Whenever a new scientific discovery or tool is being created it is, in my experience in reading, being done in a first world country. The US, Japan or Europe. This leads me to assume that 80-90% of scientific discovery comes from the US, Europe & Japan.
Do developing countries contribute heavily to scientific development?
I know not all developing countries contribute the same. I’m sure China, India & Russia would contribute more than Togo or Paraguay but do 2nd & 3rd world countries make major contributions to the sciences or are most innovations a 1st world deal?
Depends on how you want to define who is responsible for an innovation. In my line of work (employment-based U.S. immigration), I see lots and lots of scientific articles authorid or co-authored by nationals of developing countries. Unfortunately they have to leave for the developed world to do most kinds of scientific research, because, say, Togo is not so big in the world of nuclear physics and doesn’t have the equipment they need, plus all the people they want to collaborate with are living in the developed world. It’s where the resources are.
Most scientific research is collaborative in nature, and it’s pretty much the norm, especially in multiethnic countries like the U.S., or France, or the U.K., for papers published there to have names of half a dozen different ethnic origins on them. Not much research these days is done in a vacuum (a figurative vacuum, that is). So while the paper may be published in theh U.S. or Europe, its authors are pretty much from all over Creation.
It´s not a lack of intelectual capacity but a lack of founds that keep 3rd world research at a minimum; that leads to a “brain emmigration”, where scientists go to the devoloped countries to work on their fields.
And, since you’re including the 2nd world in your question, I’ll point out that the Soviets made a number of discoveries in the sciences, the first coming to mind being Tsiolkovsky, one of the early pioneers in rocketry. Then, of course, the Soviets also created the game Tetris, which is probably the greatest technical advance of the 20th century.
From the perspective of the first world, scientists in the third world undoubtedly have to cope with bitterly unfair obstacles. Traditionally, the great problem was simply access to the literature. On all levels - recent textbooks, good reference libraries of journals and especially prompt access to preprints. To speak from personal experience of an acute example, as of 10 years ago, all high-energy physics theory research was primarily communicated by a system of preprints. You wrote a paper and, while submitting it to a journal, you physically mailed copies to a list of a few dozen institutes around the world. And the people at those institutes would send you their new preprints in return as a matter of course. If you weren’t on the list, then you might have to wait six months to see a version of the same paper in the journal (if your library could afford it). In such a competative field, there was no way someone could keep up by relying merely on the published journals. To be active you effectively had to be on the list.
With a few exceptions, third world universities weren’t. Some were very active in trying to join, but couldn’t. Everybody, of course, recognised that there was a problem, but nobody was willing to do anything about it. Established researchers pawned the effort of maintaining the system off onto their grad students and we treated it as a chore that was timeconsuming enough as it was.
The internet was meant to change this. And superficially it did alleviate the problem in that now abstracts and papers can be sent to anybody that wants them. But that just moved the problem up one level, while simulataneously shortening the timescales over which competition occurs. More often than not, decisions as to who and what is hot emerge from personal interactions. You need to be giving seminars, speaking at conferences and attending workshops. Even relatively minor details become “what everybody knows” without ever appearing in print. Once again, geographical isolation is the killer.
Since Russia has been brought up as the particular case, it’s worth noting that it’s a special case as far as physics is concerned. All the way through the Soviet era, their schools of theoretical physics were immensely respected in the West. Contacts were hampered by the political situation, but a great deal of effort was placed in fostering them. As a discipline, theoretical physicists tend to place a great deal of faith in a multiplicity of approaches and so the fact that the Soviets developed things in a different style wasn’t a problem, it was a strength. Post-1989, the economic conditions were such that virtually all who could do so emigrated to the US and Europe. On the plus side, this influx has had a stimulating effect - it was just good to interact with people who have a different way of thinking about and solving problems. On the negative side, this assimilation has probably destroyed the Russian tradition as a distinct style.
I think that in my field, 90% of research does come from USA, Europe, Japan, Canada, Korea, and Israel, and a handful of other places. We do see occasional papers from India and China, but almost none from Africa, Central America, or other developing countries. Of course most of the work done in Europe or America has many foreigners on the papers – from the techs up to the primary investigators. I would say that a majority of the papers out there have Indian or Chinese nationals on them.
To add to bonzer’s initiatives, there is a WHO program sponsored by George Soros to bring journal access to the developing world. This would be huge – all scientific knowledge is disseminated in journals, and many of them are prohibitively expensive for even medium sized institutions in the developed world. A more promising movement is spearheaded by PLoS which is aiming to make all journals free for readers, kind of like open source software. This was inspired by the physics preprint internet distribution system mentioned by bonzer.
From there, but by whom? I’ve worked with people from every continent in some cutting-edge labs. The publicity mentions a US location, but the people doing the work aren’t always from the USA.
As others said: it is not the lack of skills or intelligence that is an obstruction, but the lack of money and infrastructure.
And you also seem to take it for granted that publications are published in English and that all people “must” learn that language. Which is not as “normal” as you think it is at all and certainly not in developping countries.
And on the other hand there are also many extremely interesting researches done from which the results or conclusions aren’t published in English (it depends on the field you are working in) and which people who don’t speak an other language but English miss.
In my field for example, publications are done in a variety of languages, from wich English is only one. You can even find in one publication articles in different languages.
Really? My understanding is that most universities have a list of languages, of which a PhD candidate must have reading knowledge of at least one (and often two). I would think that if American universities require people to learn non-English languages, then surely nonAmerican universities require students to learn English. Why in the world would someone spend eight years getting a doctorate, and then not spend a year or two learning English? The latter seems much more useful than the former.
It used to be that more Ph.D programs required students to learn a non-English language, but this isn’t true anymore. My program used to but they phased it out before I started.
In the marine institute down in Puerto Rico, the graduate students have to write all of their papers in English. There’s not a single marine biology program in the US that requires students to write all their papers in Spanish. Why? Because Spanish isn’t the langua franca of the science world. English is.
A year or two learning English isn’t really sufficient to enable a person to read and write scientific papers well. Not to mention, good English instruction costs money. (BTW, a typical doctorate program is 5.5 years long.)
American universities don’t do squat when it comes to pushing out multilingual students. Seems kind of strange to expect better standards from schools in countries with fewer resources.
I think one of the major reasons the US, Europe and Japan lead in scientific discoveries is money.
Research these days costs alot. For example the “Super Conducting Super Collider” costs a whole bunch of money to build. The first link I found http://www.aguirre.com/projects/prj-ssc.htm meantions 70 million.
Well I have a doctorate and I have also what is called the USA a Masters in an other studyfield.
I never studied English.
In my university, and speaking specifically for my studyfield one must know the language in which the classen are given, of course, which was in my case Dutch, and in addition German and French before one can get started. Studybooks were in all tree those languages from the start of the first semester of the first year.
We received during our studies now and then English languaged documentation or books (along with other languaged) as additional course documents, but the study of English was not a requirement at all to take up in your curriculum and nobody I studied with ever did.
Of course, in Belgium people who follow higher education know English and many people who don’t even finished humaniory know the language. I should say it is even better known nowadays among the young people then the second and third country language.
In Belgium is English, besides French and Dutch and eventually other languages, one of the languages humaniora students can get teached. Most of the thus have it in the humaniora, yet not all humaniora sections have it on their program.
But that isn’t the case at all in developping countries. It is for example certainly not the case in my country where the second language is French. And even French isn’t known by “everybody” and those people who speak English are white ravens.
Yet students begin and finish higher education and students do receive doctorates in a variety of studyfields.
I don’t know how many languages a university student in the USA must have on his/her curriculum.
But as far as I know in my first studyfield, there is only a “recommendation” to know one other language -not specified- then English for starting the study. Which seen from my experience makes me wonder how on earth people can ever gain the knowledge required to finish it, seen the fact that the most important Orientalists among those who started to explore the studyfield, were German. And of course also French.(And in my opinion the Germans still have the lead in many sections of the studyfield)
I didn’t look at the requirements for languages at US universities when it comes to subscribe for European history. So I don’t now if Dutch, German and French - at least in their medieval forms - are teached in paleography classes. I do hope so because you need them to be able to study your sources.
When you ask me, the knowledge of a variety of languages should be a requirement for everyone who aims at an academic career. Yet once again… This would make the problems of students in developping countries with limited funds greater then they already are.
can’t software translators translate & retranslate scientific papers? They are imperfect (which could be a major problem in scientific papers) but the main ideas come through. why not just hire a few translators to re-translate papers instead of asking everyone to learn a new language.
I have a few years’ experience in editing scientific papers.
Although we get plenty of papers from the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia and the like, we get far more from non-English-speaking countries. Many of the papers I work on are from China, Korea, or Japan, for example.
Many times, the papers are not composed of very good English, but it’s English nonetheless. I would be shocked if these authors/scientists had no English background at all. What basically happens (AFAIK) is that they write the paper in their own language and then translate it themselves. Then, time and money willing, they have an English-speaking colleague review it before it is submitted.
However, there are times when the author doesn’t have an English-speaking colleague handy. In those cases, the paper is submitted and is either accepted or rejected on content (as is the norm, of course); if accepted, it is up to our department to work out the kinks in the syntax and usage.
Because machine translation sucks, and precision is important in the sciences. I used to work for a translation agency, and frequently clients would ask us if we could “clean up” machine-translated technical material. It was usually so incomprehensible that it was faster, cheaper, and easier to do it over from scratch.
Translations could be done when it comes to sections of modern science or recent studies/discoveries and their conclusions in a variety of disciplines.
I doubt however that a software can be developped to translate them correctly in every language needed.
And a translation is always invalid and incomplete. You can’t translate anything “word by word”.
Contrary to popular belief, scientists aren’t idiots. They are not going to submit a paper to a scientific journal in the United States if they haven’t translated it. Granted, they might have trouble with the actual translation, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve received a cover letter or email stating, “I know my English isn’t too good, please help me.”
Now, one area where we do have a problem is in the review stage. Let’s say a Japanese author submits his paper to us (in case it’s not obvious, my publication is in the U.S.), but his English isn’t adequate for publication. It’s good enough for people to get the jist of his paper, but it’s not good enough to be published. The paper is assigned to two or more reviewers who are experts in the field. The trouble is, what if the paper our hypothetical Japanese author submits is reviewed by two other Japanese scientists, both of whom have English problems?
It happens occasionally, and at that point it really falls on our shoulders to work with the author to make sure his meaning is preserved.
Yeah, I used to help my Russian ex polish the English for his papers. More than once he showed me a letter from a journal that said basically “we think you have some good ideas here, but the English is a little off-putting. Please go over this paper with a native English speaker and resubmit it.” That’s how I actually got footnoted in a history of science journal. Somewhere I have one of his reprints, signed “To the real author.”
I forgot to add that translations cost money, which developping countries simply don’t have to put in their universities.
And reading the post of dantheman: Don’t you find it extremely unjust and rude that a student or a scientist has to go through such a time consuming, painful and risky procedure in order to get publication of his work?
The whole fashion to publish everything possible in “English only” is extremely condenscending towards other languaged people to begin with. And contributing in a very high amount to the difficulties of students and scientists worldwide.
It is once again the brutal imposing of the capitalistic norm onto countries and people who already must overcome the greatest difficulties to survive. Let be to be able to compete. In no matter which field.