The real science gap?

Recommended reading:  "The Real Science Gap" in Miller-McCune magazine.   Polemic, a bit hyperbolic (Are postdocs the suckers in science's Ponzi scheme?), but it certainly gets at the problem: the U.S. creates far more young scientists than there are permanent jobs in science.

A few choice excerpts:

The system had a basic flaw that was revealed only gradually, as the expansion of academe slowed in the early 1970s: The system’s central feature — the “self-replicating” professor who produces a steady stream of new Ph.D.s as a byproduct of grant research — had no control over the job prospects for those graduates.

The Academies published another report on the science labor force in 2005, Bridges to Independence: Fostering the Independence of New Researchers in Biological Research... Bridges examined the ominous “crisis of expectation” among the thousands of frustrated young scientists unable to move into suitable career employment. The report was motivated by an alarming fact: The average age of scientists winning their first independent NIH grants... had risen to 42, well past the period widely considered a researcher’s most creative.

The obstacles facing today’s young scientists... are structural features of a system that evolved over a period of 60 years and now meets the needs of major interest groups within the existing structure of law and regulation. Essentially, this system provides a continuing supply of exceptionally skilled labor at artificially low prices, permitting the federal government to finance research at low cost.

"I have noticed that you failed to come into the lab on several weekends"

This is quite a memo.  (Chemistry Blog, via Boing Boing.)

I'll say it again:  one of my chief motivations to succeed in science is righteous indignation.

High Tech Gays v. DISCO

While reading closing arguments in the federal case regarding Prop. 8, I came across a discussion by the defendents' attorney of "the High Tech Gays case".  Say what?

Google... The full case name is "High Tech Gays v. Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office".  You heard me right: "High Tech Gays v. DISCO." The case went to US District Court in 1987, which ruled homosexuals should have the same security clearance process as others. It was overturned in 1990 by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1990, and thankfully made irrelevant in 1995 by Executive Order of President Clinton, who barred the Federal government from denying security clearances on the basis of sexual orientation.

(Of course this is serious shit -- the gay bans on federal employees, and then on security clearances, ruined many people's lives.)

That said, "High Tech Gays v. DISCO" is the best-named court case ever, overtaking my previous favorite, Loving v. Virginia.

Softball-playing professors

I'm trying to bring myself to care about the sexual orientation, perceived or real, of SCOTUS nominee Elena Kagan.  The kerfuffle does illustrate the barriers placed before powerful women -- that we are allowed to accomplish things only if we simultaneously meet standards of femininity set by male colleagues.  And that regardless of their orientation, butch women (and nelly men) are not taken very seriously by our culture.

But what I really want to talk about is softball.  The Wall Street Journal published a front-page photo of Elena Kagan playing... softball.  Shock!  For a league at the University of Chicago Law School, while a professor. Batting against the pitcher, Dean of Students Richard Badger.  Presumably getting to know the faculty and students better, while enjoying a sport (sixteen inch softball) unique to Chicago.

Really, that's the smear campaign?

Also:  major league batters critique Kagan's batting stance.