If Young Scientists Are Best, Then Japan May Have An Edge

If you go along with the theory that the scientific mind functions best when it’s young, the West is head big for trouble—and Japan is in great shape. That’s the conclusion a youthcultist might draw from a recent National Science Foundation comparison of industrial and govern- ment scientists’ age distribution patterns in five countries France, Japan, United Kingdom, United States, and West Germany. When plotted on a curve, Japan’s population of scientists and engineers bulges dramatically at a younger age than the population of scientists in the US., France, and West Germany, according to NSF figures. For example, in Japan 48% of scientists and engineers sur- veyed were under the age of 35, while only 7% were over 55. To the contrary, 28% of US. scientists were under 35, while 19% were over 55. The agency’s numbers represent a distillation of census figures taken in the early 190s. the most recent years for which comparable numbers are available from all the countries. NSF, however, feels that the general relationships—if plotted today—would be similar. These numbers cover biologists, chemists, physicists, and mathematicians in industry and government; academic scientists are not included. The age pattern for each country, says NSF, comes from an interplay of two variables: The size of the pool of young people overall in each country and the rate at which they go on to higher education and choose science as a career in their respective nations. In Japan for example, the pool of 16- to 18-year-olds did not grow very fast during the 1970s, increasing only 11%. However NSF analysts report that the country made up for that sluggish population growth by an increase of about 30% in university enrollment during that period, a burst prompted largely by postwar recovery and a corresponding increase in affluence. Now, Japan’s university enrollment rate may be stabilizing, says NSF, but the pool of young people is increasing fast. The current Japanese baby boom’s rate isn’t expected to peak until sometime in the 1990s. Besides this growing pool, Japan has another factor contributing to the rise of youth in science. About 5.6% of Japanese students are choosing science or engineering careers—the highest rate among industrialized countries according to NSF figures. The other four countries NSF studied face a shrinking pool of young people, as well as a lower popularity of science and engineering. For example technical careers are the choice of 5.1% of US. students, 2.6% of French young peo ple, and 2% of U.K. students. The U.K numbers have proved controversial. As published by NSF, the U.K. age distribution pattern looks like Japan’s. However, Richard Pierson from the University of Sussex’s Institute of Manpower Studies feels that the U.K.’s age pattern ought to look more like the US.’s. He hypothesizes that older British scientists and engineers disappeared in the U.K. census because they are reported as “managers.” Considering the broad strokes of the age distribution picture—the aging of Western industrialized scientists and the relative youth of Japan—what does mean for the quality of science in these countries? Geoffrey Pullum, dean of graduate studies and research at the University of California, Santa Cruz, dismisses the notion that, in science, youth is beauty. He laments what he calls science’s “youth cult,” and he derides the attitude held by some that scientists over 35 should not be expected to have creative ideas and can be useful only for presiding over meetings of learned society. Robert White, an engineer who presides over one such society— the National Academy of Engineering in Washington, D.C., allows, however, that recently trained scientists and engineers may have an advantage when it comes to equipment; they’re more likely to have been trained in the latest technologies. Another advantage that younger scientists may have is that “they don’t know what has been tried earlier and failed,” says Thomas Everhart, president of Caltech. ‘There are many older people who say ‘Oh yes, I worked on that problem 20 years ago and it’s insoluble.’ What they mean is: ‘I worked on that problem 20 years ago and for a person of my ability with the tools I had at the time, I wasn’t able to solve it’ A younger person will have different tools and maybe a different outlook and the problem may be very soluble now.” Everhart does not ascribe to the idea held by some that although scientific creativity is apt to burn most brightly in the young, it inevitably fades to a weak sputter. “I don’t put much credence in that,” he says. ‘Take [two-time Nobel Prize-winning physicist] John Bardeen. He’s now 80 and he keeps writing papers at the same rate he always has. And he’s working on something now that may win him a third Nobel Prize Or Joel Hildebrand, the chemist at Berkeley who lived to 102 and published more papers after he retired at 65 than he did before. Now they are exceptional people, but there are a lot of people who make contributions at their level as long as they work at it.” Along the same lines, Philip Anderson, physicist and Nobel laureate at Princeton, says, “I see instances of senility around me but they’re remarkably few. And usually it’s premature. The people who tend to fade out, fade out quite early in life. If they keep on, then they keep on. Like Francis Crick. Some other people who had better be nameless, earned their Nobel Prizes and did things for a few years and then all of sudden they weren’t there anymore. “I have a feeling there is an age somewhere around 40 or 50 when people decide either ‘well, now I’m going to be a senior citizen’ or ‘now I’m going to go right on doing what I’ve always been doing and doing well.”’ Anderson may debunk the burn-out theory, but the dropping numbers of young U.S. scientists con- cern him deeply “We’re in danger of being a less technologically apt Society.”

If Young Scientists Are Best, Then Japan May Have An Edge

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