From: Patrick Wilken (patrickw@cs.monash.edu.au)
Date: Tue Dec 08 1998 - 15:51:15 MST
At 1:31 AM 8-12-98, mark@unicorn.com wrote:
>
> I saw a documentary a while ago which claimed that some huge
>percentage of the top scientists in America were born and raised in Europe,
>and emigrated there afterwards; I think it was something like 30% British,
>but don't remember the exact figures. I can't back this up with any other
>cites, but it makes sense to me.
Lots of good Australian scientists end up in the States too. And why not? I
can earn much more (if I'm good) as an academic in the States than I could
ever earn in Australia the UK. Moreover there is lots of money for
research.
General scientific research (esp. non-medical) in Australian universities
is continually being downgraded. The reasons are complex, but there are
some simple factors. Australia has a largely government funded educational
system - as funds get tighter its easy for governments to cut funding
(esp. when 25% of politicans are lawyers by training and virtually all --
along with the general population -- are scientifically illiterate). With
tighter funding cuts universities are trying to get other funding either
from industry or student fees (universities until recently have been free
to attend). However as most companies only have branch offices in Australia
they are reluctant to invest R&D dollars here. So universities are left
trying to get funding from students. So lots of investment in law and
medicine, computer science and engineering, but to a large extent goodbye
to science and arts. So the emphasis is now on being a good teacher and not
a good researcher.
ciao, patrick
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patrick Wilken http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~patrickw/
Editor: PSYCHE: An International Journal of Research on Consciousness
Secretary: The Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness
http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/ http://www.phil.vt.edu/ASSC/
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