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Matthew Yglesias sticks up for the study of reptiles. Good timing: New Scientist has this great, quick post on how the snake may have gotten his fangs:
[Jon Mitchell of the University of Chicago] and his colleagues discovered 26 Uatchitodon [a late-Triassic reptile] teeth in North Carolina. Their age places them between the other two sets, and lining up all the teeth shows how grooves that initially formed at the surface gradually lengthened and deepened until they became enclosed canals (Naturwissenschaften, DOI: 10.1007/s00114-010-0729-0).
Snake fangs probably evolved independently of Uatchitodon, says Mitchell, but the sequence of events was most likely similar. Bryan Grieg Fry from the University of Melbourne, Australia, is convinced this is the case, and says the fossil series is “fantastic”.
Are you really going to get youngsters interested in natural-science education by downgrading studies of real-life monsters and folding them into discussions of birds? I tried as hard as I could in school not to learn about natural science. It was a clear error. More reptiles, on display in more places accessible to New York City public-school students, may not convince others to avoid my sorry course, but fewer reptile displays can’t possibly help.
And we’re in a national science crisis, according to the Navy. A couple of weeks ago, I covered the Office of Naval Research’s Science and Technology conference. From Undersecretary Bob work to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead on down, a sub-theme of the gathering was palpable anxiety that American youths are opting out of STEM (“science, technology, engineering and mathematics”) education. My friends who study education trends can correct me if that’s actually wrong, but it has the leading thinkers of a cerebral and science-based service rather concerned. Fewer engineers mean a less-dynamic navy.
To be sure, it’s ugly and cynical to say we need to emphasize science education lest Our Military Strength Be Imperiled, but what else works in American education discourse? If I remember my American History of Science course* correctly — rest in peace, Professor Pauly — the high-water mark for public spending on science research was the early Cold War, precisely because of the Soviet threat. One academic beneficiary: the field of oceanography, thanks to the Navy’s obvious need for it. Bring on our lizards.
* Full disclosure: I failed this class the first time I took it. But I think I got a B when I took the make-up.
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Fewer engineering students means fewer domestic terrorists (I can say this because I failed Stats enough times that I know how to read a correlation). We must further weaken the technical skills of our population, that is the security-conscious choice.
Seriously though, if ten percent of our population is going to be unemployed forever, I’d prefer them to be poets.
It is as if we can justify spending money on ANYTHING anymore only if it has a payoff for our MIC.
Speaking of the reptilian brain, what do you think of this?
I was watching “Punkin Chunkin” on the Discovery Channel with my son. About a 1/2 hour into it he said “This is all about physics” and promptly lost interest.
There’s another aspect to this. Military and corporate recruiters come around for the students emphasizing STEM (“science, technology, engineering and mathematics”) education by at least high school. I sure didn’t like being a science fair judge and seeing the recruiters accessing the 16 year olds but their parents didn’t say anything or object so what was I supposed to do? By community college/college/university the tech track wants students to exclude humanities studies and “non-core” studies. One older friend in an engineering speciality during the 1970s caught all kinds of grief for wanting to add sociological studies to fulfil electives. He indicated he wanted a balanced education and somehow got away with bucking the system at the time. The whole notion of teaching STEM without relation to real-life applications and ethical decision making has to be looked at by parents and educators and the curriculum should have it from day one IMHO. Otherwise, this is how society is lead by the nose.
Well, we may be discouraging science and math, but there is no way in hell we want more artists, writers or dancers, or any of those other arts that may encourage creative thinking.
Maybe we can just get all our youth interested in plumbing. No way we can outsource sewage. Or can we?
Spencer,
I am a professor of applied statistics. My son is a mechanical engineer. I can tell you for a fact that most of the applicants to our graduate programs in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Engineering and Biology are foreign students.
When I was a grad student we had a healthy admixture of foreign students. Now, we have a few American students leavening a large collection of foreign students.
A native-born citizen in the STEM fields is going to a very hot commodity in the very near future.
Well no wonder you like Ren and Stimpy
oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that.
– Homer J. Simpson
We are already parting out and dumbing down nursing. When it’s comes to such practices to manipulate the work force in the name of profits, our nation is unmatched in its ingenuity.
Every child’s natural curiosity must be nurtured if the study of science is to endure. Children must also be exposed to nature, not parked in front of TV, video games or computer. Many children who are permitted to follow their own curiosity, with a mentor to assist them in pursuing answers to their questions about why and how things are and function, will naturally want to continue with scientific studies, and not be intimidated by science courses.
Regimentation and rote learning in schools, and discouragement of the pursuit of individual interests, kills the innate qualities necessary for the study of scientific subjects by quashing curiosity. Independent inquiry is killed by US education.
Lack of job prospects and loan debt are not helpful in attracting anyone to major in science in college, even if their interest in science wasn’t deflated in grade school.
I guess Wall Street will just have to bring H1b quants over from India to work out their moral hazard equations.
Why is this the only FDL blog that recognizes my time zone?
As one off-shoring planner for IBM and AT&T informed me in 2004, the jobs are being moved from India to Vietnam now as India is getting a little more expensive. Hence Bill Gates’ appearance in Vietnam in 2006 (“Bill Gates Gets Rock Star Welcome in Vietnam,” April 23, 2006 ).
So if the kids are opting out of STEM what are they opting to go into? Or is neoliberated college just too expensive? Is the neoliberated education system that depends on private science grants steering them in another direction? Perhaps technical certifications (Microsoft, Novell, Oracle) where they can enter the workforce as self-paid trained labor? H1b visas are doled out because fortune 500 companies can get foreign workers at 1/2 of what Americans are paid, it’s not really a lack of qualified Americans. Education is a bubble/scam that’s been in the making for more than a decade. It’s no surprise at all. Our leaders have sold our society to the highest bidder, they are eating our seed corn to ensure their next election or the post congressional office gravy train.
Mine, in the 80s, required a fair number of humanities classes. I suspect that the engineering/science/tech students got more humanities than the humanities got science/math classes. And they certainly didn’t do anything to discourage people from taking more than were required. (At the time, a BS degree needed something like 196 quarter units, and a BA 180.)
Oh yeah: my family had box turtles as pets. About as smart as rats, and a lot longer-lived, provided you have the right living conditions (they need space and places to dig).
shekissesfrogs and we … well, it sounds like we benefited from a Golden Age of education. I know I did. I had great teachers who cared and it was about preparing the next generation of civil society. It was special and important.
This is immaterial to the subject and in fact if a person is actually interested in the family classifications of animals it’s likely to make the subject more interesting, not less. A lizard will never be a bird, even if they are classified as a closer relative.
For instance, have you ever wondered why birds have scaly legs like a lizard?
And another example, similar but independent evolution or convergent evolution where the independent species look very similar but come from different species.. see Spencer.. not so boring is it? .
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanus/moloch.html – the Austrailan Horny Devil, (Moloch Horridus) compared with the American Southwest Horned Toad.
Bring on the lizards! I love ‘em!
Yeah, I think so. Our leaders have no vision or they are more cynical than we are – being in a position to do something about it and yet they don’t -they just cash out.
Unlike the US, though — Cuba puts a very high value on educatiing it’s citizens. They provide Medical doctors to all of Latin America. For the free education they are required to do charity work for 4 years. It’s probably time to leave this sinking ship, or at least steer our progeny to move to a country that is ascending to greatness, not in the process of collapse.
So finally they’re abolishing Reptilia? It’s long overdue. The Natural History Museum’s doing the right thing, Reptilia is an incoherent group.
Why not? Hey, I’m in favor of subsuming Aves into Dinosauria. That way, the monsters didn’t go extinct.
stewartm
Maybe that engineering brain drain has been redirected into finance and business majors. Our B-school at UTK is huge. I don’t have the stats re: %increase in business majors but I have read that Wall Street has been getting the “best and the brightest” out of universities for years. Ironic, huh?
From personal experience, my nephews (both mechanical engineers) have few employment prospects in the private sector. Most manufacturing companies have been laying off engineering personnel and hiring them on, temporary, contractual basis.
That reminds me:
http://thecuckingstool.blogspot.com/2010/11/our-unreal-education-discourse.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonie-haimson/the-most-dangerous-man-in_b_641832.html
http://thecuckingstool.blogspot.com/2010/11/schools-failing-yes-if-failing-means.html
Yeah. When companies are abusing H1B visas to import highly-educated people from places (such as Karnataka and Kerala states in India) with free universal education up to and including college, and these highly-educated people don’t have $200,000 in student loans that MUST be paid off or else (see, bankruptcy doesn’t make student loans go away), then it’s no wonder nobody wants to go into science or engineering.
Not if native-born Americans are competing with H1B visa foreigners. My mathematician son was disqualified from several jobs because of his citizenship. Businesses are hiring foreign labor to reduce costs by pretending there are no citizens qualified for these positions.
I look forward to the day this changes, but I doubt it since Bill Gates himself routinely lobbys congress to increase visa quotas to drive wages down for this sector.