STEM education and careers – not for everyone

George Rebane

Our socially destructive culture has long done a number on students with the extraordinary capacity to study and make it in STEM careers.  Part of the socialist agenda for the US is to impress in the population a belief that we are fundamentally all equal, with all of us capable of anything as long as the state suppresses the bad angels of discrimination with which we, especially the whites, are burdened.  And to accomplish this we need to make sure that Billy and Jill grow up in an environment of mirror-fogging equity instead of merit-based equal opportunity in which today DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) is the chosen form of politically acceptable social environment.

Unfortunately, the realworld is fashioned on quite a different landscape where our capacities have developed differentially.  Today diversity is recognized, but in a highly qualified manner and under precisely and politically prescribed circumstances.  Diversity that leads to differential capacities to perform, especially in the cognitive areas, is not only rejected but also proscribed in some places by laws that may lead to incarceration.  Again, science confirms that in almost all dimensions that describe us we are created unique and develop unequally, and in some dimensions these differences are systemic and cannot be overcome by bending the twig according to the dictates of DEI.  

Nationally recognized scholar and political scientist, Harvard/MIT educated Dr Charles Murray, has written an illuminating essay about the extraordinary and special requirements for success in STEM education and subsequent careers.  His ‘The Roots of STEM Excellence - Finding and developing one of our rarest and most precious human resources is a paramount goal.’ here in the 30aug24 WSJ will now be vilified by all the usual leftwing suspects bent on reducing America into a second-world country.  In this piece he continues reporting on research that established the human diversities we reported on in his previous work Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America (2021) which was equally attacked and rejected by the Left. (more here)  (I wrote a Union column on it at the time which could not be printed for reasons its then publisher took great pains to explain to me over one of our lunches.)

The basic thesis Murray presents is that success in STEM requires cognitive abilities that are relatively very uncommon.  The cognitive abilities demanded are present in only the top 0.01% or one in 10,000 people – it’s just the way the cognitive cookie crumbles.  The bottom line is that just being dedicated and working hard will not cut it as it does for almost all other professional pursuits.  It’s the equivalent of not being able to make it in the NBA if you’re short or in the NFL if you’re skinny and slow.  Not everyone has what it takes to make it in any desired career – the playing field is not level, and it was ever thus.  This is diametrically contra to what is told to our K-12 students in progressive public schools.

To nail the point and outline the problem, I will quote some paragraphs from the cited essay by Charles Murray.

The task is to identify those with STEM talent when they are young. The good news is that standardized tests expressly designed to measure cognitive ability are an efficient way to do so. They are accurate, inexpensive, resistant to coaching and demonstrably unbiased against minorities, women or the poor. Those conclusions about the best cognitive tests are among the most exhaustively examined and replicated findings in all social science.

The bad news is that admissions offices of elite universities ignore this evidence. They use “holistic” admissions algorithms that treat tested cognitive ability as just one of many desirable traits. That isn’t necessarily an educational disaster for the next generation of brilliant performers in the social sciences, humanities and nonacademic majors. They can develop their potential in an ordinary college or even without college. The STEM fields are different, for two reasons.

First, the raw cognitive demands are greater in STEM than other disciplines. People who are merely in the top few percentiles of overall cognitive ability don’t face insuperable obstacles in rising to the top of non-STEM fields given enough determination and hard work. Nothing in their college courses is impossible for them to learn if they try hard enough. That’s not true in STEM. Much of the advanced math required for performance at the top of STEM fields is literally impossible to learn for anyone without math ability deep into the top percentile. Determination and hard work can’t compensate.

Comments

[Gregory]

STEM is a weasel word... if you want to talk about math, physics, chemistry... say Science and Math. Or Math and Science to avoid "S and M" as an abbreviation.

That leaves out biology; if it's green and wiggly, it's something else. STEM was coined about 25 years by social "scientists" to get a handle on women in the sciences.

"Education" folk think everyone can be taught anything, it just takes the right teacher and enough time.
No can do. No, no no.

[The Estonian Fox]

From the website run by Robert Zimmerman, Aug 31, 2024:

https://behindtheblack.com/

[For 2024] "American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 101 to 54, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies 86 to 69.

2024 is now the second year in a row the U.S. rocket industry has completed more than 100 launches, something it could not do for the first three-quarters of a century after Sputnik, when our precious government used NASA to run our entire space program. Now that freedom and capitalism has managed to wrest some control away from NASA, Americans are finally doing what they would have done in the 1960s, had Congress and President Kennedy not stepped in, first requiring all space exploration be run under a “space program” controlled by NASA, and then passing the Communications Satellite Act in 1962 which forbid Americans from running private profit-oriented launches without government participation."

Looks like free-market capitalism (Elon Musk in particular) has propelled (no pun) the US to the forefront on innovation and bottom-line results - while NASA has been pushed to the side. Is the "DEI effect" showing up in NASA STEM recruits? Or is Elon making sure that he employs only those who know 2+3=5? It's nice to see a genuine African-American succeed.

If only our government would realize their limitations and reduce regulations voluntarily, whether for this, or for disallowing Senegalese hair-braiders from becoming licensed.

[Gregory]

Here's an interesting list
https://www.statista.com/statistics/300418/us-college-ranking-sat-act-score/

I remember Keach, ever the booster for K-12 education, was adamant that if he had gotten into one of the colleges at the top of the list, he'd have done just fine and wouldn't have retired with next to no money.

You see, by one theory, the kids just show up and get their fill of smarts.