I started MS in Electrical Engineering in Fall of 2002, and expected few foreign students in my program due to visa restrictions.

However, we had more foreign students then American in my program at MS level. At the Phd level, the vast majority of students were foreigners (mostly Chinese and Indians as well as Greeks, Pakistanis, Iranians, and Israelis).

In fact, a decent size of the faculty was non-American.

We can thank this to the anti-intellectual culture that is being pushed by the popular culture where emphasis is on superficial, physical aspects as well as the political culture that seeks to keep critical thinking to minimum in the population at large.

The wingnut media is constantly denigrating Professors and scholarships.

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unless it's crap like MBAs, which is NOT really education. If Americans don't learn about, and respect, history and science, there will be no education at all, and the dummies will be prime fodder for the richies and their rah-rah conservative, misogynistic, antigay pro-religious propaganda. Our eroded leadership of the world will fail completely. As someone said once on this site, Americans don't want their kids to be educated, they want them to be rich and pretty. There is WAY TOO MUCH entertainment and not enough reading going on. GROW UP, AMERICANS

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As others have said, we shouldn't be surprised at how we have lagged behind in science. Historically, we always have. The only reason that we landed on the moon in 1969 is because the landing was placed in the context of politics and the Soviet Union. We would have probably landed on the moon in the 1970's anyway but not with the same degree of urgency. And we haven't been back because there is no overriding political issue to force us.

I posted some thoughts about this issue back in March (see "Is Science a Part of Our Lives?"; there are other pieces about science in our lives under the category of chemistry). In that piece, I posted a link to Science Debate 2008 which was an attempt to get the presidential candidates to discuss science. It is said to say that very little came out of that proposal.

Our leaders will not discuss science if we do not push for it. And since most people do not want to think about science, there will be no push for science.

And when the next major crisis in science (like the launching of Sputnik in 19757) comes, we will neither have the ability or the wherewithal to adequately respond.

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Is this a surprize?

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Reference: "The Republican War on Science" by Chris
Mooney, 2005, Basic Books. It has the following URLs:
http://www.waronscience.com/home.php
http://www.chriscmooney.com/
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05268/576883.stm

See also:
"Undermining Science, suppression and distortion in the
Bush Administration" by Seth Shulman, 2006

"The Republican War on Science" by Chris Mooney says:

"Because Trofim Lysenko convinced Josef Stalin that
genetics is wrong, 12 million people died of starvation.
The coal companies convinced President George W. Bush
[and Senator Inohe] that global warming hasn't happened
and 12 hundred people died in hurricanes in 2005. For the
same reason, people died in the wildfires in Oklahoma."
12 hundred is less than 12 million, but GWB is still
comparable to Stalin. Both adopted anti-science policies
for ideological reasons and thereby murdered large numbers
of their own citizens.
George W. Bush favors a form of "democracy" called
Theocracy.
There is something that needs to be made explicit: Truth
is not determined by a vote of scientists. Scientists are not
authorities. Nature is the Only authority. There is only
one vote that counts, and Nature casts it. It isn't just "not
nice" to fool Mother Nature, it is impossible. Scientists
understand and believe this so innately that they never say
it, but other people may think that scientists wield power or
authority.
Reference: book: "Science and Immortality" by Charles B.
Paul 1980 University of California Press
The Eloges of the Paris Academy of Sciences (1699-1791)
page 99: "Science is not so much a natural as a moral
philosophy".
page 106: Nature isn't just the final authority, Nature is the
Only authority. When you try to disobey Nature [In
older language: "When you try to tell God how to run the
Universe".], the result is less subtle than a train wreck: The
rocket explodes on the launch pad. Oklahomans die in
wild fires when it should be winter. The Gulf coast suffers
the worst hurricane season ever. Tornado season extends
into January.
Book: "The Long Summer, How Climate Changed
Civilization" by Brian Fagan 2004 Basic Books
Summary: Small climate changes caused the fall of many
civilizations.

The Religious Right is also giving a war on Science, trying
to convince people that Evolution is wrong and trying to
prevent the teaching of Science in school. As we all know,
religion is caused by mental illness.

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Religion is caused by any one or more of about half a dozen mental illnesses.
The truth about religion can be found in these books:

"The Neuropsychological bases of god beliefs" Dr. Michael A. Persinger MD,
psychiatrist 1987 "Religious people are just like my temporal lobe patients"

"The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bi-Cameral Mind" Julian
Jaynes Professor, Harvard University 1976 "Religious people are just like
schizophrenic patients"

"The Psychiatric Interview in Clinical Practice" Roger A. MacKinnon, M.D.,
Robert Michels, M.D. W. B. Saunders Co. 1971 "Religiosity is a common
symptom [of] schizophrenic patients"

"The God delusion" by Richard Dawkins. "Religion is caused by a kind of
computer virus that infects the living computer, the human brain."

"The Science of Good and Evil" by Michael Shermer, 2004 "Morality and Ethics
are now in the jurisdiction of Science and greatly improved thereby."

Many books in the new science called "Sociobiology": Morals and ethics are
instinctive and they evolved.

"God: The Failed Hypothesis" by Victor Stenger Scientific proof that god does
not exist.

"The God Part of the Brain" by Matthew Alper 1996. "The USA is anomolusly
religious because many early founder groups were religiously insane and fleeing
prosecution in Europe. Religion is a genetic disorder."

"The Accidental Mind" by David J. Linden, 2007 Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press. Religion is caused by the extreme klugeyness of the "designed"
by evolution brain. In particular, the narrative creation system cannot be turned
off. It generates false narratives that are believed by the generating person. This is
seen in experiments done in the laboratory. This book has the best explanation of
resistance to evolution: "There has also been an assumption that if one accepts the
idea that life developed without divine intervention, it necessarily follows that all
aspects of religious thought must be rejected. Those who take this line of
argument to extremes argue that when religious thought is rejected moral and
social codes will degenerate and "the law of the jungle" will be all that is left. It is
imagined by religious fundamentalists that those who do not share their particular
religious faith are incapable of leading moral lives." These suppositions are not
true many times over. Linden later mentions that the creationists [intelligent
design advocates] are exactly 180 degrees wrong rather than just a little wrong.
Being exactly wrong, they are unable to unlearn their error. See Sociobiology or
Sciobio.

"Scientists Confront Intelligent Design and Creationism" edited by Petto &
Godfrey, 2007. The ID and creationist crowd are trying to do away with science.
They see science as a "godless religion." Science is a process, not a religion.

"Manufacturing Belief" by Lewis Wolpert
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/05/15/lewis_wolpert/

"The End of Faith" and "Letter to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris

"Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon", by Daniel Dennett
Let's do scientific research on religion and find out what causes it.

"Origins of the Modern Mind" by Merlin Donald 1991 "So what did you expect
from a brain that is based on the Chimpanzee brain?

"Atheism, A Case Against God" by George Smith

"God is not Great; how religion poisons everything" by Christopher Hitchens, 2007

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So what if America is losing international status? So what if most American's couldn't find find the floor without a 6 pack or beer and gravity?

Who cares?The American century is over. Get used to being a loser American. The only thing you will be number one in is how fast you can fall into being a 3rd world nation.

London is already the most important economic center in the world. Canada has more resources. Japan makes better cars. Korea is the number one ship-builder. France has better cheese. And all of these countries have functioning education systems, universal health care, and a population that can tie it's shoes.

Seriously, on the world stage, who gives a shit? Even your own leadership is leaving your sinking ship of state like rats.

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As a sophomore undergraduate student in Physics, your homework in Probability
and Statistics class may include figuring out when the second coming would be
required, assuming that the bible was 100% true in the year zero. That is, when
would the bible be down to 50% true? The popular and professors' answer in
1965 was the year 500. The true answer: A friend of mine was born and raised in
Budapest, Hungary. As an adult, he came here and stayed. After 25 years, he
visited his home town of Budapest. He was unable to communicate with his high
school classmates because the Hungarian language had changed so much. The
correct answer is less than 25 years. The first gospel was not written down until
50 years after the alleged events and then in a different language. The people who
told the story were at about the same level of civilization as "wild Indians", I mean
Native Americans before Columbus got here. We have all played or seen played
the game called "Telephone" in which a story is passed down a line of re-tellers.
By the Sixth re-telling, the story has no resemblance to the original. The gospel
story had to have been re-told at least 6 times before it was mis-translated the first
time. [Note that whoever wrote it down the first time was free to write whatever
he wanted to. The storytellers were illiterate and unable to check his written text
by reading it. Besides that, he wrote in Greek rather than Aramaic.] Conclusion:
There is no truth anywhere in the bible, and there never was. There is no way to
know what "jesus" or "mohammed" or any other such character actually said or
did.

ALL of the jurisdictions that were formerly in the jurisdiction of religion have
been taken over by Science. There is no longer a need to debate the issue.
Religion is an unfortunate side effect of having evolved from a chimpanzee-like
animal in a very brief 6 or 7 million years. "God" will not save us from the
consequences of global warming or an asteroid impact or a tornado because there
is no such critter as "god.". Ethics and morality are instinctive, not derived from
religion. Female instinct has greater force in morality than male instinct because
the female is in command of the sexual encounter. Look up "Sociobiology". The
origin of the Universe is the subject of Cosmology which is part of astronomy
which is part of the science of physics.
Religion is a SCAM. ANY religion, there are 10,000 to choose from at any one
time. People keep inventing new religions [for the benefit of the "prophet," of
course] and forgetting other religions. ALL preachers, priests, imams, rabbis,
iatolas, etc. belong in jail for "grand theft, bunko type".

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Jill Hussein C. is part of the problem. She is in favor of science
as long as somebody else does it. Is it female chauvenism,
wanting a man to do the hard thinking? I think Jill disdains
science, not just Jill lacks talent for science. There are too many
women who use that excuse. If Jill wants to turn the situation
around, Jill should start with herself. Jill should go back to
college and get a degree in chemistry.

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Well what do you know, people are waking up. Bureaucracies and American education is without doubt just another boondoggle, working without mercy on budgets and quota's. A few decades of reducing the bar standard has got us where ? The problem is to understand the mechanics of economy and people manipulation. Now we feel the effects of the result, happy and carefree use of taxdollar days are no longer here. Money doesn't have that slush quality our hair brained bureaucrats can steal from. They are only going to get worse. We don't need the output, well maybe a few million more attorneys, that will solve the problem. We can just incarcerate everybody and keep supporting something fundamentally broken. America is suffering an age old tradition, gulagitis with bureaucratic predation, we all know where that leads, and what we experience now is nothing. I feel a long yearning for the past coming on, I will now go back into my therapy session and examine my navel. The pills will keep me quiet too.

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...you say that you "have little interest" in science, that you "cut your finger on (glassware) in your chem class"--so could you maybe tell the rest of us, HOW YOU GOT A JOB IN CLINICAL TESTING????

Thanks...

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... prepare the population for a realignment of mental capitol through education for new growth through innovation!

Bush43's no child left behind act was an obfuscation to obliterate any governmental funding that his predecessor enacted... or an end run at actual prosperity...
[also a dumb population will usually vote against their best interests]
by dumbing down the voting public would ensure Bush43's long term goals... which is to reduce working wages while at the same time supporting "his people" aka the rich, privileged and elite classes...
which are guaranteed executive level jobs that pay millions of dollars while the workers and shareholders get a fleecing!
which is so wrong on so many levels!

I'm hoping that you put as much capital into education that you can, for it will ensure prosperity through innovation technologies!

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..... that there are so few comments on this article. And disturbing, that most of those who bothered to comment are in the "religion as mental illness" camp, or the "science is the one true religion" camp.

This is not helpful, and it creates the perception that those of us who oppose the current administration's anti-science policies are as crazy as the perpetrators of those policies.

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