Subject: YSN_response

From: [email-masked] (Randy Boehm)
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 94 17:03:27 -0400

Okay, I've restrained myself long enough.

The issues raised by Bob Zacher and YSN are very important issues
that deserve the undivided attention of the entire scientific
community as well as all US citizens.

There is an ACS meeting in Washington DC in August.  How many of you
out there agree that a march on the capital in protest of US
immigration policy sometime that week would be a worthy excursion?
(respond to [email-masked])

Now for my two cents worth.

Karl Irikura responded to the YSN note by  claiming they were
facist and xenophobic.  Frankly, this is precisely the kind of 
unwarranted, emotion-based attack that has intimidated people for 
decades, and has stifled honest dialogue for too long.  He also 
defends the US policy by making two points.

1) "Brain drain is great for the receiving country"
2) Protectionism helps only the special interest and hurts everyone else.

I argue with each of these points.

To say that we benefit by importing intelligent people from overseas
implies that we have someplace to put these people (in the job market)
without displacing our own (homegrown) intellectuals.  (And yes, contrary
to popular belief the USA does produce a significant number of intelligent
people.)   Furthermore, once you accept that our own people are being
displaced, one has to question whether they are being displaced with more
qualified personnel or simply a cheaper labor force.  Science is not
unlike many other proffessions.  Communication is critally important to 
us.  Yes, Mr. Irikura I have noticed how thin our journals would be
in the absence of foreign contributions.  I have also noticed how poorly
written many of those foreign contribution are.  One has to wonder,
if a group of (usually 2-3) researchers can not construct an English
sentence without gross gramitical errors, how can they possibly be
effective communicators.  I know what it is like to sit through a 
university class (THAT I PAID GOOD MONEY TO ATTEND) with a foreign 
instructor that was basically impossible to understand.  (Why even
go through the motions of a lecture: just hand the students a book
and let them compete!)  Of coarse, communication can be just as 
important in an industrial setting where one has to participate in 
a team and be able to communicate results to a manager who may have used
the "duck-and-cover" philosophy regarding science while going through
school.  To close this point, communication is not only about talking
and writing, but also about reading and listening.  It will take a
real solid arguement to convince that this barrier does not radically
hinder ones ability to learn a difficult subject.  Next, the statement
implies that the immagrants will not export a sizable fraction of their
pay etc. back to their homeland: I have observed the exact opposite,
and I wholely believe my observations are typical.  Finally, to produce 
the kind of surplus of highly trained intellectuals is not neccessarily 
good, even in the absence of communication barriers. Most chemists are 
perfectly capable of synthesizing illicit drugs and explosives.  
Indeed, most scientists would be very capable criminals if that were the 
path they wanted to follow.  When the kind of surplus crops up that we 
have today, people become desperate and angry and such people turn to 
desparate measures to make a LIVING.  I'm not convinced that society is 
better off by artificially creating desparate people.

Regarding the second point.  I think Mr. Irikura is confused about the
meaning of "protectionism".  Protectionism implies that some group 
is being given protection from foreign competition while the majority
of other groups is not.  We now have an immagration policy that is
the inverse of this: A small group (of the most hard-working and talented)
is being subjected to unfair competition (unfair defended later) while 
the majority of other groups are not.  When I read Mr. Zacher's original
posting, I got the impression that he would simply call for scientists
to be treated like everyone else, although he SAID nothing to this effect.

Anthony Duben writes "deja vu all over again", with a sympathetic tone.

I understand the tendancy one has to compare one situation to another
and to conclude similarity based on a handful of common features.

I, for one, think it is unreasonable to compare the current jobs depression
to the jobs recession in the chemical industry faced 25 years ago.

1) The duration and severity of the '69 recession was shorter and
   shallower than what we face today (see the October 93 issue of 
   C&E News: "Employment Outlook...").  This means that a much higher 
   percentage of scientists, especially young scientists are being 
   effected than ever before.

2) The current jobs depression coincides with a global jobs recession,
   making it very difficult for scientists to migrate into alternative
   professions.

3) The entering workforce is different:

  - The capital investment most of us have made in education is greater.
  - The time required to get a Ph. D. is greater.
  - The competition in the classrooms is more fierce.
  - The time one is expected to spend in temporary or soft-money 
    positions prior to permanant employment is much greater.

4) The country is differect:

  (see "Statistical Abstracts of the United States" compiled by the
   U.S. Census Bureau: 1970 and 1992)

  - Per Capita Violent Crime is up 20%
  - Government spending relative to personal income is up 20%, to nearly
    50%.  So the government is less likely to bail us out by spending,
    and frankly they shouldn't.  When I worked for the Idaho National
    Engineering Laboratory, I saw profound waste.  One scientist, who
    happened to be foreing born, worked 3 hours per day, did nothing but
    talk/argue (about science) during those 3 hours, and "made-up" for
    his absences by coming in at night once a week, when he would do
    the science he would argue about for the remainder of the weak.  
    (For this he was not disciplined, rather he was promoted!)  Another
    scientist, who happened to be U.S. born, showed up for work roughly
    three days per week, spent the first two hours of every day engaged
    in the office gossip/coffee ritual and left promtly at 5 pm every day.
    (This went on for 3-4 years before he was finally fired.)  At the
    same time, indiscriminate rifts were taking place all over the lab,
    and reorganization was a quarterly endeavor.  Folks, the tax payers
    of this country can not afford to continue to support these kind 
    of boon-doggles, and they won't.
  - The ratio of tax payers to the total pop. is up 25%, but is  
    now falling sharply.  In 1970 it was rising sharply.
  - The EEOC policies have generated gross revearse discrimination that
    never used to exist.  Not only are we letting more foreign scientists
    into this country than ever before, we have an EEOC that gives them
    instant preferential treatment once they obtain their citizenship.

To those who would argue with this, and I know there are many, I say
don't be naive.  I base my claim on four independent statements made
by individuals I trust.  Three of them have served on hiring committees
in chemistry, and each claimed that the best qualified person(s) were
(or would be) passed up in order to offer the position to a minority
candidate.  The fourth statement originated with an EEOC officer for
one of the private companies in this area.  Her company is one that 
wants to base its hiring decisions largely on test scores, where the 
tests are issued by the company and are supposedly concerned with the 
tasks the new hiree would be expected to perform.  The federal government
decided this company had too few minorities on their payroll so they ordered
the company to pass up well-qualified caucasions, who do well on the tests,
in favor of underqualified minorities, who are (according to order) to be 
trained at company expense so they can pass the test(s).

To those who still won't accept this as fact, I challenge you to have 
a disinterested secretary sift through all application materials,
including reference letters, to strike out all clues to gender, race
and national origin the next time you are asked to contribute to a
hiring decision.  (The complexion etc. of your forceforce should reflect
the complexion etc. of your interview lists.)
(Or even the next time you review a paper for that matter.)

Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to bring equity into the primary 
and secondary schools and encourage institutions hire the most qualified 
applicants.  

In closing I have one last suggestion (not terribly serious).  Instead
of forcing primarily young scientists to face the current jobs depression
on their own, let's fire all scientists today and then resupply the 
workforce force with "the best qualified" applicants among us.  I'll bet
then there would be a lot more interest in these issues.

Randall C. Boehm, Scientist

[email-masked]