If there is a problem with science in the United States, it is the persistent and utterly groundless belief by the media in that country that there is a quick fix to that and most any other problem.

Turning around research and development in science and technology will involve actually funding research and development in science and technology. The quick fix of ‘prizes’ may create newspaper headlines but show no evidence of fostering sustained progress.

Stephen Downes, at 7:35 am EST on December 6, 2006

Look who’s talking

With all due respect to the intellect and integrity of the panelists who took part in the Brookings Institution’s summit, one needs only to read their names to see one of the major problems at the root of our declining competitiveness in science and technology worldwide: the panelists do not include a single woman. Until we begin to bring ALL resources and perspectives to bear on this crucial problem, we will continue to fall behind. That means admitting that male scientists — as accomplished as they are — do not have a monopoly on good policy or good science. Continuing to think within the box in this regard reminds me of the old adage about insanity...

Laurie, administrator and scientist at research U in NE, at 9:20 am EST on December 6, 2006

A modest proposal

Instead of offering prizes (for things the federal government deems important??) how about we instead carve up the inflated salaries of inflated University Professors and Assistants to Chancellors and so provide livings for two or three times as many scientists as we do now.

Unemployed Science PhD, at 10:30 am EST on December 6, 2006

Fund ideas

Right now, the NIH is tanking. Any of us who review will tell you that regardless of what the official numbers say, in many institutes if you don’t have a 10% or better priority score, you aren’t getting the grant. Even if you do, you will take a budget hit. THat means more time wasted with grant submissions, trying to tinker that last little bit so reviewer #1 might accept it this time.

Add that to the paucity of jobs, and the long holding patterns in semi-permanent postdoc positions, and you have a career disaster. Then season with anti-science politicians. ONce we destroy the science base in this country, it will be hard to recreate it.

Students aren’t stupid. I’ve been at two major R1 universities in the last decade and the quality of PhD applicants, espeically domestic ones, is declining. Smart people choose other options when they see the squeeze ahead.

My solutions:

1) when money is available, people are more confident in proposing bright and daring ideas. I argue that at least 25% of the proposals reviewed are worth funding. We need to get back to a reasonable level of funding to keep science healthy, and keep people attracted.

2) Mega labs are an artifact of the 70s. There was an article in SCIENCE years ago that argued an optimal molecular biology lab would be about 12 people, based on a study the research productivity of labs (papers/person). The 20-30 person labs are feeding egos. This can be done by limiting the maximum direct costs of a single investigator to about $500K/year (subject to tinkering for the PI’s salary etc). Thta spreads the wealth around to other people and also enforces some population control. Smaller labs=fewer postdocs and students.

3) Not everyone can should or will be able to aspire to an academic job. We need a career structure that allows non-group leader research investigators (super postdocs, staff scientists, whatever) to contribute to the research effort without living on a pittance.

4) Well-educated scientists, regardless of whether they pursue a bench career, are an advantage economically. They can think, write, communicate, and analyze. Therefore, we should take seriously our responsibility to students and postdocs to educate them, not simply use them as cheap labor to pursue our own ideas. That means we need to have a reward structure in the profession that values our human capital as well.

5) We can’t expect a scientifically illiterate population to support our research. We must improve science literacy at all levels, starting in the schools, and in the community, to explain why what we do is important not only intellectually but economically.

ProfF, Biology Professor, at 12:05 pm EST on December 6, 2006

Physics phd next spring

I’m graduating next spring with a phd in physics. I enjoy physics but I’m starting to feel like a chump. I’ve paid my way through undergraduate school and now graduate school. I’m coming out of school with near 100K in debt. I’m also 26 which is still young and will give me a head start. However, as I look at my options for after school all I see are 40K/year jobs until I’m in my mid 30’s if I want to stick with physics. I will have to get a job unrelated to physics just so I can pay off my education. What good is investing in a education who’s tradition job can’t even pay it off. If you’re a smart person in todays economy, you’d drop out of high school, and start from there. At least you’d be starting with no debt.

mitch, physics phd next spring, at 10:00 am EST on December 7, 2006

Basic versus applied science

The way I see it is that academia needs to become the driving force in basic scientific research. Industry is always going to take every discovery it can and apply it in some fashion. Academic researchers have the opportunity to use public funding to benefit the entire scientific community. Everyone wants cancer/world hunger/global warming/whatever to be fixed, but without the stable foundation of basic research, our scientists will lack the understanding necessary to turn one application into hundreds of possible applications.

If we let industry lead the way, we will have 100 new ways to fight erectile dysfunction, refine oil more efficiently or produce faster AIs for fighter drones.

I’d rather send federal money to people like George Church, who’s digging deeper into the overall complexity of the human genome by sequencing complete genomes from hundreds of new individuals. Or Ron Mittler, who is looking at how desert plants deal with abiotic stresses like drought and heat shock.

Basic scientific research is all but ignored, because our culture has stopped viewing “answers” as results. In order to be a leader in scientific research, we need a strong foundation to build upon. If we keep seeking “products,” then we will be left with a strong economy at the expense of our ability to innovate.

Tony Contento, Scientist at ISU, at 11:20 am EST on December 7, 2006

The Good Old Boy’s Network

Yes, we scientists are an under paid lot. My ex boyfriend who has a nearly completed degree in computer science makes more than me with my BS in biochem. I didn’t go into the science for money though— I went into science to help the world. At my last job I realized “helping the world” meant helping my boss exploit people here on work visa’s into working 6 days a week, very under paid, in an unsafe lab. He didn’t have to worry though— the old boy network protected him. Oddly enough, our lab hadn’t recieved a safety inspection in years. When we did recieve one (at my insistance), it wasn’t very thorough. Even better though was when he did his best to crush me like an ant, by giving me dull/no work to do, by talking behind my back to other employees who then made it difficult to work in the lab, by doing his best to intimidate me into silence. I would have called OSHA if it hadn’t meant shipping 15 people back to Russia/China. We were (and some still are) his captive audience, tweaking experiments to prove his theories right and laughing at his stupid jokes. Oh, and if you do research in lipids and oxidation, or even carbon nanotubes, you’ve probably heard his name.

Jennifer, Lab Rat at CHP, at 12:25 pm EST on December 7, 2006

A couple of decades ago, my dad and I had “a long talk". He gave me two pieces of advice.

1. Never go into research.

2. Never marry a nurse.

He was also dismayed that I didn’t go after atleast a Master’s, and “stopped” at a BSEE.

Now, by inclination, I am an engineer, not ascientist. So be it.

However, when I was in college, I heard what the salary was for the head of the Physics department at the college I was attending.

My first job as an electronic engineer had the same annual salary as he brought home.....

In engineering we have a saying:"Good, cheap, fast".... Pick two.

Jobs are the same thing. You have to balancethe satisfaction of an interesting field of study vs. what the market will pay, vs. how much time and effort is required to meet the expectations.

I strongly suggest that pre Bachelor studentsmake this “self” determination prior to investing in post graduate efforts.

Rich S., Engineer-Not scientist at contractor, at 2:05 pm EST on December 7, 2006

Lack of appeal altogether

The USA was a stable and most welcoming nation before, during, and after WW2. Look at it, now, from a foreigner’s perspective: a land without public transport (particularly the west), full of religious people, and where salaries are pitiful. $2000/month in Los Angeles as a postdoctoral research fellow, give me a break. I can’t even have a proper house, much less own a car -despite the fact that, without a car, one is looked down upon as retarded or disabled. Yes we postdocs are retarded people in the USA. Why, we are not hurring to be medical doctors or lawyers, not willing to make buckets of money, thus something must be really wrong with us. But it’s not. The USA is no longer a land where research is valued.

Albert, UCLA, at 5:10 pm EST on December 7, 2006

These comments are seriously hilarious. “We need women voices!” “We need to tweak the system!” “We need more pay!”

Federal government needs to get out of research and education. Schools make science boring to tears, because they leave all context out. And then if anybody manages to get through primary and secondary education with a love of learning how things work intact, they’re options in science, they’re told, are academia and federally funded research programs. Those options, frankly, suck.

I’ll never understand anybody who wants to do science for the money or for the sense of helping the world. Gag me. Physics is just plain cool, and doing amazing research is reward in itself. You want more people to do science? Make it interesting again. I’m one of the few, even in a physics program, who still has a sense of awe about it. I talk about it with my colleagues, and they just shrug about their work, as if it’s just work.

Let people do something amazing, let them know it’s okay to do amazing stuff, and it’ll pay for itself. That’s something you’ll only find in a few niches in industry, and almost never in academia or the bureaucracy of federal programs.

Dan Farnsworth, at 11:05 pm EST on December 7, 2006

Need a shift in the “American System", microeconomic change

This article and these comments indicate we need a shift in the microeconomic rigging of the science career system.

The article describes “economic games that are supposed to cause science to be done.”

I think one of the microeconomic parameters that need changing are: A lowering of the cost of accessing current scientific publications to no more than 5 times the price of tne electricity to power the internet link to the publicaion.

Now think about how a microeconomic change in the accessibility of quality information would change where you could work and what kind of superstructure you would require to do work.

The big decline in the quality of my studies was about 6 years ago when I moved. The local library does not carry Science or Nature. The system has no quality mathematics and no graduate level science books. Consistently important books I request come back “Not on shelf” which means stolen.

The microeconomic argument I offer is: The scarcest item needed to do science is quality scientific publications and reference material over the internet.

The political-social comment is: The great commons of science is priced just out of the reach of the readers on the margin because of copyright and patent law.

LeeM, Inquirer with BA in American Studies, at 6:30 am EST on December 8, 2006