It's the same dumbasses again and again, isn't it?

Hot on the heels of the George Deutsch/NASA fiasco, we have this recent issue of Time, which addresses the distinct possibility that the U.S. is losing its scientific advantage compared to the rest of the world.

But mixed in with pessimistic titles like "Are We Losing Our Edge?" and depressing warnings like "Bush said science would guide his decisions, but those in the lab see ideology intruding on their work," we have the surprisingly perky suggestion, "Don't Believe the Hype. We're Still No. 1."

And in the face of scientific illiterates like George Deutsch lording it over actual scientists at NASA, and the growing popularity of the idiocy of Intelligent Design across that country, who would have the nerve to suggest that everything is just peachy keen?

Who in God's name would be so freaking out of it that they think everything is just coming up roses and there's no problem here? Who -- I ask you, who -- could be that unspeakably deluded?

Oh.

NOT SURPRISINGLY, that article contains misleading crap like (emphasis added):

You can pick your statistics. Mine are that the U.S. leads the world by an immense margin in just about every measure of intellectual and technological achievement: Ph.D.s, patents, peer-reviewed articles, Nobel Prizes.

Yeah ... about those Ph.D.s:

Nearly five times as many citizens of other countries earned U.S. doctorates as did black and Hispanic Americans (14,300 vs. roughly 3,000)...

The foreign presence varies greatly among academic departments. [Table 2] Sixty-four percent of engineering PhDs. awarded in 2003 went to foreign students, as did nearly half (47 percent) of doctorates in the physical sciences.

Those would be "foreign students" who, in large numbers, get their doctorates and return to their native countries, taking all that education with them.

And maybe Charles should pull his head out of his ass and check out articles like this from 2002 (emphasis added):

... according to then–secretary of education Richard W. Riley, "American children continue to learn, but their peers in other countries are learning at a higher rate."

The results of the recently released Third International Math and Science Study (TIMSS)-Repeat are discouraging. This 1999 follow-up study to the first TIMSS tested the same fourth-grade cohort that previously had done well in international comparisons, scoring in the top 25 percent in 1995. By 1999, as eighth graders, these students had dropped dramatically in their rankings, confirming that the longer U.S. students stay in school, the farther behind they fall in math and science. The only American group that showed improvement since the 1995 survey were African American students, whose achievement rose in math but not science.

But don't worry, Charles. I'm pretty sure your job is safe. Being a dishonest, neo-con fucktard journalist is a pretty niche occupation. And all of those foreign Ph.D.s would definitely be over-qualified in terms of, you know, knowing stuff.