"Socialist" Europe publishes 2 scientific papers for every 1 by America

[dumpster_baby]

Read 'em and weep: when it comes to publishing scientific papers in peer reviewed journals, The social democracies of Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland (yeah I know Swiss not may not really be a true social democracy, but it is pretty close), WIPE OUT the USA. Here are my calculated stats:
The above mentioned countries have a population of 53 million, the USA has a population 288M:

53 M generates 12.7% of all papers published--> 12.7/53== 0.24%/M
288 M gens 34% of all papers published--> 34/288== 0.12%/M

This URL has the study (PDF file):
http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/2004_King_scientific_impact_of_nations.pdf
Here is news story covering it:
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3203829

I get so sick of freepers, whenever you bring up how the European countries provide better for their citizens with universal healthcare, welfare, longterm unemployment, etc etc., the freepers always claim that America is "carrying" them. They explain how the more-pure laissez faire capitalist system of America is better at funding science. And so forth and so on. This study puts the lie to that. The social democracies with their high taxes and well funded universities do more research. Here in America it is getting to be so that research is aimed at the low lying commercially viable fruit.

Please check my conclusions. This could be a good tool in the fight to move America in the direction of the social democracies. Hey, maybe then we could even cure cancer someday....

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. I'd rather have socialist science than capitalist.. the capitalist

kind patents everything and prices helpful discoveries out of reach of average citizens. x(

[AP]

6. I dont' think that's quite the issue.

I don't have a problem with inventiveness being turned into the production of goods that people really want and need and which make life more interesting, rewarding and pleasurable.

The problem isn't so much the underlying commercial incentive. The problem is when you have some commercial interests that are so large and powerful that they exert themselves on the marketplace (and the university) in way that's meant to stifle any inventiveness that would threaten their hegemony.

For example, say, in the US, that the oil industry becomes so powerful that it decides to undermine research at state universities, and research subsidized by the federal government in renewable energy sources. Well, solar and wind power commercial interests trying to be inventive are still interested in commerce and making money. So it's not that they are capitalist that is the problem. The problem is that we have very powerful interests looking after short term profitability who have control over the government.

Socialism isn't the solution. The solution is to limit the power of money in politics in society. It's to level the playing field, and not to get rid of capitalism.

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. I'm not saying I want to get rid of capitalism, but as you said

we need to to rework things so that inventiveness is neither stifled, nor bought out by huge corporations who don't care tht the average Joe can't afford whatever it is they have cornered the market on.

And oh yeah, I know all about how big corps andlobbyists, like big oil, have just completely kept clean energy resources from being developed as they ought to be.

[LittleApple81]

2. A German physicist friend of mine worked here for over 20 years and

could not hack it any more. Now he is back in Germany and he says scientist don't even want to come here for conferences because of all the hassles. Most of the internationally sponsored research is moving slowly from the US to Europe.
The idiots here.....

[cprise]

3. Research in the EU has been criticised

...as being relatively disorganized. There are too few research projects that are coordinated on a continental scale (and there is duplication of effort) and so the EU doesn't shine like the US does when it comes to major breakthroughs.

That is changing now. The EU is creating a regular infrastructure for large mulitnational projects and to foster greater coordination among researchers. With all that talent available, they are determined to reap the benefits.

[LittleApple81]

4. IT IS CHANGING...they are becoming a lot better at coordinating

and using resources correctly...plus THEY SHARE.

[stavka]

5. They have many more mad scientists in Europe.

...and they are much shorter studies than American studies, they don't get paid by the word.

[midnight armadillo]

7. US is underfunded

The NSF budget has been underfunded for years. Plus, there is a new tendency to prevent overseas students from coming to the US for grad school. This is bad, bad, BAD!

It will only take 10 years or so for the US to permanently lose its technological leadership, once China and the EU really take off in terms of scientific innovation and research.

[jmowreader]

9. Lay blame on two people

Senator William Proxmire and Reagan's Budget Director David Stockman.

Proxmire instituted the "Golden Fleece of the Month" award for what he saw as the worst use of public money for a particular month. For quite a few years, the Golden Fleece was regularly awarded to a pure-science project. One famous example is the project to study the sex life of the screw-worm fly. Proxmire figured this was total bullshit, so he slammed it. The screw-worm fly sex project yielded the "insect growth regulator" class of insecticides, which work by destroying the sex lives of the insects they seek to eliminate. They're effective with far less environmental impact. (Proxmire finally apologized for bad-mouthing the fly-sex-life project.)

Apparently, another infamous award had to do with a study of animals' displays of stress in confined spaces, which the Navy and NASA were funding the shit out of because those two agencies rely on confined spaces for much of their work--submarines for the Navy and spacecraft for NASA. Proxmire's people declared it "a study of how monkeys clench their jaws."

As a result of Proxmire, pure science became somewhat of a second-class citizen to applied science. But I don't think Proxmire was purely evil; he was just misguided.

As for David Stockman...that fucker was evil right to the bottom of his coal-black heart which pumps not blood like yours or mine, but a thick black gelatinous fluid which collects in his brain and causes his Nazi-ass patterns of violent behavior. This guy needed to slash everything he could to pay for Reagan's tax cuts.

In Europe, they actually fund pure science because it's actually good for something! Horrors! In America, all we fund are programs that will generate immediate revenue. What's wrong with those insolent French?

[dumpster_baby]

10. Whatever happened to that piece of crap David Stockman?

Come the revolution, we need to hang his ass.....

[jmowreader]

11. He went to work for an investment bank

The bank is the Blackstone Group. They fund leveraged buyouts.