Why has critique run out of steam? Well, I guess it hasn’t. It is steamier now than it has ever been, just outside the academy, though.

Is there any study or data on China snapping up American scientists?

I honestly think she’s gaslighting.

I believe US is no longer wealthy enough to sustain basic science. Its elite schools will need to focus on generating profit for the top dogs in two ways: 1. Only training profit-generating workers, 2. Turning into for-profit corporations to put more money into the pockets of the top dogs.

I also find that this shock that we are all experiencing in higher ed is just an after-effect of the economic realities of this country — it really is a developing country where the top 1% skews the GDP per capita and masks the fairly serious poverty of the rest.

If this dynamic is correct, then a nation in the process impoverishment will lose science. Decline, I find, is a good word. And I think that’s what’s happening in the US. It is turning towards a kind of science that befits a poor nation — more engineering and practice than science.

And now it’s China’s turn because you start doing science proper once you become an affluent nation. This was a great opening vignette in James Delbourgo’s essay on teaching global history of science.

history.rutgers.edu/images/docum...