Engineering Science - Troubling Doubling Comments

Comment on 'Troubling Doubling' by Eric

2007-03-27T17:10:28Z

Geoff,

Immigration is a sensitive issue, but it must be addressed openly because it plays a huge part in the health (or lack of) of the scientific labor market. Rather than stating a case for or against continued levels of scientific immigration, I want to lay out the common themes used to support or condemn scientific immigration which I have seen. That way readers of this post can pick up the topic and go with it.

PRO-IMMIGRATION STANCE (common reasons cited):

1) Immigration provides vital scientific labor which the American education system cannot produce enough of.

2) immigration keeps the cost of science low for taxpayers.

3) immigration enriches the nation culturally.

4) Immigration is our duty since we are a "nation of immigrants."

ANTI-IMMIGRATION STANCE (common reasons cited):

1) Scientific immigration undercuts wages and job opportunities for American scientists.

2) We are training the scientists of our economic and military competitors (e.g. - China).

3) Immigrant scientists are "indentured servants" and exploited.

4) The effects of immigration on the scientific labor market are driving Americans away from these careers.

I raised these common themes merely to stimulate discussion. For anyone who posts ideas and opinions, please try to back your position up with hard data.

Comment on 'Troubling Doubling' by JS

2007-03-15T14:04:15Z

I was going to make the points Geoff did, and also:

1) "Social refactoring" strikes me as a disturbingly Pol Pot-ish bit of terminology.

2) This issue somewhat reminds me of talk of increasing the number of minority scientists -- before committing to the far-upstream changes needed to get people to make different voluntary choices, isn't it worth asking how much is lost by opting not to become a physicist or an unpaid software developer? Whose benefit is being sought here?

Comment on 'Troubling Doubling' by Victoria McGovern

2007-03-14T01:47:43Z

I thought "shameful" was an interesting word. A lot of the open source rhetoric...which may or may not be used by people who have real experience with open source project development...is self-righteously egalitarian, and using that word tweaks that part of this sometimes fuzzy-edged group of concept.

The numbers are pretty interesting, though, considering how many interesting ideas get thought out without much face-to-face contact. Maybe there are more women than people realize.

Comment on 'Troubling Doubling' by Geoff Davis

2007-03-13T22:39:25Z

Always with the off-topic suggestions!

It's an interesting observation about the gender skew, and it parallels my own experiences.

I think it's silly to describe it as "shameful," though. Open source is kind of interesting in that there are theoretically no barriers to entry. If you want to start an OSS project, you just do it. If you want to join in, you just contribute. It's not like there is an entrance exam. So the absence of women means either that women aren't starting projects, or they aren't joining existing projects.

Socially, the scene is a bit LAN-partyish, at least for the projects I've worked on, so I can see how that might not appeal to women. However, things are dictated by the people who show up; if women aren't participating, they don't get to set the tone.

It would be interesting to see what projects started by women look like. I don't know of any, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. If there aren't that many, that should tell you something interesting.

Comment on 'Troubling Doubling' by Victoria McGovern

2007-03-07T20:38:23Z

Random unrelated comment.

Ran accross this statement from Greg Wilson, who was reviewing the Ceci and Williams book. Thought you might be interested:

"Several years ago, Michelle Levesque and I looked at the gender balance in open source (see “Open Source, Cold Shoulder” in the November 2004 issue of Software Development). While the male:female ratio in the software industry is between 7:1 and 12:1, depending on how you measure it, the ratio in open source is at least 200:1, and probably worse. For a community that talks so loudly about freedom and rights, I think that’s shameful; I think it’s even more shameful that so many people in that community choose not to notice, or say (rather defensively), “Well, it’s not my fault.” "

more at http://pyre.third-bit.com/blog/archives/847.html

Comment on 'Troubling Doubling' by Geoff Davis

2007-03-06T17:32:11Z

Hi JS-

The system does indeed have some structural tendencies to boom-and-bust cycles. I doubt we will see any further NIH expansion for quite some time, though. $14B/year is a lot of new money.

Instead, I think we will see an NSF doubling. There is already a lot of talk about doing so, it involves a lot less money, and I think Bush is behind it. I'm hoping that the NSF will learn from the NIH's experience and will take steps to minimize their own doubling's side effects.

Geoff

Comment on 'Troubling Doubling' by Geoff Davis

2007-03-06T17:28:26Z

Hi Dave--

Yes, it is a little surprising at first glance, and it's good news, but I don't think it's that good. Here's why:

If you take a look at Paula's slides, you'll see that the number of people in question is pretty small: only about 10% of the cohort makes it into tenure-track jobs before age 35.

Part of this group is a set of obviously brilliant researchers, and I think universities do a decent job of finding these folks. However, I'd guess that there really aren't that many such people and that the bulk of that 10% is people who go straight to lower-tier, teaching-intensive places that don't require that one do a postdoc.

The data are from 2003. There is about a 2 year lag for Survey of Doctorate Recipients releases, and they just switched from a 2-year cycle to a 3-year cycle, so the next data set for 2006 probably won't be out until next year some time.

That being said, the bulge in PhDs will almost certainly not be absorbed nicely -- here's why:

The research space built during the expansion just came online and the space has been staffed. It is unlikely that there will be much new hiring because
The NIH's expansion is over, and their budget is now flat in nominal dollars and declining in real dollars.
The bulge in PhDs is in the future. An expansion of life sciences PhD programs began in 1998-1999 and continued at least until 2005. Those people will just now be graduating into a pretty bad market. See http://blog.phds.org/2006/12/13/watching-a-train-wreck-part-1

Geoff

Comment on 'Troubling Doubling' by JS

2007-03-06T14:51:15Z

Depending on how up to date the data is, it could also mean that the big bulge of graduating PhD's caused by the increased funding is being absorbed quite nicely.

I think what we're seeing is that there's an equilibrium state of frustration that the system returns to regardless of its total size. And since those metrics of frustration (postdoc length, grant approval rate) are the justification for further increases in the total size, I think we can expect the grow->saturate->grow->saturate cycle to continue for a long time.

Comment on 'Troubling Doubling' by Dave Bridges

2007-03-03T01:07:19Z

Maybe I am really in a "glass is half full" mood but isnt it surprising and promising that the odds of someone 35 or under having a tenure track job is the same. I think what a lot of people fear is being stuck in soft money jobs until far later than that. Depending on how up to date the data is, it could also mean that the big bulge of graduating PhD's caused by the increased funding is being absorbed quite nicely. I guess the implication is that things are ok now, but will probably get worse, but i remember hearing five years ago the same negative comments