<p>While I agree with what Alexandre says, I think there are also a couple more phenomena that are happening that explain the current trends.</p>
<p>*Asia - back on its feet.</p>
<p>The fact is, for much of human history, China and India have been two of the most powerful and scientifically prolific nations in the world. For most of human history, the West has been a regional weak backwater of little consequence. Even during the age of the powerful Roman Empire, China and India were probably still superior both economically and scientifically to the West. The only time in history when the West has been truly superior to the 2 Asian powers has been during the last few hundred years. We just happen to be living during an unusual time in history when the West has outinnovated and outperformed Asia. It hasn't always been this way, and in the future, it probably won't be this way. A combination of factors has converged to produce the world of today - luck, the West chose wise policies designed to encourage innovation and growth, and the Asian powers often times behaved stupidly and arrogantly to retard growth. Witness the foolish actions of the Chinese Ming Dynasty in closing off China to the world, for the Emperor thought that China has nothing to learn from anybody else, and China began a dark period of centuries of stagnation and underdevelopment. Or witness the obscurantism and inwardness of the Indian Mughal Empire. </p>
<p>But now China and India have picked themselves off the mat and are in the process of reclaiming their place in the world that they had for millenia. The article partly talks about how the US is losing its lead in engineering and science to Asia, and my response to that is that a big reason why the US got that lead over Asia in the first place because Asia became backwards and inward. Now that Asia is reforming itself and progressing, it is only natural that the US loses some of its lead. After all, the US doesn't have a birthright to a lead in science and engineering. It isn't written anywhere that the US will always have better science and engineering than Asia does. Think of it this way - China has more than 4 times the population than the US, and India has more than 3 times. So just from a sheer numbers perspective, China and India are probably going to end up with a larger total number of scientists and engineers than the US does. </p>
<ul>
<li>Europe - reclaiming its science mantle.</li>
</ul>
<p>Again, we need to look at history to understand the Euro-challenge. The fact is, in modern history until WW2, Europe was unchallenged in its dominance of science and engineering. Look at all the Nobel Prize winners in physics, chemistry, and medicine before WW2 and you will notice that almost all of them are European. Americans won few Nobel Prizes until the war period and afterwards, and even right after the war, many of the "American" Nobel Prizes were really won by people born and trained in Europe and immigrated to the US, fleeing fascism. The US scooped up boatloads of the world's top scientists and engineers by being a haven from Euro-tyranny. Nobel laureates like Fermi, Otto Stern, Wolfgang Pauli, Victor Hess, Felix Bloch, Peter Debye all became naturalized American citizens after fleeing fascist regimes. Basically, Europe's political and military troubles resulted in the reaping by the US of many of the top minds of Europe. After the destruction of Europe by war, the US became the "go-to" place to perform top science and engineering work. </p>
<p>However, similarly to Asia, Europe has gotten back on its feet and is ready to reclaim its mantle as a top producer of science and engineering. There is no reason to think that the US would be able to surpass Europe scientifically forever. </p>
<p>*Who is studying science and engineering in the US? </p>
<p>So I've just pointed out that Asia and Europe have all historically excelled at science and engineering. In the last 50-60 years, the US hes been in the pole position. But who exactly are these people in American universities who are studying science and engineering? I think we all know that in most cases, those people are themselves either recent immigrants from Asia or Europe, or their recent descendents. Go to any engineering class at any top-flight engineering school and you will notice that a great proportion of the students will be Asian - a remarkable figure when you realize that Asians constitute only 3% of the US population. The Caucasians you will find will often times be Germans, Russians, Jews, and to some extent people from other Central and Northern European nations (Austrians, Hungarians, Swiss, Czechs, Swedes, etc.). The fact is, these peoples strongly emphasize science and technology in their educational cultures, and so it is no surprise that so many Chinese-Americans, for example, become engineers. Hence, the US's lead in science and technology has itself been 'borrowed' from other countries in the form of immigration. Immigrants came to the US because the US offered better opportunities than what existed back home.</p>
<p>But now that Asia is reforming itself and becoming a better place to live, Asians have fewer incentives to immigrate to the US to pursue their livelihoods. Not only that, but many Asians and Asian-Americans feel a desire to return back to their home countries to take advantage of the opportunities there. For example, as China continues to progress, the US will no longer be able to rely on having lots of Chinese immigrants and Chinese-Americans to bolster the nation's scientific strength. Part of the US's lead in science over China is due the fact that the US basically drained China's best minds and best talent away by offering a better life than what was available in China. As this becomes less true, China will be able to retain more of its talented people.</p>
<p>*And finally - a word about the relatively low percentage of American degrees in the sciences and engineering, relative to that in Europe or Asia.</p>
<p>To me, this is not surprising. The fact is, engineering and science are hard, and there are many other easier things to study. There are plenty of American companies out there that implement a simplistic rule that they are only going to hire people with bachelor's degrees, but don't care from what school or what subject it is in. Hence, a lot of American students see that and simply conclude that the optimal thing to do is simply to major in something easy where they can get a degree without having to study very much. I am not going to name those majors at this time, but I think we all know what they are. Many American students figure "Why work hard when you don't have to?". And as long as American companies continue to reward this kind of behavior, I'm sure it will continue. Sad but true. By majoring in an easy subject, they didn't really learn much, but a lot of companies don't really seem to care that they didn't learn much. </p>
<p>Coupled with this is the notion of grade inflation in the non-technical courses. I have often wondered why is it that science and engineering courses are graded harder than other courses. There seems to be no reason to me why an intro humanities course can't be graded just as hard as an intro chemical engineering course. If you're going to go around weeding out half of your chemical engineering students, then fairness dictates that you should go around weeding out half of your humanities students too. However, as it stands, it's easier to get higher grades in the humanities than in engineering, and students respond to that too. Why take one class and work hard to get a 'C' when you can take another class and do very little and get an 'A'? As long as the grading schemes are slanted in this fashion, it is natural for American students to want to take the easy way out.</p>