Numbers
This article in Economist laments that the state of mathematics education in the US is in doldrums. It says that the US maintains it's lead position in the research output in pure Math by importing talent from other countries and says that the future is bleak if this run continues.
More interestingly the article talks about the anti-intellectual culture in the US and contrasts it with that in the EU.
My thought is that may be the anti-intellectual climate (if any) in the US is probably the attraction to the top talent that migrate from else-where...that and the fact that much of the top talent doesn't have problems communicating in English and it's hope in the goodness of the English culture...the attraction to US will not fade away due to abstract anti-intellectualism or whatever...the American dream is sold big to the rest of the world and I guess that a lot of it is true too...as long as the population in the US does not reach a critical point of "No more immigration", it can thrive...even after reaching the critical point, there will always be innovative INS ideas like "Going Home schemes" for the not-so-useful immigrants where they will be sent back with lots of attractive goodies...So I don't see a threat for another couple of centuries unless some politician tries to play with emotions of xenophobia.
On the other hand, the over-selling of anti-intellectualism may scare away the top talent...on more thinking, one may come to a point where one thinks that there is something self-destructive in the US education system that gives an edge to the foreigners...but I guess the system is not yet there at that nadir.
More interestingly the article talks about the anti-intellectual culture in the US and contrasts it with that in the EU.
My thought is that may be the anti-intellectual climate (if any) in the US is probably the attraction to the top talent that migrate from else-where...that and the fact that much of the top talent doesn't have problems communicating in English and it's hope in the goodness of the English culture...the attraction to US will not fade away due to abstract anti-intellectualism or whatever...the American dream is sold big to the rest of the world and I guess that a lot of it is true too...as long as the population in the US does not reach a critical point of "No more immigration", it can thrive...even after reaching the critical point, there will always be innovative INS ideas like "Going Home schemes" for the not-so-useful immigrants where they will be sent back with lots of attractive goodies...So I don't see a threat for another couple of centuries unless some politician tries to play with emotions of xenophobia.
On the other hand, the over-selling of anti-intellectualism may scare away the top talent...on more thinking, one may come to a point where one thinks that there is something self-destructive in the US education system that gives an edge to the foreigners...but I guess the system is not yet there at that nadir.