From: yamauchi@ces.cwru.edu (Brian Yamauchi)
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
Subject: Supply-Side vs. Demand-Side Job Economics (Re: Bleak news from the...)
Date: 21 Nov 92 00:49:10
Organization: Case Western Reserve University
Distribution: world
	<1992Nov20.222750.25504@tc.cornell.edu>
	<1992Nov21.002534.5154@ucsu.Colorado.EDU>
NNTP-Posting-Host: yuggoth.ces.cwru.edu
In-reply-to: andersmh@ucsu.Colorado.EDU's message of Sat, 21 Nov 1992 00:25:34 GMT

In article <1992Nov21.002534.5154@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> andersmh@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (ANDERSON  MIKE HOWARD) writes:
>If we're not willing to limit the supply of PHDs then we are not willing
>to solve the problem of employment opportunity.  We can't expect the
>taxpayer to fork out the $$ for all to become scientists that want
>to.  In other words, the demand side of the equation is largly determined
>by the tax resources and that has been pushed to the limit.

The problem with this is that it assumes that scientists are a net
drain on the economy rather than a net benefit.  The amount of money
spent on scientific research is a tiny portion of the federal budget,
but in a time of tight money legislators will cut funding if they feel
it is being wasted.  On the other hand, if they can be convinced that
scientific research is the key to long-term economic prosperity, they
could increase funding substantially while barely making a ripple in
the overall budget picture.

Of course, a real solution has to go beyond the government to
encourage the private sector to spend more on long-range research and
exploratory development.  Bush's capital gains tax would have helped,
but at least we're going to get Clinton's R&D tax credit.  In the long
run, though, I think market pressures will be the driving force that
forces American companies to think long-term -- or die.  Perhaps when
everyone is riding around in autonomous BMWs with Toyota GPS
navigation systems and Sony DAT decks, the American companies will
wake up...

One problem is that -- outside of biology and computer science (and,
of course, the engineering fields) -- many scientists seem to have
difficulty visualizing the long-range technological applications of
their work.  I don't believe that scientists should be development
engineers, but I think at least some of them need to be technological
visionaries who can see how scientific progress can shape the future.

For example: a recent issue of Science described work being conducted
to create antihydrogen by trapping positrons and antiprotons and
forcing them to join into atoms.  This article described many of the
details of the experimental setup, but on the question of "why do
this?", the only answer was a scientist who said, "We don't expect any
surprises.  This is just going to be a confirmation of the current
models."  Now, that's really something to inspire taxpayer enthusiasm.

At the same time, there was _nothing_ in the article about potential
applications of antimatter.  Robert Forward (formerly at Hughes
Research Labs) conducted a number of DoD-funded studies of antimatter
applications -- everything from near-term applications to medical
diagnosis to long-term applications to interplanetary (and even
interstellar) travel.  None of this was even mentioned in the Science
article.  Granted, Science is a magazine for scientists and not
technologists, but one would have expected at least a passing
reference...

Now, particle physicists may feel that it's a bit flaky to go around
talking about interplanetary spacecraft -- but I'd bet that most
taxpayers think it's even flakier to spend billions of dollars to
accelerate invisible particles to near the speed of light, then smash
them together -- all just to see whether a set of equations happens to
be right or not.

The wheels are already in motion -- both Congress and the NSF have
started talking about making scientific research more "relevant" to
the economy in terms of "technology transfer" and similar issues.  In
my opinion, the key to whether this will be good or bad for future
funding will depend on whether scientists are able to clearly
articulate long-range visions of what scientific research and
technological progress can do for the country.
--
_______________________________________________________________________________

Brian Yamauchi			Case Western Reserve University
yamauchi@alpha.ces.cwru.edu	Department of Computer Engineering and Science
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