More than half a century of U.S. dominance in science and engineering may be slipping as America's share of graduates in these fields falls relative to Europe and developing nations such as China and India, a study released on Friday says.

The study, written by Richard Freeman at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Washington, warned that changes in the global science and engineering job market may require a long period of adjustment for U.S. workers.

Maybe if there werent so many damn hippies complaining we could keep the lead. I knew the hippies would be the end of us.

Ha! 'bout time.

Gonna be funny when we start buying all your oil too! That'll teach you to leech of the rest of the world.

Why would this surprise anyone? The US has only 5% of the world’s population. US universities have long sought foreign talent, and Americans are now lazier than ever before. Besides, why study science, the pay is very poor and the work is much harder than other fields.

The obvious finally shows. Theocracy like America's pushes away the truth of science. It has already been proven. America's stupidity is to let the rise of religion in government and religious wars rise again, knowing very well that this path is the path of tyrants and destruction.

America is on the verge of a hard lesson. One of those lessons father's <most> in America are too weak to give. Our bullying stretches across the planet, and in every nick of our culture. Science and Engineering is under the full control of the have's and the religious. <Do they really ponder teaching creationism, unfortunately I think they do>

My advice is to take your Americaan Science and/or Engineering education to a country <there are many> that welcomes unbiased truth <to the extent it can be achieved, though this extent continually grows> and the products designed to help humanity <not make the rich richer>.

America is falling. It will probably fall far. When it realizes the world no longer appreciates how they bully people. AMERICA will be the one to attack the innocent in hopes of subjegation.

I peacefully move on in my studies of bettering humanity.

1) The pay is often not worth the effort.
2) Companies are moving most of the research, manufacturing, tech related fields overseas, where they can get the same brain power at 1/5 of the cost.

The culture is completely different. In asian cultures, middle class parents place a great emphasis on education, especially in science and math. Even if you hate science or math you will have it force fed to you. The competition is so much greater in those countries that the top students are almost always encyclopedic geniuses in science and math. Many of these students end up coming to the US to work or study.

In the US I have seen that most parents are apathetic as long as their kids are doing well in school (subject area doesn't usually matter because it's always the kid's choice and "their life" and "their choices"). Many kids get into the medical fields or finance and business, whatever will best ensure their financial future (that is being able to get a job without worrying greatly about outsourcing).

I am happy to see that the rest of the world will catch-up ... The U.S. has carried the rest of the world for the last 50 years ... I think it's about time that the rest of the world starts contributing to progress that America has begun ... Lazy is Europe, China, and India that have forced America to carry this yoke as they played silly backward social games ... Let's see if they have enough spunk to do more than just a short sprint out of the gate ... I fear America will find itself alone again shortly

As for the statements about lazy ... are you kidding ... America is richer and harder working than any other nation ... just look at the stats ... I guess that measn one should be studying ...

No comments at ALL ... just look at the stats about educational system, quality of live and Federal Deficits & National
Debt Not to speak about ignorance, indoctrination and propaganda. It is equal if not grater then the propaganda in the former socialist countries in East Europe. I have personal experience in both of the systems

Yet these uneducated, propagandized and indoctrinated citizenry consistently does what people of other countries simply fail to accomplish.



And sounds as if you are still an active member of the socialists elites. Americans traditional have opportunities that most of even the other civilized nations do no have. Is it perfect? Of course not. No country is or eve will be. But a prime sign of success is the level to which your detractors will reach in order to insult you.

As a science professor at an American university, I can state rather conclusively that the US education system is a joke. We draw graduate students from the US and abroad. The US students have poorer math and science skills, lower self-expectations, and poorer work ethics.

Undergraduate students are amazingly unprepared for college. They are atrocious writers and view non-major courses as a waste of their time. And... many students in my introductory courses cannot even do basic math.

America will suffer decline if it does not mercilessly change its education system. We need to quit being afraid to force students to work and take qualifying exams. The blame does not lie with those so-called hippies, liberals, conservatives, or unions. A society that lets its children "slide by" will decline. As far as I can tell, that tendancy crosses all classes. Although, I am happy to say that most (but not all) professors I know are very demanding parents with respect to the performance of their students in school. Some of us are trying.

Look out everyone , the sky is falling! By proxy India and China will become our 51st and 52nd state.

Denial won't solve America's education problems. We lag behind all major industrial nations in math and science according to all tests and analyses. How can America continue to lead if it doesn't produce the professionals needed to create a tech- or industrial-driven economy? Immigration helps (a lot), but I think we all know how welcoming this country has become.

Our greatest advantage is that we reward hard work and ingenuity... now we just need to raise our competiveness in the math and sciences.

That science professor, I feel, had an important point to say -- perhaps more should pay attention to it.

What strikes me is a symptom I have been observing; specifically, the apparent lack of curiosity amongst contemporary human societies.

Personally, I can speak of only two of them: I was born in North America, and have also lived for several years in Asia. I observed the same, or very similar, apparent lack of curiosity in both.

In Asia, I was fascinated by the appearance of the moon, planets, stars and constellations. It was a new experience for me, but the locals thought I was crazy -- they truly could not conceive or hold ANY idea of why on earth I would be looking at the night sky... I'd try to explain to them, but I was always left with the feeling that I'd just been attempting to explain something without a common basis of language.

Strangely, in North America I experience the same. Indeed; I find people here even more isolated, and discommunicative. Again; it feels like trying to explain something in a foreign language. The blank looks. Skeptical expressions. _Stupid_ expressions.

I thought about it for a number of years, and tended towards two main thoughts I considered worthy of further investigation: television, and lead.

Television, though, was far more of a factor in North America than it was in Asia; at least, at the part where I lived -- television there was a relative newcomer. So, I'm presently betting on the lead. Both locations do have that very much in common; North America pumped millions of tons of lead into the air over several generations, and it is _still_ being used, in Asia! Unbelievable, but true.

In North America, it's since settled into the ground -- and the Americans are now eating and drinking it. A triple-whammy... rather an improvement on Rome, wouldn't you think? No wonder they're now a nation of rich retarded psychopaths.

Well, I suppose it is marginally better than being a country of poor retarded psychopaths. But by exactly how much, I wouldn't care to hazard a wager upon.

As a current undergraduate at an American university and a product of our public school system allow me to offer my two cents. My experience with my math and science classes is not unusual for American students. My calculus professor was a very nice woman from India, she was quite possibly one of the smartest people I had ever met. But I could barely understand her. Ive never been really good at math (but love science and understand the concepts) and having a professor with a heavy accent and little knowledge of local colloquialisms did not help me to learn.

Calculus is full of abstract concepts and the more abstract the concept the more linguistic tools are required to convey it to your audience. More needs to be done to ensure that the lesson material is adequately presented to students who want to learn. I made every reasonable effort to get what I could from my math class but the language barrier and the incoherence of the professor's test's and grading style meant that I recieved an F in the course.

Having switched majors to English I must say this: I have been much better served by the liberal arts professors than I ever was by aloof and uncaring science professors with thick accents who couldn't connect with the students. The scientific community as a whole seems not to realize that abstract concepts such as mathematics and physics do not exist independently of language, they exist because of language. The goal of any worthwhile physics or math instructor should be to find language that makes those concepts accesible to their students, then maybe Americans, who like to see value for their dollar, would find it worthwhile to pursue an education in science.

As of now, the university system is more interested in making science students suffer through pointless 'hands on' labs and wasting their time with notebooks and mindless busy-work requiring the use of expensive lab equipment (money better diverted to instruction) than teaching concepts and inspiring minds. All the reforms aimed at making science education interactive have only succeeded at making it more cumbersome for the students. Those who make discoveries will do so with the information presented to them regardless of whether or not they were forced to sit in a stupid lab class confirming for the tenth goddamn time what we already know about gravitational acceleration, and the people who do well in those systems are not the innovators, they are mere assistants to the innovators.

The system of science education is so oppressive and needlessly hegemonic that only the most categoric and encyclopedic minds can flourish in it. Americans are notorious for being innovators, not followers, and science education in this country should reflect that.

I completely agree with the previous poster. Although I am still in highschool, I love math and physics. Luckily my freshman year I had probably the most interesting math teacher I have ever encountered. We learned math in the class, but we would also explore deep into many of the "implications" that sertain rules, theories, and properties that math lead to. Such as dividing by 0, the infintiy, different ways of thinking. We also dug ddep into physics and many abstract ideas. People have to realise that the best way to learn isnt by doing "hands on" things because most of the time the really interesting stuff you cant do instead you can just do basic stuff and its such a waist of time. I find the best way to learn is to converse a topic with the rest of the class while the teacher or pofessor guides you along. The teachers have to realise whats an idea is given the best teachers are going to be the students since we all think alike. Also america has got to focus more on educating instead of helping the uneducated. If you start from the bottom of the line in the next century the top of the line will be fixed and it requires alot less work(hitler new this). Anyway point is if America has any chance in keeping its lead it has to have new standards for teaching and spend alot more money on public school systems getting proper teachers for hard concepts.

All the real work in the American technology is being done by college dropouts. Thanks God for them, but the Universities are doing nothing - just making money without teaching anything, only pretending.
Education system needs to be changed dramatically, Media needs to be changed dramatically, but who will do it?

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Where do the rest of you park your space shuttles?

Interesting to note that experts always pound a stake in controversial territory.

America is pretty good at muddling through the morass of what we call a democracy. The university professor from India may not speak the language well enough for native speakers to understand well but look at the situation from their viewpoint. They studied hard, completed their degrees and decided to throw the dice in a land more appropriate for their desires to move ahead in life well knowing that their abilities would be little appreciated (money wise) in their the land of their birth (engineering degrees without an industry to use them, hence go to America). University teaching is a great item to add to any curricula vitae in preparation to moving up the ladder of success. If the average American is incompetent in science and technology then those who immigrate will generate the next technical greatness of this nation. That is if the multinationals decide that America isn't worth bothering with any longer which is doubtful...,