Re:China now the most prolific contributor to physical scien...
by spyckie2 on Thursday September 13, 2018 @01:22AM
(#17976261)
revisiting the thought, it may not have to deal with skillset as much as opportunity availability. There are more opportunities for American citizens that are equivalent to a PhD, whereas that may not be the case for non-Americans.
The fact is that scientific research has extremely poor returns on investment, with high specialization requirements and little opportunity for wealth, fame, or impact. Ground-breaking discovery in niche fields tends to favor one dimensional specialists over generalists, whereas in pretty much any other industry, being multi-talented can be extremely impactful.
In a wealthy country where most people are educated to be multi-talented, it's suboptimal for them to go into research because there are so many better opportunities. Whereas if you're a country with a billion people but doesn't have the luxury to educate people to be multi-faceted, if you have the talent to be a researcher, it's a great opportunity for you.
An illustration in RPG terms:
well educated, multi-faceted individual (can be from the US or China, doesn't matter)
communication: 70/100
networking: 70/100
leadership: 70/100
scientific discovery: 70/100
(with science aptitude)
communication: 70/100
networking: 70/100
leadership: 70/100
scientific discovery: 90/100
A not-as-well educated person
communication: 40/100
networking: 50/100
leadership: 30/100
scientific discovery: 40/100
with science aptitude:
communication: 40/100
networking: 50/100
leadership: 30/100
scientific discovery: 90/100
It's just a lot more common to find the latter in a country with 1.3 billion people, and the former in the richest country in the world.
For the latter example, being good at science opens up opportunities for them. But for the well educated, they probably have a lot better opportunities within their reach. And with the prevailing metric of a good researcher being novel discoveries or breakthroughs, they both have an equal chance to make contribution to the field, so there's no incentives for the well educated person (Chinese or American) to pursue research.