<i>Scientific American</i> critiques the American scientist-production-system

In a February 22 “draft” article for Scientific American, Beryl Lieff Benderly asks “Does the U.S. Produce Too Many Scientists?” Or, more specifically, should the U.S. foster increasing recruitment of students into research science? She concludes that the perception of a science labor shortage is generated internally by an academic system that runs on student and postdoc labor. Demand for senior scientists would be reflected in a rise in wages, which has not occurred. Positions for permanent staff are diminishing in number. The current system of limited funding timelines and temporary staff is highly flexible and productive, and responds quickly to changing priorities of funding agencies, but at a cost to the careers of researchers. Career instability may be creating problems for recruitment and retention of talented science-minded individuals. Poor average performance of American secondary students in international assessments of science and math study is the second source of concern among policy makers. The poor average, however, does not demonstrate poor preparation generally, but a terrible disparity between the top-preforming high school students, who compare very favorably to international students in science preparation, and low-scoring students, who are far behind. We are right to be concerned by the low level of science literacy of the general public, but increasing basic science education is an issue distinct from demand for professional scientists.

Benderley focuses tightly on the academic labor market and the influences within it, including the motivations and recruitment of foreign students and postdocs. But she opens with the complaints of industrialists, such as Microsoft’s Bill Gates, that the U.S. does not produce enough technically trained people to staff and maintain an innovative industrial sector. I would be interested in more depth on what “too many/few scientists” means in the context of the broader economy. How can innovation be measured? What opportunities exist for scientists in industry? How does the industrial labor market compare to the situation in academia? Is the problem that we are training too many or too few scientists, or not the right kind of scientists? Is it worthwhile, perhaps even useful, to train a large percentage of research scientists with the expectation that they will not find permanent careers in research? How well do technical and analytical skills transfer to other fields, and are these people satisfied with their work, in light of their extended period of training and “a culture that has long viewed—and, in many places, still views—positions outside the academy not as valid career options for serious scientists”? Some of my questions may be outside the scope of the article, but because Benderley is grabbing a pretty broad topic with her title (assuming she has creative control over the title), I think employment outside of academia, particularly in R&D, is central to her question.

The article is part of Scientific American’s experiment in combining the mob sourcing power of the blog and traditional journalism; a set of questions for readers prefaces the “draft”:

We’d like your views on this topic and suggestions on ways to further develop the article. Please use the Comments section at the bottom of the page. Here are a few questions to get you started:

After reading the article, do you disagree with the “almost universally accepted” idea that there is a national “technical talent dearth”?

What was your reaction to the assertion that the decline of white males in science indicates a drop in the desirability of science careers?

Do you think that U.S. education policy should work on improving the science-math performance of the children at the bottom, overwhelmingly from low-income families and racial and ethnic minorities, rather than the performance of all children?

How dismal do the science job prospects described here seem in the context of the broader economy?

Do you accept as solutions to the “scientist glut” problem that we need to create better-paying staff jobs in labs, reduce low-paying post-doctoral positions and generally restructure the way that the U.S. staffs and funds its academic laboratories?

What are the biggest challenges faced by the “American research enterprise–the indispensable engine of national prosperity”? What do you think should be done to make it better?

What will happen over the next decade or so as lab space (and grants) start freeing up as the baby boomers who occupy those posts hit retirement?

What other perspectives on science career opportunities would you like to see in this article?

In my partial audit of about half of the >200 comments, I read quite a few interesting opinions and anecdotes, although few commentators sited impartial sources, and many used the opportunity to regrind personal axes concerning scientists, the educated elite, lawyers, government, industry, dumb/ignorant Americans, foreign workers, xenophobia, and market competition. I am curious about what the author makes of this enterprise. Some of the suggested discussion points question topics that were barely glossed in the article. Are these topics that the author wishes to extend? Did the author pose the questions, or her editor? How does the “draft” experiment compare to previewing a topic on a blog? Many of the comments are rather negative, and some blog forums, which have a stable community of subscribers, have more interactive commentary. Benderley wrote a post for the blog Science Progress in August of 2008 that covers much of the same territory, although with stronger wording and less detail. Commentary on the post was quite similar, but, at only nine entries, not as diverse, suggesting the Scientific American experiment was a relatively successful data-gathering exercise. We await the results in print, at an unspecified future date.

Referenced, and Further Reading:

• Benderly, Beryl Lieff. Draft: “Does the U.S. Produce Too Many Scientists?” Scientific American 22 Feb 2010. Web.
• Benderly, Beryl Lieff. “It’s the Money, Stupid”. Science Progress blog. 7 Aug 2008.
• Bousquet, Marc. “Scientific American: Academic ‘Labor Market Gone Seriously Awry’”. How the University Works blog. 23 Feb 2010.
• Rohn , Jennifer. “In which I dream of revolution”. Mind the Gap: a Nature Network Blog. 24 Feb 2010.
• Waldrop, M. Mitchell.  Draft: “Science 2.0: Great New Tool, or Great Risk?” Scientific American 9 Jan 2008. Web.

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