In response to this NYT article on how the U. S. may be losing its edge in science and engineering, Glenn Reynold has a lengthy (for him) post on the reasons for same which include pay and working conditions. At the end of his post he notes:
One of my friends noted that engineers tend to do their best work — and their happiest — in a “skunk works” kind of setting where there’s a close connection between what they do and the actual making of stuff, with feedback both ways.
That’s a point I’ve made here from time to time and I don’t think it gets enough attention. Engineering follows production. As production moves away from the United States to China, Thailand, or wherever, engineering inevitably will, too, and science will follow.
I think there’s also another reason. The best engineers want to understand how things work and solve problems. In the U. S. today engineering is increasingly dedicated to making intellectual property i.e. something that’s legally protected rather than to solving problems per se. That’s not how you get good engineering, it’s not nearly as rewarding in the intrinsic way that engineering should be rewarding, and, in the absence of extrinsic rewards (like pay and working conditions), people are discouraged from following the field.
We’ll continue to have good science and engineering here but I think it will increasingly be in the areas that we’re subsidizing and protecting the most zealously and right now that’s biomedical.
