All the comments on this article are quite thoughtful, as is the article itself. In some ways, though, it seems like another of the whiny academic "woe is me" stories, which usually present cogent possibilities of the causes of the problem. When one groans that the authority and autonomy of science is being eroded, though, we may have the root of the problem, itself. Scientists cannot even agree among themselves on most issues (I read every issue of Scientific American, though I am a social scientist). How can scientists pretend autonomy when they deal with theories and hypotheses? In fact, some areas of science could be called "the idea of the month club." Sorry, we're not going to accept your latest theory as truth, since you will say the same thing about your next one. This cyclical procedure of uncertainty may in fact be a valid way to add to our body of knowledge, but don't cry about the erosion of your authority. Post-modernism arose, in part, because folks began to lose their grip on laws, theorems, and principles that later turned out to be not-so-true in all cases. In the social sciences, we try to establish our authority by citing other writers whose prestige was built upon their number of citations! I have even been guilty of citing my own writings... How can we expect the general population to accept our authority and autonomy?

• Cheap shots at Bushies
• Posted by Gypsy Boots on July 2, 2007 at 10:00am EDT

• The cheap shots at the Bush Administration and creationist museums are not only distracting and irrelevant, but they do not themselves illustrate the kind of logical thinking the author claims to want to promote. Whatever the Bush Administration' science policies are, they could not affect the number of students in science and engineering programs.

  The second poster has it right; the problem begins in K-12.

• Posted by Perry on July 2, 2007 at 10:10am EDT

• How can there be a shortage of scientists when there is such great difficulty getting a good job in science?

• Science Decline, Grammar, etc
• Posted by JAC , college prof, semi-retired on July 2, 2007 at 11:31am EDT

• Good article, more to the point and less rambling than most. I have personally experienced the steady, depressing, and frightening decline in the quality of students entering colleges and in the level of knowledge attained by those graduating from college during over 30 years of college teaching.
  Good comments also -- there are many influences on this science/engineering problem, but the most important is probably the overall decline in scientific literacy and basic education of US citizens. Much of the blame for this rests with the(generally) poor quality of K-12 education. I now spend most of my teaching time trying to teach college students material (especially science, math, & basic English) that they should have learned, and learned well, by the time they reached 8th grade. One of the greatest hurdles to students understanding science and math is their abyssmal skills in reading and writing, something apparent even in the best of these comments. E.g., it's "too little, too late...," not "to little, to late...," Mr/Ms Corey; and it's "Whom Do You Want to Hire," not "Who Do...," Inside Higher Education. I know: picky, picky, picky. But, dammit, such obvious errors tend to undermine your credibility and the importance of what you are trying to say, expecially on an education site such as this. Sigh........

• declining number of college students going into the sciences
• Posted by nkrieger , associate professor on July 2, 2007 at 12:30pm EDT

• Reading and writing skills are definitely a problem but skill in reading in the content areas is the crucial one that affects ability to do well in science.

  Another problem that I see is the lack of "wonder" about how the world works, especially the natural world. Students think that science is only about memorizing what others have discovered or explained. Students need more problem solving experiences along side learning the content of the various scientific disciplines.

  Most crucial, though, is the need for science professors to teach their introductory courses as though they are introductory courses, not as though students know the discipline already. A friend of mine has done a lot of research in this area and found that the introductory courses are used to weed out students, leaving only the top of the top. Introductory courses can be the place where some students might find out they have an interest in and aptitude for the different sciences.

• To Jac
• Posted by P.F. Corey on July 2, 2007 at 1:05pm EDT

• I cringed as soon as I reread my own diatribe! You're absolutely right, my use of "to" instead of "too" was a careless mistake that undermined my own credibility.

  "There are no great writers, only great rewriters." (As Hemmingway and others have averred).

  Mr. P.F. Corey

• Don't believe it
• Posted by Joe Scientist on July 2, 2007 at 2:05pm EDT

• How can there be a shortage of scientists when there is such great difficulty getting a good job in science?

  Amen. I have an Ivy League science PhD and have been unemployed for two years, and only partially employed before that. The "shortage of scientists" alarm that is fed to the media on a regular basis is a scam. How about some real investigative reporting on who benefits in terms of power and money from the continuing promulgation of this bogus story line?

• Posted by tfc on July 2, 2007 at 4:40pm EDT

• As part of my research I talk to a lot of undergrads. I ask them a number of questions about what it means to pursue research and if they are considering a doctorate in their field of study.

  Generally speaking, none of them know what the heck it means to do research. Juniors and seniors included. And, of the 100+ students I've talked to only one has been able to accurately describe what it means to earn a doctorate.

  Yes, I'll agree that students know it takes a lot of work. But, I don't think that they're put off by "10 years and poor job prospects."

• Test Scores
• Posted by Joseph C. on July 2, 2007 at 4:55pm EDT

• ". . . the problem begins in K-12."

  Indeed. Simply put, science courses tend to be "hard." As such more students will have poor test scores in such classes. Given the horror that is No Child Left Behind, low test scores are the absolute last thing any school would want under any circumstances. Education in general and "hard" classes in particular become dumbed down so the schools manage to make their numbers. Like office workers.

  The country needs to look at what I shall call "hard schooling" (and not just in the sciences) rather than providing a battery of tests just to get funding.

  The policies of the Bush administration as well as the Republican Presidential candidates are more or less reflections on what their constituents believe. If such policies reflect a lack of understanding or respect for the scientific method this must be taken to mean that a large percentage of the population share such views. Discussion of these policies is far from irrelevant.

  Witch doctors do not use microscopes.

• FOR THE LOVE OF EINSTEIN, JAC!!
• Posted by Vivian on July 2, 2007 at 10:40pm EDT

• It's "abysmal," not "abyssmal." Look at you making spelling errors in the very same sentence in which you snottily correct others' grammar and spelling....

  And to the repentant guy, it's "Hemingway"!!!

  --Way-underpaid non-scientist

• Process too long; reward too little
• Posted by Chris , Program Manager on July 3, 2007 at 4:25am EDT

• Even though I'm a 'raging liberal,' I'd hardly say that George Bush is to blame for the down turn in American scientist numbers. The scientist academic professions have only themselves to blame. With 9+ years of school followed by 2+ years of postdoc, the 'industry' of turning out professors has intentionally put the clamp down on the numbers of students who are making it through the whole process. I've learned far more in the working world in 10 years than had I spent the same amount of time in academia. I write better, I perform under tighter time lines. Having been the only intentional MS student in a PhD Ecology program at a well known school, I was highly disillusioned by the fact that for $14K/year stipend (and I was lucky to get that) I still had to pay for my own health insurance and live very low rent for such a long time. Add to that the fact that jobs at the end of the rainbow seemed unrealistically competitive... and take years more to reach tenure (maybe).

  The net result was that the entire industry of academic science seemed ridiculously elitist for a bunch of people who barely make a dent in 99% of the population's daily lives and who, collectively, have utterly failed at directing public policy.

  If the profession of being a professor was less ivory tower/elitist, I'd probably jump back into it in a heart beat. Frankly, right now I think I make more of a difference out here in the real world.

• In the words of Samuel Beckett
• Posted by P.F.Corey on July 3, 2007 at 4:25am EDT

• Try again, fail again; fail better.

• Posted by Benjamin W. at Enormous State University on July 3, 2007 at 4:25am EDT

• It's American science undergrads that are the endangered species. There are enough talented people to fill U.S. science faculties; some of these are imported from outside as they leave more-rigid research environments overseas.

  There may not be enough talented BAs and PhDs to both fill the science faculties and to fill the non-faculty (industry, nonprofit, government etc) jobs that people take when they get sick of the academic rat race. This is a potentially serious problem, and acting like tenure-track jobs are the sole goal worthy of science majors is a form of elitism that most people don't even realize they are practicing.

  Of course, if there were more science undergrads, there'd be more openings for faculty to teach them, too.

  Science undergrads are the canary in the coal mine of failing secondary education. It is really easy for kids to fall off the math and science track before even getting to college. Plus, even in the age of the Internet, being a nerd is unfashionable. (Even non-science PhDs often retain this snobbery. Of course, some nerds really are annoying.) However, the same issues that cause kids to arrive at college unprepared for calculus also cause them to arrive unprepared to write the simple 3 page expository essay. The problem, basically, is that bad grade schooling is like the weather: everybody talks about it but nobody does anything about it.

• Would require personal discipline
• Posted by Buzz on July 3, 2007 at 8:35am EDT

• Upset about Brad-gelina getting all the attention and science getting very little?

  Then demand public K-12 be chartered, because the problem is discipline. At private schools, students can be required to wear uniforms; at publics, maintaining order is an hour-by-hour challenge.

  It's over, people. Bush/Kennedy is incapable of leading a junior high school football team. The Germans and Asians have won.

• To Vivian & P.F. Corey
• Posted by JAC on July 3, 2007 at 9:25am EDT

• Right you are -- it's abysmal (even though it's abyssal, Abyssinian, etc). Imagine that: I'm not perfect! As for being "snotty," I certainly hope Mr. Corey didn't take it that way. I think his was an excellent comment and his response was that of an intelligent gentleman, not some overly defensive individual (as too many educators tend to be). Thanks for helping with my ongoing education!

• It's the economics
• Posted by ww on July 3, 2007 at 6:00pm EDT

• I think Joe is spot-on in his assessment. It is reasonable to expect anyone who might be tempted to undertake a career in the sciences to consider their options carefully.

  Our system continually bemoans the lack of new scientists, but consistently financially rewards them at a level far below those who may make a significantly lower investment of time and expense in their future.

  If career decisions are made on a risk-reward basis, it is no wonder that our schools turn out legions of idiot-MBAs (and idiot-lawyers to help them sue each other). These days, the MBA-types find investors to bear the risk of stupid decisions and reward themselves as the so-called risk-takers. It apparently doesn't seem to matter if their decisions make money or not in many cases - Chief executives seem to reap record compensation irrespective of their success or failure.

  Long gone are the days when companies were heavily engaged in research and didn't pressure the researcher to develop something useful so they achieve a return on investment within a year. Few companies today are innovators - that is reflected in the modern MBA mantra: If you can't best your competition, buy them out or sell out to them. But whatever you do, make sure you take care of yourself and your MBA cronies in the process.

  So, our faculties and graduate schools are full of foreign folks whose home countries actually reward the added effort to become scientists and engineers. Many stay here because they find America to be a better alternative to their home country in many ways. Most are highly-regarded in their fields as a result of a high-quality American education and a great work ethic. It is too bad that they tend to occupy the majority of a limited number of seats available for research and teaching in our institutions.

  Perhaps what we need is a program similar to NASA in which research and development is focused upon solving specific national problems, such as developing systems for energy independence, assuming that can approach the issues without the usual political baggage. Programs such as these could employ many scientists, engineers and technologists whose output could improve mankind's condition for generations.

• Posted by Dr and Mrs KKrassa on July 3, 2007 at 6:45pm EDT

• The timing of the recent flood of stories about a shortage of American scientists and engineers is suspicious, occurring as it does when Big Pharma/Microsoft wanted the ballyhooed Immigration Bill to give them leave to hire slews of immigrant engineers and scientists, more cheaply, even, than they can hire American born and bred ones. As mentioned by several people in this thread, if there was such a shortage of scientists and engineers, getting a job after umpty ump years of expensive and demanding higher education, should be easy. It isn't.

• Are they there?
• Posted by biosciprof on July 3, 2007 at 9:45pm EDT

• It isn't just about the scientists in science jobs, it's what it means to a society to have a scientifically literate populace.

  I have been on the faculty for 15 years and I have seen a steady decline in the quality of the grad students. Part of t his is the decline in education overall (undergrads can no longer think or write). And part is that bright people do indeed find something else to do when what they see is:

  -poor job prospects
  -poor chance to live where they want
  -bad pay
  -6+ years grad school, and 4+ years of postdoc, before even considering a real job with a retirement plan
  -lousy funding situation
  -little chance to do the research they love

  There are still plenty of bodies competing for those jobs, but increasingly the ones with the edge are not American, and increasingly we have to reach further down the distribution to get people. There are still some stellar people out there, but the tail on the distribution is much longer and I think the overall quality is declining.

  Investment is collapsing, driving the exodus. In the biosciences, the paylines at the NIH are wiping out entire labs. When someone's final grant is not renewed, it's not just the professor whose career ends, but his students and his postdocs. He isn't replaced, and his students don't go on to contribute.

  Once upon a time, those who didn't stay in academe went off to invent biotech. Those in academe paid back the investment in their education by training the next generation, and doing the basic research that biotech and pharma could run with. But now, The synergy of academe/govt and private, with long term and short term goals, is dying. Our great success of the post-war NIH is dying. Combined with an administration that does not believe in science, an anti-intellectual political movement that doesn't believe in science, no wonder we are no longer the beacon of the future.

  And of course, we even turn away the best and the brightest from abroad because they tend to be rejected for visas, coming as they do from Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa. More and more of my colleagues cannot come even for a conference.

  So the next generation of advances will be in Europe, Singapore, and Taiwan, because they are investing and welcoming people. And we will have killed science here, and ocmpleted our transition to a country of functional illiterates.

• Posted by Steve on July 5, 2007 at 8:05pm EDT

• I think the percentages might be a bit misleading. How many graduate degrees in "Education" are granted in the other countries? The United States educational system has a lot of what some would consider "throw-away" degrees that other countries may simply not have. This dilutes the number of science degrees granted.

  I have to agree with the assessment with the Bush administration as well. Despite some arguments to the contrary, I would say that it is on point. How can you expect to teach science and produce scientists in a country where the people think that an empirically observable effect like evolution and speciation, or the age of the Earth, is subject to debate? This mentality was always present, but it has definitely been amplified over the last seven years.

  How do we fix this? My thoughts on the subject are very simple: fix science education in the schools. There was once a time that you had to have a science degree to teach science; science education degrees have replaced those. I'm reasonably certain that the advent of the BA in Education is the worst thing to ever happen to this country: teachers no longer had to understand the material at anything more than a cursory level. Fix that problem, and we're well on the way to fixing the rest of the problems.

  The trouble with this is that, like any push to fix a social problem, it will take a decade or longer before we can even begin seeing the effects of such a program, and no politician is interested in investing the capital into a program that won't pay dividends until after the next election cycle.

• It's The Money, Stupid
• Posted by Greg on July 11, 2007 at 1:25pm EDT

• Allow me to join the many commenters who blame the shortage of American science students on abysmal job prospects. I was a Molecular Biologist for several years following college (Cellular and Molecular Biology major) and graduate school (M.Sc. in Natural Sciences). I have been a principal author on publications, rare for a Master's holder, and worked on state-of-the-art (for the late 1980's) research. I loved the work, but I couldn't afford to keep myself financially solvent, much less raise a family. I never wanted to be rich, I just wanted not to be poor.

  I left science and earned an MBA in Information Technology. My first I.T. job paid TWICE what I ever made as an experienced researcher. I.T. hasn't been a sure path to fame and fortune (thank you, H1-B program), but it pays a whole lot more, and it has been much easier to find a job. I would also add that the MBA courses required a lot less effort to do well in (I graduated 2nd in my class) than did any science class I ever took at the graduate or undergraduate level.

  American college students aren't stupid, and they aren't ignorant. They are making good, sound decisions based on the reality of the job market. Stop paying research scientists subsistance-level wages and maybe more people will aspire to careers in the sciences, whether in industry or academia. I would love to be a scientist again but I simply can't afford it.

• Clear Thinking
• Posted by Healthy Skeptic on July 11, 2007 at 10:05pm EDT

• I will first summerize the argument that is missing in the string thus far. Young Americans have lost respect for the Scientific and Academic communities primarilly due to the arrogance and vitrol so common. When unproven science is force- fed to us, only to be soundly disproven a few years later (proving only that the scientists didn't know any more about life, the universe, and everything than the rest of us), it is difficult to view science as anything other than a waste of effort. Anybody remember 'global cooling'? The field of science through it's own foolishness has squandered hard won respect and made itself a legitimate laughing stock. If you want to turn things around, you first need to put the scientist back in the lab or out in the field and away from the politicians, cameras, and reporters.

  Here's the major disconnect, and why young technical professionals like myself are so dissolusioned with 'science'- statements like 'emperical evidence for evolution', in support of an unsupportable and illogical assault on those who label themselves 'creationists'. How can I have respect for a profession that insists on a mindless adherance to a scientifically unprovable theory? I would ask you to name the 'emperical' evidence (or any evidence) in favor of evolution, but I won't- it would be a waste of time. Just a case in point if you are wondering why Americans have lessoning respect for the scientific establishment in this nation. We are still a nation of free thinkers, and many of us who would have gladly joined the scientific community have instead chosen a career path where we are allowed to think for ourselves rather than religiously follow outdated and flawed dogma preached by intellectually hidebound ideologues. In another words, stop whining about how 'kids these days just don't wanna do the work' and start looking seriously at the real reasons so many Americans with our vast access to accurate (and unfiltered) information find the academic and scientific world unattractive.
  When you call for those who disagree with you to open their minds and accept the 'truth' as you see it, you should first review your own reasons for believing what you believe- honestly.

• $$
• Posted by RoB on July 12, 2007 at 4:15am EDT

• I second the comments aBout poor joB
  prospects. Science is apparently an
  areawhere we can get world-class people
  from aBroad to come here and work for a
  pittance for 5 years as a post-doc at,
  e.g., nIH--that leaves it unappealing
  as a career for most young, talented
  Americans compared to finance,
  medicine, law, media, etc.

  not sure this a proBlem though--the
  Bodies will show up when or if the pay
  improves

• competition for scientists
• Posted by Jack Harris , Professor at Univ. Minn on July 12, 2007 at 4:15am EDT

• Maybe if universities didn't put so many resources into worthless fields such as Cultural Studies and all those other studies, there would be more resources for science.

• My last word on the subject; I promise
• Posted by P. F. Corey on July 13, 2007 at 10:00am EDT

• Greg nailed it--It is "The money stupid."

  Compare the average compensation of a great scientist to that of a good hedge fund manager. The work of the former is crucial to the health, and perhaps even the sustainability of all life while the latter is crucial to the creation of that small sliver called "the good life."

  Our reward system seems to have an inverse relationship to the indispensability of the function.

  That said, it's better to allow the Darwinian social process to play out than to have a feckless government attempt to regulate it.

• Posted by Brian on July 13, 2007 at 4:35pm EDT

• With due respect, I think it's very obvious that this argument

  "The authority and autonomy of science is being eroded. The current administration is mainly responsible for this. How can we expect our youth to aspire to being scientists when NASA, NOAA and the Smithsonian admit to changing reports, graphs and scientific conclusions in order to appease the Bush administration’s ideas about global warming?"

  cannot explain this data

  "Although the number of students enrolled in science and engineering graduate programs in the United States has increased by 25 percent from 1994 to 2001, the number of U.S. citizens enrolled in these programs has declined by 10 percent during that period."

  for the simple reason that all of the incidents referred to in the argument occurred (or leastwise were publicly reported) after the time period described by the data.

  In fact, most of the data would seem to describe changes in the STEM student body that occurred during the Clinton Administration, which spanned from January 1993 to January 2001. It should perhaps be noted that this Administration included a Vice President who was, shall we say, not wholly skeptical of anthropogenic global warming theories.

• Posted by Scrawed on July 23, 2007 at 9:35pm EDT

• The overall hypothesis promulgated here is reasonable, but I suspect the supporting points and conclusions are way off the mark. I offer my own observations, some based on attending an engineering graduate program before and after 9/11.

  1) Decreasing biodiversity/Introduction of Exotic Species

  It's not just the population of white males that is declining. It's the American student population that is declining. During my several-year stint I saw or met exactly 1 African-American, 1 American-born Hispanic, 0 naturalized Hispanics, and 0 American Indians. I saw about 4 Caucasian females, three of which either dropped or were forced out. I saw 7 Caucasian males. I met 3 naturalized Asians. This is out of a group of more than 200 students.
  The overwhelming majority of students (I'd estimate over 70%) were male Indian nationals in their 20s. A much smaller number of students (maybe as high as 15%) were Chinese (PRC and ROC) nationals. There was a small smattering of students from other countries (Mexico, Korea, Thailand, Europe (2) and Africa (2)).
  9/11 had no apparent effect on the country-of-origin ratios of students, except there seemed to be a sharp decline after 9/11 in the numbers of attending Caucasian females. Post-9/11 declines in international students' attendance should have led to greater biodiversity, rather than less.

  2) Changing Habitat

  Earlier increases in the numbers of international students resulted in greater numbers of foreign-born faculty and administration. This in turn helped result in a situation where research and graduate assistantships were becoming ghetto-ized by country of origin.
  Increases in the numbers of international students also created an environment that was more conducive politically and culturally to their success. Sometimes academic honesty and ethics were casualties of this "increased tolerance." Plagiarism and cheating were therefore very widespread and in many cases either accepted by the instructor or institutionally condoned. In one course over 2/3 of the students were observed to have plagiarized at least some part of their term projects.
  The departmental practice of mandating "teamwork" ensured that while non-Asians had to adapt to dealing with majority populations from either China or India (often complete with language barriers, and more significantly, ethical barriers), the students from China and India did not have to adapt at all, and furthermore had greater recourse to community resources should problems emerge.
  There seemed to be great faculty sympathy for international students overall. There was very little interest or concern for American students, and it seemed as though at least some of the American students were being targeted for discriminatory treatment. This included having required courses withheld, having mandatory classes added, having illegal course schedule conflicts imposed in mid-semester, being denied partners in mandated team projects, and having correct answers on homework and exams removed from consideration in order to favor certain other students.
  In the event someone takes exception to these claims, I'll point out that international graduate student plagiarism has recently emerged as a longstanding problem at Ohio University's mechanical engineering department (aided and abetted by former Indian and Sri Lankan nationals that had become the department chair and a graduate advisor), and also at the Fuqua business school.

  3) Climate Change

  American media can certainly be blamed for focussing attention on subjects of questionable value. However, the employment prospects and outcomes for scientists and engineers are probably of greater significance in understanding participation and enrollment declines in the sciences and engineering. These have been under assault since the Clinton era, with dramatic increases in both skilled immigration programs and offshoring starting at that time. These have been accompanied by some formidable political pressures at the policy level, and widely repeated assertions about American competitiveness and employability. These attacks would be more credible if they were less generalized, and if many of the individuals and institutions promoting them had not already suffered substantial losses in credibility (e.g. the NSF, and the various high-tech employer lobbies).
  As far as reduced credibility of the sciences is concerned, this seems to have been concomitant with the politicization of some of the sciences. The environmental sciences stand out as particularly foul examples of triumphs of ideology over observation and resulting practice. The field is already littered with such fads as "global cooling," "acid rain," no-fire-tolerance policies in the National Forests (as a result of which we now have impressively large wildfires annually in the Southwest, not to mention devastating pine borer infestations) and "global warming" - check out Bjorn Lomborg's "The Skeptical Environmentalist" on the latter. Similarly, propaganda attempts to promote the "reality" of these questionable theses (exemplified by Al Gore's foray into movies and celebrity policy endorsements) further diminishes their credibility.