Is the science threat real?

The supposed threat to US science, which I continue to believe is real (see my November 2005 "Editor's Note"), garnered some comment at a recent DesignCon panel. As reported in sibling publication Electronic News (February 10), Carl Guardino, president and CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG), cited statistics that show two of three middle school math and science teachers in the US do not even hold a degree in the subject they teach, and Dr. Belle W.Y. Wei, dean of San Jose State University's College of Engineering, noted that "young people are not inspired. This is the problem."

Solutions range from individual mentoring efforts to multibillion-dollar government investments. But questions remain as to how big the problem really is. In "The Fake Science Threat" (Washington Post, February 6, p. A15), columnist Sebastian Mallaby describes the efforts of Gavriel Salvendy, an American scientist from Purdue University, to set up an engineering department at Tsinghua University in Beijing. As part of the program, graduate students earning $60 per month receive a $125 bonus for each paper they publish in an international journal. That certainly provides them with the inspiration that Dr. Wei says is lacking in the US.

But Mallaby questions what this really means for the US. He comments that "while generous math and science funding should be a government priority, the invocation of the threat from China is mostly spurious." He contends that competition between countries is different from competition between companies. He suggests that cooperative efforts such as Salvendy's aren't helping China catch up with us but rather are helping us keep ahead of China. Because China sells to Americans, he says, whatever makes China more productive has some upside for the US as well.

At the DesignCon panel, Timothy G. Saponas, worldwide higher education manager at Intel, seemed to agree at least in part with Mallaby, saying that US science vs. China science is not an apples to apples comparison and that US-educated engineers still have a leg up.

Mallaby's position is an intriguing notion. I concur that it's beneficial for the US to help promote science education in other countries. I also agree with private investor Jim Hogan's comments to the DesignCon panel that we should send our students overseas to expose them to global competition.

But we would be foolish to overlook the deep problems here. Increased financial support for science education and further efforts to inspire scientific pursuits remain critical to the US.