You’ve gotta be one of the biggest, most BITTER, Leftist crybabies I’ve come across in a long while. Quit whining about teen pregnancies ,sexually transmitted diseases, climate change, foreign applicants for U.S. Ph.D. positions, and all the other things you obviously know little about.
You’re a physicist; get over yourself, and go do something important.
You flatter me; there are much bigger, more bitter, and leftier cybabies around, although I do try. Thanks for your nuanced comments though. I'll take them to heart, consider them deeply, and see what I can learn about myself from them.
OK. All done.
Presumably, one should not feed the trolls, but a naive person might assume that a physics professor at a PhD-granting institution might actually know a bit more about "foreign applicants for U.S. Ph.D. positions" than Mr. "Cartoon Nazi".
Dunno.
Maybe Mark has escaped sitting on the Graduate Admissions Committee in his Department. I've sat on the one in mine, with only a couple of years off for good behaviour, for the past 15 years (first at Princeton, later at UT). And I've discussed the matter with my counterparts at other US Universities.
The dropoff is real. And pretty dramatic.
The dropoff is not only real, it's coming at a time when the science establishment in this country is complaining, vociferously, about our internal inability to generate enough students interested in science. Organizations like the National Science Teacher's Association are doing what they can to push teachers at the secondary and primary levels to do what they can to help make kids interested in science with the hope that they'll sustain that interest into a career. From where I sit it does indeed seem like we're heading for a problem, and it'll start hurting in the next ten or so years when we find that we don't have the people for the science positions we need to fill.
It always amazed me that this administration and the droids running homeland defense somehow equated visiting scholars, those on J-1 visas, with the 9/11 crowd. That makes no sense at that level, and being more open on at least that level wouldn't have cut into the post doc flow into this country. But hey, why should this administration feel compelled to make sense?
As for me, I'm glad to see a physicist who talks about something other than physics. Not that I don't like physics, but it's always interesting to see what reasonably well-educated individuals have to say about the world around them vice their only being able to talk about what they're specialized in. Mr. Rezyka clearly doesn't appreciate an educated, well-rounded perspective or good manners.
I agree with everything you write, Mark, but an interesting angle (which I never see discussed, at least not quantitatively) is that of the students themselves. I am wondering if they have sufficient number of good alternatives. It would be sad if this immigration policy prevents lots of talented people from having good education. If it doesn't (which probably is unlikely), diversification and competition for resources (i.e. the students) is never a bad thing...
best,
Moshe
Thanks for the kind comments James.
Moshe, I certainly agree with you that the more high-quality alternatives students have, irregardless of the country, is a good thing. My problem is not with other countries doing better and trying hard to attract the best students - I say, bring on the competition, it'll help us all. My problem is that the U.S. is shooting itself in the foot and driving students away rather than trying to attract them. We should be doing our best, moving forward, providing resources and being innovative in our attempts to be attractive to the best students, not imposing regressive and short-sighted restrictions on them.
BTW, PI has been a lot of fun. I leave tomorrow.
Agreed of course, the impact on US science and education is clear (hopefully also temporary). I am just wondering if you or others have information about the fate of these students- do they all find good alternatives (e.g in beautiful though rainy places on the pacific coast), or some of them are just out of luck? I guess this more global damage may be harder to quantify.
Anyhow, glad you had fun at PI, I intend to do the same next week.
Moshe
To Mark, Jacques, and James
Boys,
That’s “Dr. Cartoon Nazi” to you; as I have a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from McGill University in Montreal, and have authored a number of books on the subject including “Time Inside The Schwarzschild Radius” and “The Time Illusion” with Julian Barbour.
Despite your claims that educated people have things of value to say outside their field of expertise, I maintain that that seems to be the exception to the rule. Why else are 99% of the people in academia Kool-Aid drinking lemmings of the Left? Foreign applications, indeed ALL applications, for Ph.D. positions are down all over the world, so why are you making a big deal because they’re down here, and then blaming it all on George Bush? Judging from this blog, you love blaming Bush for everything, including nonsensical abstracts like teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. That does not strike me as fair, intellectually honest or enlightened by your “grand” education.
Further on the subject of intellectual snobbery I offer this insightful observation by fellow physicist David Deutsch:
"(President) Mr. Bush, speaking to an audience of children, addressed the question that everyone has asked: "Why would somebody hate so badly"? And he replied: "my answer is, there's evil in the world. But we can overcome evil. We're good." This is the simple truth — a truth on which all our futures depend — yet the moment Mr. Bush uttered it, all the intellectuals in the Western world winced. Even those who, like myself, agreed with the proposition, winced, vicariously, because we recognized the intensity of the taboo that was being broken.".
Full article here:
http://www.edge.org/documents/
wh...ow_deutsch.html
"Foreign applications, indeed ALL applications, for Ph.D. positions are down all over the world..."
Your source for this gem?
Since the dropoff in foreign applications at US institutions have not been matched be a corresponding precipitous dropoff in domestic applications, something awfully funny must be happening if what you say is true.
Oh, and if I may be so bold, who was your supervisor at McGill?
I had, and still have, a lot of friends in that Department.
God, not very trusting are you Jacques?
Supervising Mentor was Dr. Diane Pauliss
Source for my “gem”:
The McGill Statistical Consulting Service Standard
March 2005 Volume 16-3 Overview Page 7
Mark,
"Why else are 99% of the people in academia Kool-Aid drinking lemmings of the Left? Foreign applications, indeed ALL applications, for Ph.D. positions are down all over the world, so why are you making a big deal because they’re down here, and then blaming it all on George Bush?"
99%? Please, I mean really, instead of regaling us with your academic advisor give me a reference that supports that silly number. Of course we'd have to agree on what a Kool-Aid drinking lemming of the left would be; based on all indications for you that might include Newt Gringrich. Now I've also wondered why the vast majority of financial people in this country are Republican --- but then wondering about who's a lemming or a Republican and what jobs they may have really doesn't have much point to the discussion at hand.
Twist and turn, you do it so well ---the lack of foreign students in the U.S. is a problem because unlike most other countries with a PhD deficit we were making up for ours by stealing those from other countries. Alas, a sad but true fact, which allowed us to sustain our intellectual capital at a reasonable level at the cost of other countries. I believe I alluded to the fact that in this country we are not producing the number of students in the sciences that we need to, which was why the brain drain to here was such a great thing for this country, as it historically has been. When shortsighted, draconian, and otherwise unimaginative security measures results in turning off a natural resource to this country, i.e. brain power, I think we should complain. If it were oil that we were talking about we'd be sending in the Marines, with the concommittant expense and pain tied to that. There are ways to vet people coming into this country that are far more reasonable than what we now have. I personally doubt that this is Bush's specific fault, but it's surely a result of policies from those who are accountable to him. Not recognizing and correcting for the problem that these policies will cause in the long term indeed puts this country in a precarious situation in the not too distant future and something needs to be done about it.
As for:
"This is the simple truth — a truth on which all our futures depend — yet the moment Mr. Bush uttered it, all the intellectuals in the Western world winced. Even those who, like myself, agreed with the proposition, winced, vicariously, because we recognized the intensity of the taboo that was being broken."
Well, I mean one should wince because it's so indicative of a simplistic mindset (which I suppose does incline itself to rendering simple truths --- odd how that works.) Categorizing countries as a part of an axis of evil sells well, and plays to emotions wonderfully, but then doing something about them that entails something a bit more nuanced, i.e. which isn't a simple solution to an ostensibly simple problem, is just so hard for this administration. Frankly it IS hard to do, as it historically has been for all administrations. But this one loves to get up there with simplistic slogans to make people think they're doing something about it through demagogery, and then goes after the simplest case and wastes billions of dollars and thousands of lives, all of which leaves a future potential for this country in that part of the world which is in no way guaranteed to be for the better and is just as likely to be for the worse. Yes, it may well be the simple truth, but only simple people kid themselves into believing that simple expressions of simple truth come close to defining the problem and its rarely simple solution.
James,
Quoting from your comment at my blog: “Now why in the name of God did I waste my time writing this? Oh well ... “. I know exactly how you felt. I myself can’t believe I’m getting pulled into this probably futile debate, but here goes anyway;
On the 99%… you got me! No science here. Purely anecdotal, I was guessing at a number based solely on my personal experience. I’m sure the REAL STATISTICAL number of Leftist lemmings in academia is far less… perhaps closer to 85%? I don’t know, you tell me.
On the issue of simple truths, I could not disagree with you more. As a scientist, you more than anyone, should realize that ALL truths are simple and ultimately self evident, once understood. Something is either right or wrong, there is no gray here.
You’ve raised so many points I don’t know what else to say other than; You can call me simple minded all you want, but that in of itself does not make me wrong and you right.
Also, I recommend you read the full article I linked to. David Deutsch is in my opinion the greatest Physicist alive today, and I think his insights on our ideological divide are meaningful to this debate.
Oh, and on this brain drain thing. I see no need for alarm. Again anecdotally speaking, how many of our Ph.Ds do you see packing for distant lands as opposed to foreign Ph.Ds coming here to work?
Mark,
You really don't track very well what you have to say, do you?
You see Mark, let me tell you a thing about physics --- physics deals with the quantifiable, the measurable, and to make your mark in physics you have to get a LOT of people to agree with you, you all have to see it the same way. Now of course this is all relative to how well everyone can actually "see", but really what it comes down to is you all share a common reality and an understanding of that reality. Now you, for God knows what reason, seem to think that this fundamentally simple way of seeing the world, of cutting through things with Ockham's razor, applies to life in general. Wrong answer, no, ain't that way, sorry --- I'd like for it to be, but alas, it never is. There's your problem, you want the world around you to pan out like a physics problem, but you see it can't. You're a man chasing your tail in a world covered in grease.
Per your own words, simple minded you may be, but this:
"You’ve raised so many points I don’t know what else to say other than; You can call me simple minded all you want, but that in of itself does not make me wrong and you right."
speaks to an underlying profundity the depths of which only a true physicist would be able to divine. Not one who does the kind of physics you seem to do, with black holes and all, no, more on the order of some sort of quantum thing.
To be honest, and I will admit it's a problem of mine, but anyone who divines great truths, or much of anything great from G.W. Bush has little to say or write to impress me with. G.W. Bush is a president who's president because of democrats not having their act together with anything better, an electoral system that was poorly suited to do its job in a clinch, and the good graces of the Supreme Court. His second term shares the first problem of the first term, but far more importantly he's there because of nearly 3,000 murdered people at the WTC. Frankly there's nothing there for me to find greatness in, and little positive for me to say for him being where he is at all.
Now given what started this whole thing it's cute how you come back to it with this:
"I see no need for alarm. Again anecdotally speaking, how many of our Ph.Ds do you see packing for distant lands as opposed to foreign Ph.Ds coming here to work?"
Geeezzzzz ... here's the point Mark, how can they pack to leave if they're not here opening their bags begin with? And if they're going to places like China (yes, indeed, China's in the play these days), Australia, Canada, and God knows wherever else that welcomes and encourages their presence, why should they put up with being treated as potential criminals for the simple reason of wanting to come here to study or work? You don't see a probelm, fine, though somehow you seem to be blowing against the prevailing wind that says there is. Maybe they're wrong and you're right, and G.W. will indeed be shown by history to be the great person you think he is --- I wouldn't bet on it, but who knows?
"God, not very trusting are you Jacques?"
On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.
"Supervising Mentor was Dr. Diane Pauliss"
Alas, never heard of her (and neither has Google, the Arxiv's, nor Science Citation Index).
"Source for my “gem”:
The McGill Statistical Consulting Service Standard
March 2005 Volume 16-3 Overview Page 7"
I know about the McGill Statistical Consulting Service.
Didn't know they had a periodical publication. I'll have to email Dave Wolfson for a copy.
James
First
“You really don't track very well what you have to say, do you?”
What the does that mean in English?
Second
“In physics you have to get a LOT of people to agree with you, you all have to see it the same way.”
Wrong! A lot of people agreed the world was flat and shared that common reality. A lot of people agreed that aether pervaded all of space. A lot of people believed all sorts of nonsense mostly because everyone else believed it. In fact, if history is our guide, then a good part what we believe today is wrong too. It always took a visionary, someone who could look beyond the group-think, to move science forward. Sorry James, but only a lemming would ever say something like that.
Third
“Now you, for God knows what reason, seem to think that this fundamentally simple way of seeing the world, of cutting through things with Ockham's razor, applies to life in general”
No I do not. Do not put words in my mouth. This has nothing to do with Ockham's razor. I said that SOME things are either right or wrong, true or false, with no gray in between. If you do not believe that then you can never take a meaningful stand on anything, not in physics but in “life in general”.
Forth
“…speaks to an underlying profundity the depths of which only a true physicist would be able to divine. Not one who does the kind of physics you seem to do, with black holes and all, no, more on the order of some sort of quantum thing.”
Is this sarcasm? I have no idea what you’re trying to say here.
Fifth
“…anyone who divines great truths, or much of anything great from G.W. Bush has little to say or write to impress me with.”.
This statement shows incredible closed-mindedness and arrogance on your part. So you have absolutely nothing to learn from anyone who’s politics are different from yours? Brilliantly snobbish and lemming like.
Sixth
“…how can they pack to leave if they're not here opening their bags [to] begin with?”
Again forgive me, but what does this mean? Who’s not here opening their bags; our guys or the foreigners? It seems to make no sense either way. Perhaps you could explain.
Finally,
And perhaps most importantly. I have no interest in converting you or anyone here to my political point of view. I originally posted here to point out that Mark seemed to be blaming Bush and this administration for absolutely every bloody thing he felt is, ever was, and ever will be wrong with this country. I mean it’s one thing to say you don’t like, say, the war or the Patriot Act, but when you start in on stuff like teen pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, climate change and the like, always pointing your finger in the same direction, you start to sound like a paranoid partisan lunatic. That’s my opinion anyway. That’s why I left a comment. That’s why I called him a Leftist crybaby, and that’s why I’m sticking to it!
Well Mark Rezyka; just a point of clarification. I'm not blaming Bush for teen pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases or climate change, as you've now stated twice. These all have causes and Bush is to blame for none of them.
However, as a society we do generally agree that we'd like to decrease the occurrences of the first two, and most scientists in the world agree that the third is happening and we'd like to stop that also. What I'm blaming Bush for is hampering progress in achieving any of these things by twisting, misusing and censoring scientific data that show how to proceed. To provide just one example, research clearly demonstrates that an abstinence only approach does not work anywhere near as well as good sex education and access to condoms and other birth control methods in reducing teen pregnancies. However, the Bush administration refuses to accept this and has repeatedly lied and twisted the facts about this to appease their right wing supporters.
Although I am not a fan of Bush's politics, in principle my disgust at this abuse of science shouldn't be a partisan issue. It should be a rational versus irrational issue. If a Democratic president was to do the same, as Clinton did (to a much lesser extent than Bush) about missile defence, I'd be a crybaby about that as well (in fact I was, I just didn't have a blog back then)
Mark,
You see, you're doing it again, amazing, but here we get to see you do it with the evidence at hand. Regarding physics, you parsed what I had to say, and then lectured me on a point I already made, to wit:
"You see Mark, let me tell you a thing about physics --- physics deals with the quantifiable, the measurable, and to make your mark in physics you have to get a LOT of people to agree with you, you all have to see it the same way. Now of course this is all relative to how well everyone can actually "see", but really what it comes down to is you all share a common reality and an understanding of that reality. "
Mark, if everyone thinks the world is flat, and there's a great ether through which light travels, that's what they all think they see. At the time everyone is in agreement, until someone sees differently and can support what they see. You left out the last sentence to the quote so, I can only assume, that you could misdirect things (it's a great tactic used by rant-inclined Republicans, at whose feet I'm sure you've supplicated) into a facile rant about how what we see isn't really what is there --- gee, thanks, and how that supports lemming pedigree (assuming you hadn't been making yourself look silly by misquoting me) escapes me.
With regard to G.W. --- close minded? Come on, really, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, flies like a duck, and lays eggs that yield little ducklings, is it being close minded for me to say that there's no way this is an ostritch? My point is that actions clearly reflect Bush's pedigree as far as I'm concerned, and rather this being a reflection of close-mindedness it is instead a logical conclusion based on a preponderence of evidence. That someone else could come to a vastly different conclusion is fine with me, I mean this isn't physics after all, but what I simply don't see is any possible thing they could share with me that would make me see Bush, et al., any differently. So Mark, it's not me being a lemming (much less a Kool-Aid drinking lemming), that would in fact be reflected by my taking up after you and your exquisite view of reality and how to deal with it; nay, I blaze my own trail!
You're right on the point regarding PhDs --- dear me, I misread something! Indeed our PhDs are leaving for distant lands, though not so much in physics (maybe that'll happen later). When the best molecular biologists, medical scientists, and anyone else involved in stem cell research figures that it's better to go to other climes to do their work, then they indeed are packing their bags. But as to your substantive point, it's totally fallacious (gee, what a surprise.) What does it matter that there are more trying to come here than there are Americans trying to go there? The fact is that there are FAR fewer of them trying to come here and there were never very many of us trying to go there (well, not in the last 50 years anyway.) Again to remind you, the issue was that we have fewer of them trying to get here or for those trying being allowed to get here in a timely enough fashion for them to be able to realistically attend to their work. What this has to do with how many Americans are trying to go somewhere else escapes me, especially when the point's already been made that we have far fewer Americans trying to make a career in science as it is so on the basis of that I guess we should be thanking our lucky stars that for now, at least in the non-stem cell focused sciences, our people are basically staying here --- but then how long should it be before that's not the case in other disciplines as well?
James and Mark T,
I'm rather surprised y'all would expend the effort to respond to someone who has no compunction at using bald-faced lies to advance his "argument."
As the professional trolls would say,
YHBT. HAND.
Jacques,
Damn, violated prime directive #6 for safe blogging: Don't feed the troll!
I got too caught up in this to see your catch; shame on me. Anyway, thanks for the needed re-direct.
He does have an interesting blog himself, though, which I don't expect to ever re-visit.
Some links here discussing the issue
http://www.enquirer.com/
editions...ns_tighten.html
http://www.mcw.edu/display/route....asp?
DocID=5580
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage
.taf?file=/nature/journal
/v427/n6971/full/427190a_fs.html
The situation is particularly difficult for Phd students working in 'sensitive' areas like biomedical research, biochemistry, virology, electrical, nuclear and chemical engineering etc. Even if you can get a position and a visa your access to chemicals, materials, labs, lab equipment, technology can be severely limited or curtailed. People in these areas are going to be made to feel like criminals. So whats the point if you can go elsewhere? Also, if you return to your home country for some reason, perhaps a family emergency or to attend a funeral or something of that nature you probably won't be able to get back into the US. I can just see someone of Middle-Eastern origin trying to get back into the US to continue their work on virology, vaccines or chemical engineering!
As a result people are simply going elsewhere, like Europe, Canada or Austrailia. It is true that there are fewer students wanting to study science, even to degree level, at least in the west. I mentioned before that a lot of science departments here in the UK have closed due to lack of applicants. Younger Americans have also wised up to the fact that science is no longer seems to be a viable middle-class career path and avoid it. It is an awful lot of hard work for a long time for potentially little reward. And those that do chose to pursue science or engineering can get a better hassle- free time in other countries so they can simply avoid the US.
My brother works in Asia and China and he knows of people who have had a hard time just visiting the US for conferences or business meetings, esp if you look a bit 'North Korean' say. People don't need crap like this and in the end can simply take their talent, knowledge and business elsewhere. Asians are still pursuing science and engineering degrees and Phds vigorously so the US can expect to lose the scientific and technological edge.
As someone who was in the US on a J-1 visa 10 years ago I do find the current situation depressing.
Commenting by HaloScan
