{"id":2850,"date":"2008-08-20T18:17:33","date_gmt":"2008-08-20T18:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2008\/08\/20\/make-the-right-claims\/"},"modified":"2008-08-20T18:17:33","modified_gmt":"2008-08-20T18:17:33","slug":"make-the-right-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2008\/08\/20\/make-the-right-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"Make the Right Claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Mooney has a new Science Progress column on the number of scientists<\/a> that challenges the claim that there are not enough students earning science degrees.<\/p>\n

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The facts clearly say otherwise, no matter how you slice them. According to the National Science Foundation, in 2006–the last year for which data is currently available–the nation produced a record number of science and engineering Ph.D.s: 29,854 in total. This was the fourth year in a row that the total doctorate number has increased, and a 6.7 percent increase from the year 2005 (the previous record).<\/p>\n

And what about less advanced degrees? It’s the same story. “The numbers of S&E bachelor’s and master’s degrees awarded reached new peaks of 466,000 and 120,000, respectively, in 2005,” reports the NSF in the 2008 edition of its Science and Engineering Indicators report.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The problem is, this isn’t quite the claim that is generally made. Yes, I know, it’s what was said in the op-ed Chris cites at the beginning of the piece, but the problem that most people writing about this issue cite is a decline in the number of American<\/strong> students majoring in those fields. And there, the numbers are a little less clear– the number of US citizens earning science and engineering Ph.D.’s has remained fairly constant, slightly below the peak value around 2000. Meanwhile, a record number of degrees were awarded to foreign students on temporary visas.– 10,792 in 2005, or 36% of the total, a steady increase from about 29% in 2000.<\/p>\n

That’s the problem most people talking about a shortage in science and engineering are talking about. It’s not that we’re producing too few scientists overall, it’s that we’re producing too few native-born<\/strong> scientists. You can quibble about whether that’s a Bad Thing for science as a whole– I tend to think that a rising tide lifts all boats, and don’t have a huge problem with major discoveries being made in other countries, but it probably doesn’t speak well for our educational system that only half of the students earning advanced degrees in science and engineering were born and raised here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Mooney has a new Science Progress column on the number of scientists that challenges the claim that there are not enough students earning science degrees. The facts clearly say otherwise, no matter how you slice them. According to the National Science Foundation, in 2006–the last year for which data is currently available–the nation produced… Continue reading Make the Right Claims<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}