Scott Jensen <RecreationalPoker@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:
> On Jul 6, 1:52 pm, "Mark T.B. Carroll" <m...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
(snip)
>> You seemed to be comparing the rest of the world with the US without
>> noting that the US wouldn't be so far ahead without such help from the
>> rest of the world.
>
> Do explain.
A significant fraction of the people doing innovative R&D in the US got
a lot of education and culture overseas before they ever lived in the
US. The `brain drain' is, in a sense, help from the rest of the world.
>> So, it was kind of begging to be noted, so that people don't
>> mistakenly make the leap toward assuming that it's simply
>> something inherent to do with the wonderfulness of Americans.
>
> Likewise, you haven't given any evidence why that isn't so. Again, do
> explain. I will wait to respond until I hear your argument.
I've already cited Bill Gates' testimony, which sup****ts most of:
American secondary education does badly on math and science among
industrialized nations. Americans are falling further behind on
graduating with science and engineering degrees - for some time now
around half, maybe more, of the science PhDs in American universities
are foreign students, and very many of them stay afterward. (One might
reasonably guess that ability to do advanced original research in
technical fields is linked with ability to do technical innovation.) (A
reason for some pessimism about the medium term are the increasing
factors that are causing foreigners not to remain in the US.) A whole
bunch of innovative American companies have non-natives as im****tant
technical co-founders, that then go on to create jobs for Americans. You
can kind of see where this is going. (I can probably find citations for
specific points that you doubt.) A good study of all this is in,
http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/~anno/Papers/Americas_new_immigrant_entrepreneurs_I.pdf
http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/~anno/Papers/Americas_new_immigrant_entrepreneurs_II.pdf
(page 14 in part II summarizes very nicely, and is well worth a glance)
I can kind of see this difference myself, of course: I'm an immigrant
co-founder of an innovative business that employs only Americans, that
grew out of a US university laboratory headed by an Indian guy. Being
educated in Britain meant that before I even started college I had had
seven years of weekly lab experience separately in physics and
chemistry, plus another in electronics, and had been taught about
electronegativity, orbital hybridization, hyperbolic functions,
eigenvectors, bidentate ligands, differential equations, analog
electronics analysis using complex numbers, etc. which meant that I was
ready for my /freshman/ year at college including courses in special
relativity, vector calculus, thermodynamics, static hazards and state
minimization in digital electronics design, recurrence relations and
complexity theory, etc. (And I'm no genius.) One of the difficulties I
have in hiring in the US is actually finding people who have a good,
broad science and engineering background - our work often involves
applying our techniques to a new field, which means some fast learning
is required.
>> (I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss Native American influence, though:
>> there's some evidence that their culture had more impact on what
>> became modern-day American culture than might be popularly
>> recognized.)
>
> That evidence being?
Ha, I don't have time to hunt now - I actually just shed most of my
library - but a bit of Googling suggests a couple of directions,
http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/FFintro.html
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/2006-April/002569.html
I'm not an anthropologist, I'm afraid. (-:
Mark
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