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sciences have to be stimulated??


Guest little dust

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Guest little dust

I do not speak English but I'll try to do my best.

In school I have to support or refute the following proposition: "There must be more students in science and maths if we want to prevent that the technological progress in the western world comes to a stop."

What do you think about this? I hope it will be an interesting discussion with pro and contra arguments. Thanks!

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Hey!

 

I definately agree on the grounds that the probability of technological breakthroughs increases with the number of scientists working on a particular problem. If we train more scientists, it is more likely that we will make progress.

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I think America needs to revamp the educational system all together; I’m afraid the standards just keep lowering. I went into college thinking it was going to be greatly different from high school, that it wasn't just an assembly line for a diploma but sadly I was wrong.

 

I can see why there are not that many students that go into the sciences ( at least at my school) it's because all the science classes are substantially harder, and the future job salaries for your standard chem or bio majors are not that impressive.

 

...but back to the subject at hand. The main cause of the lack of scientist in America is the relatively low demand/pay for them. I don't think businesses are willing to spend the money required for long term research and development when they can spend it on shady advertisements and make quick bucks. And this attitude doesn't create a demand in the scientific job market. Take for instance Bill Gates, and the fact that he's sitting on billions. Why doesn't he take that money and spend it on research and development? Too much of Americans currency is being paid to corporate crooks, instead of the people who contribute to a society (scientist). So I don’t think the number of scientist will increase significantly unless scientists start getting the pay and respect they deserve. I really don’t know if it’s the same way in the Eastern Civilizations but I do know they respect education a hell of a lot more than Americans do.

 

One of my hobbies is chemistry and I am now learning why I haven’t met too many (none- other than people on the internet) fellow chemistry hobbyist. It’s too darn expensive. The cost of a glassware set up is ridiculous and chemicals are either way to expensive or illegal to have. I’m sure it’s the same way in other scientific fields also.

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I'll say no, we don't need more science students, but we do need more science jobs.

 

The reason there is a falling proportion of students in science courses is, like T_Flex was saying, largely because they have among the worst employment prospects. Also, there's been an increase in the numbers of people with post-high school education over the past couple of decades because it has become necessary to get entry level jobs, but this level of education has always been required for science, so it hasn't increased with areas, like business.

 

There's already a surplus of science graduates, especially in popular fields, so boosting the numbers of students isn't going to help drive innovation, as there will simply be a greater number of science graduates that aren't employed in science.

 

Science is also an expensive thing to learn, not just for hobbyists but for universities, and this is driving the universities here away from science into areas like business, management, tourism, arts, etc, which are all substantially cheaper to run. The end result is that science faculties resort to reducing the cost of their courses which generally makes them less suited to industry.

 

What governments can do is redistribute more of the money gained from areas like manufacturing and mining, that benefit indirectly and over a long term from basic research, back into research to ensure that it continues to produce the opportunites it has in the past. This will also stimulate the science industry which will take up the current numbers of science students, possibly with some growth.

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