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There's been alot of talk lately about the U.S. losing ground in scientific research to Asia. Right now, the hot-button issues being tossed around are, of course, the intelligent design flap, the stem-cell flap, and so on. Our awful education system doesn't help, either, and the Bush's increasing de-emphasis on research funding is starting to put real pressure on the research community.
But this isn't a diary that talks about those things. My reasoning for the decline of science in the U.S. is alot more pragmatic and personal, from someone that's been in the trenches since 1993. My assertion is that a large part of what's killing science is lack of good employment in the field.
Now, before I start, I will admit that I am something of an outlier even in the science field. I essentially flunked out of one grad school with a Master's, was unable to get a job for 3 years afterward, got a temp job -- no bennies -- for 2 years, returned to graduate school in 1999, and have fought ever since to get my PhD.
What I've seen in these 12-odd years can be summarized as such: unless you have the exact right skills at the exact right time and you live in the exact right place, you don't have much of a chance at getting a 'real' job in science. As a Master's, I was told again and again that if only I lived in California or Boston, I'd have a good shot at a job...but I lived in Chicago, and nobody flies down technicians when they have a zillion MIT or U of C graduates to draw from. So back to get the PhD I went. But that't no panacea either. It's getting harder and harder to get a 'real' job with a PhD in the sciences.
I'm no good at coming up with charts and graphs like the big names here. But I can say this: though unemployment in the sciences is nearly always VERY low (2.0% is a figure I've seen quoted for chemists around 2002) underemployment is often very high. For me -- in the biological sciences -- it's usually not too terribly difficult to get a 'postdoctoral' position. And postdoctoral positions pay far more then graduate student stipends. But they still pay only 40% of a PhD's starting salary, at best.
An increasing number of PhDs are ending up postdocs for life...or worse. Both what statistics I can find, and much anecdotal evidence from my colleagues, back this up.
The idea of "PhDs working for Wal Mart" is no myth even in the sciences, either, but it's fortunately rare, and with a good advisor, avoidable. Getting a job beyond the postdoc, however, seems as much a lottery as anything, and that's extremely discouraging.
That's what it all comes down to. Most of us scientists already gave up the idea of using our privilege -- high intelligence, good education, etc -- to simply make wealth. But if we can't get a job that pays more then $30,000 a year after 12 years of college, then that speaks volumes about the priorities of our society, and puts an almost complete lie to the idea that 'more education' will solve our economic woes. More education certainly doesn't help scientists any.
Believe me, if there were more high level research jobs in science then they are PhDs, then you'd see a resurgance of science in this country! But things have been going downhill ever since the Reagan years -- the number of PhDs keeps going up, the number of science jobs, at least in my field (bioscience) is stagnant.
There's plenty more observations I can make from the front lines, such as the almost total domination of Chinese and Indian students in some scientific fields now, but I'll save that for a later diary. In the meantime, though, I summarize my solution as being very, very simple: make the science jobs, and you'll get more American scientists. It's that simple.
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