What is going on in Lake of the Woods County Minn.?
1
The hospital lawyer put this to me: Publish your scientific paper or pursue a patent. I published the paper.
1
Education is a problem for someone like J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy, to tackle. He understands the issues from the inside of the geographic divide.
1
How many were lost in the Holocaust?
3
We need companies to be intentional about reversing the brain drain to the coasts. Sucking all of the talent out of the middle of the country has contributed mightily to our current political polarization. Investment is the new philanthropy.
2
My Republican friends all say that poor people need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
But as soon as they have children, they move to the best school district they can afford.
They know that education and environment is hugely important.
Too many Republicans I know would rather pay for prison than pay for preschool.
In addition, we are the richest industrialized country on the planet GDP / capita yet we have states where black infant mortality is worse than Botswana. Alabama is one that comes to mind.
If you don't want to help get people out of poverty because it is morally the right thing to do then do it because it is in your own long-term economic self-interest. Get people educated and working and paying taxes instead of paying for welfare, medicaid, and prison.
11
Innovation and inventors has brought us out of the dark ages and now it is putting us back into the dark ages where humans will become clogs on a chain. Who is going to cure cancer? The medical and pharma do not want cancer cured, just think of all $$$$$$$$ that will be missed I mean patients.
Green technology has been kept on the back burner by fossil fuels, auto industry, cotton industry et all.
1
While I absolutely share the opinion that income inequality is costing us potential geniuses and slowly down our scientific and technological achievement, this study strikes me as total nonsense. Patents are expensive. Just filing one costs hundreds of dollars. If you want to do it right and search for prior works you could end up paying thousands or more to a professional. There are tons of garbage and ridiculous patents, e.g. "rounded corners" on a smartphone. There are entire companies dedicated to patent trolling. Patents are like politics, a game tilted in favor of the wealthy.
Let's say for the sake of argument that the fourth grader pictured in this article is a potential genius inventor from a low income family. If she does everything "right" and is nurtured well enough to finish her education, she'll emerge college with the knowledge that enables her to create her genius invention but she's tens of thousands of dollars in debt. She can't just borrow thousands more to risk on a patent application because if she fails it will set her back years financially. She may never be able to dig out of that hole. So what will she do? She'll get a salaried position at a company, the company will get everything she develops and maybe she'll get six figures if it's anything besides AI. Was her genius wasted? I would say no. It just wasn't patented in her name.
You can't measure one broken system by comparing it to another broken system.
4
And that is one of many reasons we should all have Universal Basic Income -- tax the wealthy and give the proceeds to everyone else.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/why-we-should-all-have-a-basic-in...
4
"This Congress is solving economic problems that don't exist..."
No David, THE REPUBLICAN PARTY is doing this. Not a single Democrat voted for this rubbish and until the media stops indulging in cowardly false equivalence we will not achieve political clarity.
Emails! Hillary's Emails!
5
You may be giving too much credit to these people that are not being given a chance (in your opinion)
The white men in charge of the world have decided that they, and only they, should be in charge of everything. If there is to be innovation, they are to receive credit or they don't want innovation. Women and minorities are to be ridiculed whenever they have a bright idea. If a woman or minority's bright idea gets past the talking stage then the woman or minority is treated vindictively. A white man may subsequently propose the same idea and then take credit for it, maybe even receive a reward for it. This problem has existed for a long time. It is disheartening. The easy solution is to be vindictive like they are and keep your mouth shut. Now that employees must give over all of their ideas to their employers, less innovation can be expected. (Especially now that what remains of our federal government is chasing all of the best and brightest out of the country.) There are many, many "lost Einsteins." It doesn't suit Bannon's or Trump's fantasies to admit that women and minorities might have brains and something to contribute other than fecundity and blue collar labor; those nasty men have no intention of sharing. When will their supporters wake up?
2
Let's be honest it doesn't really matter all that much who holds power in this country --maintaining the status quo isn't a partisan issue. If you think that a politician can address the inequality matrix you live in a world of ideal fantasy -- wake up-- the political system by design privileges individual private property rights over equality!!! A system like that will generate inequality in perpetuity.
The du jour solution on offer has some serious issues. Namely, it frames the problem as one of unequal access specifically not generally. For instance, in this article, the author and the study cited look at who is being left out of the access to innovation by demographics. When you start to break up the world based on demographics you can get a sense of where we are failing but you leave out the biggest issue of all, that transcends identity -- scarcity. Please NYT tell me why we have to scarcity in quality of life? Why can we not advocate for baseline universal access to innovation, living wages, healthcare and dignity? Why must we accept the zero sum game of winners and losers? When you increase access and maintain scarcity all you have done is increased competition!!! The solution to inequality is solidarity. When we build bridges across our demographics and unite under a universal cause we can end inequality. If you take inequality seriously your sole purpose should be finding ways to transcend your intersectional categories and unify.
If you were taking about inequality driving the loss of highly capable and productive workers then I would buy the proposition. When you're about the loss of Einsteins you are talking about the most gifted of all human beings. These individuals overcome any and all obstacles to greatness. Sorry this is just another liberal propaganda piece.
Don't forget limiting immigration and taxing graduate tuition waivers as income, which will cause a brain drain in this country.
4
The writer clearly understands the importance of making sure that the opportunity to become important contributors to science and technology is available to all.: . . . Societies have a big interest in making sure that as many people as possible have the opportunity to become scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs. It’s not only a matter of fairness. Denying opportunities to talented people can end up hurting everyone . . ."
Mr. Leonhardt makes a good point: ot it is possible that members of some groups get groomed better than others; something that seems to have been the case for members of Jewish families, world wide, as suggested by, e.g., "A remarkable week for Jewish Nobel Prize winners". The Jewish Chronicle. --and elaborated here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_Nobel_laureates
"As of 2017, Nobel Prizes[note 1] have been awarded to 892 individuals[1], of whom 201 or 22.5% were Jews[note 2], although the total Jewish population comprises less than 0.2% of the world's population.[2] This means the percentage of Jewish Nobel laureates is at least 112.5 times or 11250% above average.. .."
It would seem to be important to identify aspects of opportunity available to members of Jewish families that are not also available to families generally, and try to make similar opportunities available to all families
3
You’re measuring wrong.
Go to a farm in Montana in one of those grey spaces. I am 100% sure there’s at least one new ‘invention’ being used.
Also filing for a patent takes /a lot/ of money; so the idea that only rich people participate in an activity where the start cost is > 10,000$ is a little like pointing out that few poor people and minorities play Polo.
Maybe start by reforming that hellscape that is US patient law?
3
Singing my song, David. The Future Begins In Utero. WHEN will we start acting as if it matters?
CORE PROBLEM: SINGLE MOTHER BIRTHS. DATA: Blacks, 70.4%; Native Americans/Alaskan Natives, 65.7%; Hispanics, 52.9%; Whites, 29.2% and Asian/Pacific Islander, 16.4%. Data from 2014.
https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/births-to-unmarried-women/
This means millions and millions raised in poverty. And, Dr. B, poverty matters a great deal. See "Unequal Childhoods" by Annette LaRue. Ten year longitudinal study of middle class, working class and poor class and their child raising strategies and outcomes. 2nd Ed. Table D.
I gnash my teeth at the stupidity and ignorance of those in Washington DC, along with the population in general. Which is why the DC Swamp exists.
And, if you really want to know, get "The Captured Economy" to see WHY we have a vast wealth inequality that we do. And Edward Luce said in "The Retreat of Western Liberalism", "No middle class = No democracy."
2
If you take a look at high school talent search winners by State, the top two are NY and CA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regeneron_Science_Talent_Search#Top_states
These states fund their education mostly by property taxes. The new tax law the Congress passed caps property tax deduction at $10k. The tax law will hurt funding for schools in places like New York.
I live in Long Island and my property taxes are over $10k. I don't own a mansion but a 3 bedroom small house. My kids benefited from the good schools they went to in my village. One is about to become a doctor and the other is working and pursing a graduate degree.
The money spent on schools helps the country in the long run. The clowns in Congress, mainly the Republicans, don't understand this, or worse, don't care.
2
On top of not supporting young people who could be important innovators, we are slashing funding for research, giving tax breaks to corporations that move patents to othercountries, and now we are raising taxes on college students who are supposed to be the next generation of innovators.
Republican policies will turn the USA into a sickly shadow of its former self.
3
In the light this column and the paper it cites cast, let's consider the claims made for one of the biggest drivers of American income inequality: mass immigration, which has reached unprecedented highs in the U.S. over the past fifty years, and taken a huge toll on the employment prospects of poor black, Hispanic, and white Americans (the greatest toll is on black employment).
According to its elite backers in both the Republican and Democratic parties -- the Tea Party may want lower immigration, but Republican Party leaders plainly want already high immigration to increase -- America benefits from immigrants' innovation. The data have never supported this claim, which often ignores the born-here founders of our most innovative companies to idolize their immigrant partners or successors. As a group, immigrants are not more entrepreneurial than people born in the U.S.
The study David Leonhardt cites indicates that innovation doesn't depend on cheap-labor immigration; it depends on a high quality of life. We get more innovators when we have more income equality, rather than more poor underclasses.
1
There are 3000 patents per 1000 children in this household. Patents are a nice discipline but more important is financing and marketing of a good idea. Patents are not really an accurate metric since their generation, applications, prosecution through USPTO office actions, issuance, and defense, have very little to do with math scores and household income. Rather since it is such an eciendive undertaking, it has everything to do with CFO and CMO of innovative companies who can afford to spend the money.
I suspect a lot of this phenomena comes from social networks and expectations. Upper income white males (and Asian males) are more expected to be innovators and to have access to networks of older innovators and entrepreneurs who can help. This is an important factor to figure out because it's not something that can be solved by throwing money at it. Networks are something you are born into and not something government has much control over.
1
"This Congress is solving economic problems that don’t exist and aggravating those that do." This claim is odd. The tone is odd. The reasonableness is odd. The logical implications are odd.
The tax-cut-for-the-rich law is a transfer of trillions from the working and middle classes to the rich. And that is the aim. The rich do not have enough money. Problem solved.
The Republicans are pushing public education over a cliff. The best private and public universities take most of their students from the richest families. The best companies hire at only the best colleges.
The poor have never had a fair chance at the better schools, and now the Republicans are erasing what little chance they have.
The middle class which once comprised a majority at schools like MIT and Ohio State has already lost most of its seats at those and the other better universities.
We are living in an era of Old Testament cruelty and rapaciousness. The strong (i.e., the 1%) do as they will, and the weak (the 99%) survive. The rich get richer, and the poor grow ever poorer.
"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
3
It looks like the inventors tend to grow up in Democratic areas. I saw this map first off when I saw the article "Trump's Pattern" and thought immediately: That's Trump's pattern: appealing where inventive persons tend to not grow up.
Almost 2018, folks! Voting Democratic can't arrive soon enough.
Patents are just another mirage for little people. At best, they provide only standing in federal court to sue an alleged infringer, which can easily run to $millions against a corporation that doesn't want to pay royalties.
Interesting results. But as usual the data does not include Native American Indians. Even though, those of us that are Native American are a small portion of the population we should be included in data analysis when race is being considered.
Our priorites have been wrong for a long time. Why do our schools exist? Sports are evlevated over academics. Everytime a long-term teachers strike threatens, everyone whines about how the students are going to miss out on extracuricular activities. The only time acedemics are mentioned is for the seniors who may be headed to college.
1
Reading this article, and https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/02/opinion/sunday/the-cost-of-devaluing-... , tells me we have barely scratched the surface oh human potential (may be 10%, leaving out 50% as women, and over 80% of men). We are going to make so much more progress than we have made. Having said, it is a shame how we have not engaged and used the potential of vast swaths of society.
Still would bet on "culture" being the foundation for the high productivity locales on the map.
Other comments have observed, correctly, the geographic clusters and attributed the resuts to the immersion in a surrounding "culture", e.g., the Minnesota patches, Madison, Wi, Southern Tier of NY state (Ithaca, Elmira-Corning. Triple Cities), Pullman,Wa / Moacow, Id. etc..
The startling low numbers at the other end of the scale are the unfortunate part of thsi story.
I think the commenters here criticizing the idea of using patents as the focus of the study need to realize that it's the only real proxy that we to measure innovation. The reason being is that it's a measurable outcome and secondly, we are in a capitalistic society in which everything is measurable in pecuniary cost. The only way to appeal to the owners of capital to fund the underprivileged is to show them that it's a good investment. Never mind that it's the right thing to do, as in the duty of citizen to country and their country people. Yeah, it's imperfect but it's the closest imperfect measure we're going to have to show those amongst us that believe helping poor children, especially those of color, are a waste of money. We have had intellectuals positing these very inhumane ideas. An example of this is the views of Henry Harpending (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Harpending#Views_on_race). He made some valuable scientific contributions in the field of anthropology only to advocate not spending on education because he believed that race-based disparities are based on genetics rather than disparities in funding, supported eugenics. We have people hiding under the guise of human biodiversity that advocate eliminating, short-changing, or even advocating for policies that are harmful to vulnerable groups of people.
1
As usual, you see what you want to see in social sciences and economics. They are not sciences, and their data can be used to draw almost any conclusion that you want. America is the land of opportunity if there ever was one, but one must grow up in a culture that values hard work, honesty, self-discipline, thrift, aspiration and ambition. By the way, those are the "middle class" values in the Wikipedia.
When I was in my PhD program over 30 years ago, a relatively small program in science with about 25 students total, my fellow students came from China, Japan, South Korea, Viet Nam, England, Australia, Germany, and the faculty and research scientists were from all over the globe.
What will happen now with the latest GOP tax plan – taxing tuition waivers in particular – is that U.S. graduate schools, especially in science and technology, will become largely populated with wealthy students from overseas. Not only will they be the ones who will be able to pay for the advanced education, they will also be much better prepared than U.S. students, since our educational system simply does not produce enough high-quality students to populate our graduate schools.
We have the best universities – and we use them to educate the rest of the world. Your kids' college tuition money is going to finance foreign graduate students, who are also the ones doing most of the teaching (not the professors!) And we act as the police force for the planet with our absurd financial allocations to the military. Presumably the rest of the world is grateful, as they eat our lunch.
Apparently the 0.1% couldn't care less, as long as they get their obscene cut from the pie. Put as euphemistically as possible: the way we are running our country is not something we can maintain, uphold, and defend. We continue to build and build and grow and grow on a base that is not sustainable. Not for us, anyway.
24
There is something simply bizarre in using math performance in the 3rd grade and pointing out that "for some reason" certain groups go on to attain patents at much higher rates than others..
And that is that the reason is obvious and clear to all. There is one most crucial factor that overrides all others in who will succeed at being able to come up with patent worthy ideas. And that factor is to actually be very good at math, or whichever relevant science, that person utilizes to come with their idea. And to master any subject requires that one study that subject at the university level.
So basically all that this piece is pointing out is who among the different groups is more likely to get to attend university.
And the fact that a university education cost money, and the better the university it is the more money it cost, so those children who come from lower income families are shut out from a university education is a problem that is well acknowledged. And the fact because of this society is losing potential Einstein's, is also clear and does not require graphs showing how many students who were good at math and were not able to go on to university.
And since the facts are that blacks and latinos are allot less likely to attend university the same holds true for them.
However this piece does not provide any solution to this well established and much spoken about problem. So its point and purpose are not at all clear.
2
The share of the federal budget used to fund basic research in science and engineering has dropped steadily over the past 50 years.
Patents are not cheap.
4
One could also make a correlation between innovation and the type of industries in the area.
The Minneapolis-St. Paul area once drew a lot of people to work in the computer industry. I was one of them. Then the medical device industry drew a lot of people.
Rochester MN has been drawing medical talent for generations. It also once had a large IBM facility.
I wonder what all the patents in NW Minnesota were for. Snowmobiles, fishing gear?
And then there is politics. Do the local governments make their places nice places to live, and so many people move there?
1
Well, I looked up several facts about Roseau County, MN, way up north on the Canadian border. It was where Polaris snowmobiles were invented. For more seehttp://www.polaris.com/en-us/company.
The Census 2016 estimate of Roseau’s population is 15,629 with 18% of school age 2813 students. So, it would be quite “easy” for Polaris to have three patents.
The research triangle of North Carolina is another high patent area. The triangle is University of North Carolina, North Carolina State University, and Duke University, all well-known research universities.
I think a more interesting correlation would be how much people were open to new ideas. I think the willingness to do something different would have a better correlation than the number of children.
Not to imply that I'm an Einstein by any means, but just to share my experience:
I grew up in a blue collar family, only one to go to college. Qualified for a free ride through college due to grades and family income (the days of GRANTS for low-income kids!) I had very high SATs, higher in math than English, top of a class of over 700 kids. My guidance counselor suggested a local two-year college. This was the 1970s. My female friends from that high school and I, on occasion, lament our lost potential.
13
I lament your lost potential as well.
Like when we were debating the health care crisis in America during the Obama years, we found that our per capita expenditures were at the very top of every country in world: we were the outliers. We also had to be chagrined that a) we were not experiencing the concomitant outcomes of health and longevity that smaller-spending nations were and b) we had a lot of people - remember tens of millions of citizens - who did not have health insurance and were getting their healthcare at the most expensive place: the emergency room.
When we start debating educational opportunity, we come to similarly disheartening statistics: We spend more per capita (that is, per student) in K-12 education than any other country, but in outcomes we are not enjoying the outcome of having the best-educated students: we're down about 23rd overall and among the G-20 at the near-bottom.
Having just retired from 25 years in the K-12 "industry" I have to say that we need to look to Finland's history where in the 1970's their outcomes looked about like ours in the USA, but now are far ahead, so far ahead that they are competing at the top-of-the-world.
There are many things the Finns did that we can do without raising the cost very much or at all. *That* is where we need to go first. But tying educational opportunity to property taxes in local districts nationwide is the great "inequalitfier" and that needs a good hard look, too.
Will we keep doing the same thing and expect a different result?
15
There are many theories about why human inventiveness occurs, none of them fully explanatory. One idea of why England led the industrial revolution's beginnings in the 18th and 19th century is the existence of British parsonages scattered throughout the land: lots of men with time on their hands.
Inventiveness also thrives on an atmosphere of the success of others. Once it starts, others follow, which encourages more inventiveness in a cycle of success and reward. There can also be the effect of stealing ideas or taking starting points and making something truly useful that would otherwise have lain fallow.
The idea that you have to have deep scientific knowledge or know how to code to be an inventor in the current age is not correct. What you have to have is the ability to think about things as they do not yet exist and then ask, "Why not?". Lots of good has come in the past from what otherwise would be considered kooky ideas.
It is not surprising that the south lags, once again, in this area as many others. It is more of a backward looking society and has been for generations. Indeed, southern, warmer areas around the world tend to be less industrialized and, perhaps, less motivated toward work and accomplishment than northern zones.
What is critical in inventiveness is the ability to support it, to allow people time and money to develop ideas and a society that encourages what might appear to be a waste of time and effort.
3
Seems to me that part of what the map shows is that inventors tend to come from places where there already are inventors. Many of the high scoring areas are places where there are a higher concentration of research universities and/or technology or engineering oriented corporate hubs. Silicon Valley, of course, but also eastern Massachusetts (MIT, etc.), the Madison, Wis. area, Detroit, Minneapolis -- and the Research Triangle area of North Carolina, one of the few bright spots in the south. Some of those areas are notably affluent, but some are not. Some have some of the best public schools in the nation, others have some of the most notoriously bad ones, and some in between. What they have in common are lots of role models for kids interested in science and engineering, and families inclined to encourage development of those skills and to model them as the path to success.
What we might want to be asking ourselves is why we are not seeing clusters also in southern cities that should also be incubators of innovation -- Atlanta, Miami, Nashville, Birmingham, . . .
3
There can be no doubt that education is integral to a creative person producing new ideas that result in necessary and successful products. But, what can be done about homes that are run by uneducated parents with dead end lives. How can children who do not have adult parents who demand they stay in school and learn something instead of dropping out and causing endless misery and failure and violence?
3
You have to catch the children at the youngest possible ages and help them develop a love of education, curiosity, exploration, and experimentation.
Obviously you can't take children from parents that aren't nurturing them well enough.
But you can offer the patents 24 hour free daycare with talented educators, good nutrition, and healthcare screening, and let parents who have to work many jobs, are over stressed, or are just drug addicts drop their kids off to learn to love learning.
Too many people in this country want to punish children for the sins of their parents (Even if that sin is working three jobs to buy necessities).
This attitude is wasting a lot of minds, and ends up costing far more later on. Prison costs ten times as much as daycare.
Invest in children for a better future.
These demographics could be the basis for a new electoral college. Give everyone a maroon hat (color on the chart for highest density) reading "Innovate and Keep America Great." But wait, after the tax cut bill by taxing tuition waivers and reducing PhD's in critical areas, the map can be redrawn showing how we Keep America Stupid.
It would be interesting to see an innovation measure (like number of patents but narrowed to the last three decades) across the globe and showing, as those years have advanced, has the US kept up or is falling behind. Additionally, how much innovation is being done here by non-native born people, and how many foreign students that were educated here but return home advanced innovation.
Those would be more telling for policy makers, if they might pay attention.
3
David, do you not understand why parents want to live in areas with excellent schools?
Few, if any, children living in poverty are going to be able to complete a rigorous curriculum, whether in science, humanities or the arts. Those who demonstrate they can excel deserve our help. Beyond that it's wasted money.
2
The national consequences of our extreme and worsening inequality are what we earn from our love affair with stupidity. We elect those to represent us who equate "conservativism" with gutting research in the humanities, decapitating our commitment to the arts and denying the objective realities of science.
White House propaganda tries to persuade us that this is what will make America great. It's odd that this has never made us great before.
10
Fascinating. And I guess all those coal miners back at work (?) and their kids who will follow in the family trade just don't have time to innovate and invent. But they will have time to vote for Trumpeters.
2
This column underlines the platform of the Democratic party. Each and every campaign and Dem official who has been elected supports stronger and deeper commitment to equal education for all the children in our nation. Compare that to the GOP and Betsy DeVos the next time you step into a voting booth! If you mark a vote just to support the party you have always chosen, you are helping turn America into a third world country. The GOP is not the GOP of your fathers. For proof, all you have to do is look at those who have pushed a harmful tax bill thru the House and the Senate. There is nothing in either of these versions that help you, and will just put more money for the stock market games of the uber rich. It is time for an economic revolt in our country. It is YOUR tax dollars that are being withheld from the programs, such as education, that are crippling us and will be our downfall.
1
I think of the topic of why so many of our American children are missing out every time I hear of tech company appealing for more H1B high tech immigrants. While I am glad these talented people want to come to America to contribute to our economy, I am more concerned about the huge number of Americans who go through our school system but do not emerge having absorbed the education needed to be eligible for these tech jobs.
Although this article touches on the need to improve the academic performance of children from other parts of the country, I think we too often jump to the conclusion that this means there is something wrong with our school system. No doubt many schools can be greatly improved, but as the article points out, it is the environment that children come from, the exposure to people who innovate, that seems to be the more important factor. I would go further to say that a child's performance in school and confidence at innovating is controlled mostly by the orientation and skill of their family and their immediate community in which they spent their formative childhood years. The problem originates deep within the anti intellectual, science fearing, media obsessed mass of our population, who propagate these values generation to generation. Most of or our STEM graduate students are foreigners, and this is because we are skimming the cream from those countries. The root problem is the intellectual poverty of much of American culture and family life.
6
There is an unspoken assumption that we must constantly change in order to thrive. We certainly could improve many things that we're doing, but when we invent something new, we end up throwing out the older versions, creating bigger and better mountains of garbage.
I'm not about to say that we're there yet, but we might be getting close. My iPhone 5 is a prime example. It's a good phone and an adequate mini-computer, with an OK camera to boot. When do we get to the place where I can repair it if it breaks, but I don't need to replace it?
Innovation is great, and there are many things that can be made better than they are now, but constant replacement is not always a good idea.
6
What if you superimposed the patent map over the religiosity map? I bet that the result would be the same: the higher church attendance in a given area, the lower the rate of invention. Income is only part of the cultural whole that encourages intellectual curiosity - or not; values academic excellence - or not; invests in education - or not. There are a myriad factors that contribute to intellectual success in a given group, including (and not mentioned in the article) family size. The more kids in the family, the less likely they are to grow up as inventors, explorers, entrepreneurs or artists. And then there is a dreaded but actual genetic component. Children who excel in math by third grade are clearly differently endowed from their dull classmates. If genetic differential plays out among individuals, it would also aggregate to contribute to differences among groups. This does not, of course, change the fact that a genius from a poor family has a rougher time than an equal talent growing up with rich parents. But it does indicate that showering money at poor America will not immediately bring about a bumper crop of talent.
3
The correlation between education and economic success is undeniable. Children who live in a society that demands a good quality education and have successful parents will achieve. These children also receive many other elements such as access to the arts, intellectual conversation, encouragement to read and comprehend and understand the difference between facts and lies.
There is a remarkable difference between the red and blue states, the blue states are willing to pay through higher taxation for very good schools with an expanded curriculum the reverse is true in red states.
The Republican Party in general and this Administration in particular are totally unwilling to spend monies on a good education as well as have the ability to penalize those States that finance education through State and Local taxes.
3
Providing a solid education to those who will enter fields which require it is laudable but ignores the fact that lots of jobs do not require an advanced education yet they do need competent people to do them. If ten percent of the US adult population works in retail performing menial tasks, then any education beyond the minimum to satisfactorily complete those tasks is wasted.
Interesting data.
But personally, I would be more interested in seeing similar demographic data and its correlation to starting new businesses. That’s where the rubber really meets the road. Isn’t it?
3
Financial inequity is certainly a large component of this lag in innovation and creative thinking. However, I place equal blame on an education system that focuses too heavily on one way of thinking, teaching to the test, and a top-down agenda that puts administrators and teaching dogma first, and children last. A well rounded education needs to include STEAM...art and music as well as the 3R's. Creativity and free thinking suffers under the thumb of "the right answer" and "one way of doing things." I also fault parents who pressure kids, over schedule kids, and at the same time swoop in to rescue them at the least sign of failure or need to figure something out on their own. Parents and our greater educational structures are creating generations of kids who have had the creativity and curiosity educated out of them.
1
What is it about the midwest and new england states that is producing so many inventors? Yes, there is some concentration on the coast of California, but the bulk appears to be coming from the other side of the country with virtually nothing in the south. This seems to be more cultural than socio economic.
4
I agree with the idea - that we can do more to ensure that young people who are able to excel are given the opportunity to do so. I support funding K-12 schools through state taxes rather than local property taxes which may perpetuate existing socioeconomic differences.
However, we need to be careful with this idea of finding role models that "look like you do". First, there is ample research from Hoxby of Stanford and Avery of Harvard which shows that those who are high achievers but poor aren't even disproportionately black or Hispanic.
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2013a_hoxby.pdf
More typical is the child of poor white parents from Nowhere, IA who simply lacks the money or the willingness to find those educational opportunities where they exist - instead choosing to go to college at the local state school with their friends.
On the other hand, many of these elite colleges are making an effort to find these students. You see programs like Harvard's where no one earning less than $160,000 pays more than 10% of their income ... and those under $60,000 are free ! In addition, Harvard and many schools are now using technology including MOOCs (massively online open courses) to further reach students.
But we shouldn't make this a racial issue. The article basically implies that affirmative action is necessary in order to give black and brown kids role models. But role models scan come in all shapes and sizes.
2
The county level graphic is interesting. The county where I graduated high school from shows zero, but I have invented many things. They are not patented because they are protected under trade secrets and classification because they are too important to be made public (and in part also a violation of federal law to do so unless your name is Hillary).
The way the data is picked skews toward software and business process patents, which are proliferating, but also not worthy of being protected as a patent (these are a lot like patenting a sentence, silly). But that makes it not quite as useful of a chart as one might want.
The study fails as a good science fair project because it mixes variables, race, income, and location. The questions are: For a given race, location, and math scores, what impact does income make? Then proceed with each variable holding the rest constant. Innate characteristics need to be separated from those we can do something about.
I like the last paragraph and have long complained about that. A school district that builds a $50M stadium are fools without a $100M high school laboratory.
4
For years I have been arguing that America is eroding its ability to compete globally because, due largely to administrative greed, it bankrupts its young before they get a chance of reaching the workplace. Education loans are the shackles that force a subservient class to work menial jobs, often even after graduation, and not jobs in which individuals would thrive. Then, in their later twenties, perhaps wanting to start a family, they are encumbered by the need for healthcare, another shackle, which further hinders one's ability to move about the workplace freely, and into more personally interesting and rewarding jobs but that risk the loss of health insurance.
We live in a capitalist society that is fast eroding the ability of its own people to spend and prosper - financially, intellectually, and in full health. Most of this is caused by self-serving administration that has outgrown its original purpose. Administration used to be a support entity for the sharp end, the productive end. It is now reversed.
When a university makes cuts, it makes them to academia, not administration. When administration wants a raise, it discusses it itself and awards it to itself. Not so with academia. The same is true for many large business, but more so within the public sector such as local governments that have little oversight.
This U.S. would benefit greatly for having, more or less, free education and single payer healthcare. Other countries do it and per capita perform far better.
2
We do have 100% FREE education for every child K-12, up to age 18.
No nation provides completely free college for every child; it would be impossibly costly. The nations with "free" college offer it only to the top students, who compete via tests to get in. The other kids go to vocational training, or nothing.
YOU TOO COULD BE AN INVENTOR!
This is a message never offered to kids in school except, to a limited degree, with science fairs which are oriented around demonstrating known principles. Most kids don't get the chance to participate in science fairs because they are too busy going to class after class and "you can't fall behind!".
You don't need 148 IQ. You don't need a Ph.D. You don't need to be an Einstein, either (as far as we know, there was only one of those). What you need is a belief in possibility ("this could be worth something") and the determination to pursue the objective which, in many cases, also involves having the means (money and time) to keep plugging along.
The first step of an invention is a concept, coming up with an idea for how something might work to improve life, processes and possibilities. A concept can be based on profound knowledge or it can come from being naive, not knowing enough about a given field to perceive the roadblocks. Lack of knowledge is sometimes useful. The second step is a belief in possibility, a vision strong enough to inspire concerted action.
Our school systems teach as though there is some great, solid block of immutable information. They don't teach possibility. Schools teach that if you can climb this mountain of established knowledge, you're ace.
An innovation society teaches and welcomes innovation, celebrates it. Poorer kids are less likely to invent because they have to go immediately to work at ordinary jobs.
2
It was discovered that my kid was a math genius when he was tested to get into first grade at a private school, which was/is the only option, if you can afford it, for kids growing up in New Orleans.
Long story short he has a Ph.D from Duke in Mechanical Engineering and is doing important work for our government.
He invented some cool stuff while at Duke and Steve Jobs contacted him and gave him his personal email and cell no.
We are upper middle class and spent a ton of money on his education which was money incredibly well spent. He went through grad school at Duke tuition free because of his teaching and research duties.
Under the new tax ripoff passed by the Greedy Oily Party he would have had to pay 5 figures in income tax for three years while receiving no cash income. We could have afforded it, but we are among the few who could nationwide.
If one wanted to purposefully design a plan to stifle innovation by the best and brightest in America coming into their own, you couldn’t have done better than what the GOP has done to graduate students.
I know science is on the outs in this country with those currently in political power and magical thinking/alternative facts are de rigeur, but this mode of thinking presents a clear and present danger to the long term vitality of innovation in America and our economic preeminence in the world-all so the rich can get richer and the poor poorer.
6
We have 7 billion people on this planet. Many countries are becoming more affluent and their children better educated every day. Brilliant immigrants come here because we are a wealthy country and there’s more opportunity to live well if you have the smarts. The countries they came from bore the costs of raising and educating them, so we didn’t have to. It costs a lot to educate children well, and with our ridiculous mission to reduce the size of government to fit in a bathtub, we don’t have the money. Government is the enemy anyway, so nobody wants to send their children to public schools. We’re now becoming a nation of privately run strip mall pop-up schools that rarely provide a decent education in anything but bible studies. Our standings on international PISA tests are abysmal.
So, why not just import what we need? We are nation of only 340 million human beings. Let’s take advantage of the 7 billion out there.
That’s what most Americans don’t understand. Silicon Valley and the rest of the technical innovation world don’t care about American children—they can import the best and brightest from abroad. The minute legislators talk about limiting H1B visas, the CEO’s start to hyper-ventilate and pass out. They know they can’t get the talent they need from the U. S.
Capitalism is about getting the best for less, right? We need a government that works.
2
Wow, that map is heavily weighted to my neck of the woods. It doesn't surprise me though. You'll notice a concentration down by Rochester Minnesota, and I suspect this is a combination of the present of the Mayo Clinic and IBM. Probably mostly Mayo though.
Up here in the tundra, we stay inside and think a lot, I guess. Perhaps because we don't have the most industry here, we imagine making fortunes by patenting things.
What the world lacks today is not pure technology, we lack communication technology. We've been trained to follow our worst instincts, for quick and very satisfying displays of our attitudes rather than for real communication that achieves better understanding.
It should be obvious to people that we have a significant problem, that just as tech has connected more people faster than ever before, our politics degraded at the same pace.
I don't claim to have all the answers, but at least I tried something. Maybe more inventors will follow.
Not to mention the refusal to recognize gifted kids ( "All children are gifted") and provide the education they need. This is especially an issue for gifted kids who face socioeconomic challenges. (Oh and that bizarre little corner of Minnesota - Warroad. Minn - home of Marvin windows, sparsely populated produces lots of patents and some of country's best hockey players)
Innovators need an adequate education, creativity and a strong work ethic. Having role models builds on that.
Education: Upper Midwest and New England states have some of the highest HS graduation rates and spending per capita on K-12 education. Southern states are at the bottom. These measures fit the map imperfectly, because they involve all students, not just the subjects of this study, but their importance should not be underestimated. The ability to receive and benefit from high quality familial pre-K, K-12 and higher education correlates with family income.
Creativity and work ethic: Any rural or urban childhood experience that teaches self-reliance and the importance of hard work will foster work ethic and creative responses to challenges. Perhaps this study is an argument for sizable taxation and limitation on estate pass through to children, especially before they prove themselves independently. Those who are too comfortable too early are less likely to become great innovators.
Role models: If we are talking about innovators in their mid-40s (inferred from the project summary), their formative years were 25-40 years ago. The industrial Midwest and counties housing centers of innovation might be expected to loom large on the map. Is the hollowing out of American manufacturing a serious problem for future innovation, or does it not matter if the future is information, communication, robotics and AI, etc?
Interesting article. I would also want to see some evidence of what percentage of these kids actually wanted to be innovators or inventors, but were unable to because of lack of opportunity. I grew up working class and made it to college. I majored in history and poly sci and had very good grades. Many of my professors urged me to apply to graduate programs and go for a PhD because I was a double minority and sure to get accepted into a top program with full funding. But I decided I did not want to spend several of my best income earning years, deferring my undergrad debt, writing a dissertation few would read, and then struggling to get into a tenure track position and trying to eke out a living on several adjunct positions, like many of my former teachers.
And now, 6 years since finishing my bachelor's, I work for myself, make a decent income, and have a good quality of life that includes work I find satisfying and a family I love. Just because someone can do something, doesn't mean they want to do it. If a rural kid was a mathematical genius but preferred to use his/her ability to improve the family farm, rather than work in silicon valley, is society really missing out? I've never had an iphone, but I eat produce everyday.
2
If you are raised in a culture of poverty and low expectations, how can you possibly imagine you want to innovate something. Where would you even find out if you were a "mathematical genius" is you lived in poverty and low expectations and poor educational systems, especially if you were a member of a minority. If you had no role models, how could you even imagine you could be successful at anything. I came from a working class family but I did have 1 role model in my extended family and 1 person in high school who recognized my ability and encouraged and pushed. You think any of these kids have any role models or anyone who is pushing them. I believe you are deluded by your own relative success--The "If I can do it, so can they." I thought, realistically, "if my uncle can do it, so can I," because he was part of my family and general ability. But I would never say that about anyone I don't know or I know comes from a family of low expectations.
1
I think that this article is an argument for an educational system that is not run like an assembly line. A system where students are not restricted by their age to certain classes in certain grades but one where if a student is able to read at an advanced level she is not restricted to her chronological age level, where a student that is excellent in math is encouraged to learn more and at a deeper level once she reaches proficiency with basic facts. It argues for an educational system staffed by teachers who are not antagonistic or frightened of students who ask questions, who do not always sit still, who are not "good" students.
America is in the midst of a few crises now. Too many people of all ages cannot find jobs that pay enough to do anything but barely keep pace with their bills. Our educational system in grades K-12 is not turning out graduates prepared to work. College has become our vocational education rather than a place for the intellectually curious. But America has a tradition of distrusting, disliking, and denigrating intelligent people. (Look at the GOPs attitudes towards the Ivy League even though a number of them have graduated from Ivy League schools and are blessed with the advantages attendant upon that.)
We're losing more than Einsteins here. When businesses refuse to hire, invest in and train, or decide to outsource jobs to other countries, every American loses. We're losing a decent standard of living, the middle class.
9
I attended a very large high school in the sixties that included everything from vocational shop to academics. The nice thing about that large school was that the academics were offered at proficiency levels 1-3, so if a person wanted to take trigonometry, they could take it at a level where they were likely to succeed. I went from being a second generation American child with parents who did not graduate high school to obtaining an advanced degree in engineering because I had the opportunity to learn at a level that suited me. And, it was good old American public education.
I also enjoyed the cultural variance within the school. There were business classes and shop classes as well as the usual academics. There wasn't an artificial cultural divide. I took business, shop and music classes that interested me in addition to the math and science courses that landed me in an ivy league engineering school.
As for pre high-school, I don't know if children are "skipped" anymore, but they should be.
I am not an educator, so I don't understand exactly what's happened to us, but we have failed. Public education was flexible enough back then to give every kid opportunities commensurate with their interests and abilities. If it's become "cookie-cutter" to the extent that children are being held back, then that is unfortunate.
Other countries are beating us badly in international PISA test scores. Perhaps we should get off our high horse and find out what they're doing.
2
"Other countries are beating us badly in international PISA test scores. Perhaps we should get off our high horse and find out what they're doing."
Perhaps the cultures other countries value intellectual curiosity and academic excellence more than this culture of self-absorbed "American Exceptionalism."
Re: Richard Hofstader's "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life"
Susan Jacoby's "The Age of American Unreason"
Rick Shenkman's "Just How Stupid Are We?"
(Fifty percent of Americans can name four characters from “The Simpsons,” but only two out of five can name all three branches of the federal government.)
"Most people would rather die than think."
- Bertrand Russell
1
This is an interesting comparison but not very valuable, particularly considering the "broken" nature of patents in the U.S.. All one has to do is attempt the patent process, and particularly within academia, to realize the impossibility of reason.
Industries, and particularly IP-intensive innovators have the wherewithal and will to successfully pursue and defend patents. The door is closed to many others irrespective of socioeconomic class.
I agree that the patent system is broken. In a long career in British engineering I have had contact with proposed and actual patents which I considered not worth the paper they were written on. America seems to have had the same problem for a long time judging by what I read years ago.
The focus on patents is somewhat artificial. Much excellent scientific work generates few or no patents. Although I expect a focus on papers published in the referred technical journals would produce a similar result.
2
I think they used patents as a measure because it's a fairly easy reflection of a lot of things--decent education, encouragement, expectations, and all the things many people simply do not have.
1
As a woman with a patent (engineer, aerospace), I would add that many patents are the result of work at corporations and you need to be part of the team that works on new ideas. You need the education, drive and opportunity to advance within a company. Math skills are really important. You need a very good to excellent education, which is easiest to get if you live in a school district with good schools and then have access to top notch colleges ... easiest and most cost efficient way is to go to the state university.
I have to comment on the motivation issue amongst coal miners kid's, you do realize that some people leave every generation, get that good state education, and move to cities in their states or other states for work. I moved .. the best technical jobs are concentrated near technology hubs and near universities ... not in some coal mining town. And then their kids grow up in say Silicon Valley ... and get patents ...
The culture of not leaving even if you are 20 and can't find a decent job ... maybe that is what is left in some of these places ...
3
We don’t need more little einsteins, patents and tech bros. We need nurses, electricians, drivers, food service workers, etc. who bring a solid and decent education and passion and dedication to their work, and can cover the basics and then a little something extra with their paychecks, and not have to worry if they will have health care or if their children will become serfs. If the quality of public education and life in general were fairly distributed in the US the talent would show itself, the patents would still be there and everyday folks wouldn’t feel like they’re disposable. Everyday citizens need publicly funded healthcare and free and nearly free high quality education up through the graduate level. That would be an instant tax cut for all but the most affluent and all forms of talent would be leveraged towards prosperity for all.
9
Not sure helping low-income families will help. It is a motivation problem. Take coal mining as an example Immigrants who worked in coal mining wanted their children to do better and encourage education. Americans working in coal mines wanted their children to work in coal mines and downplayed academics. Culture matters.
2
That innovation rates across much of the South are low doesn’t surprise me. It’s like the chorus sang in “Inherit The Wind”:
“Give me that old-time religion,
Give me that old-time religion
Give me that old-time religion
It's good enough for me ...”.
Ignorance is bliss, science evil; the Devil’s workshop. Who needs to think, let alone innovate, when your preacher says “don’t bother.”
11
How does that explain Eastern Central California then? Or Northeastern Nevada? or Southwestern Wyoming? Are those hotbeds of religiosity?
1
I just finished reading "Hillybilly Elegy." It gives insight into a culture that does not value education, culture, even health, and in this case religion. It helps explain why #45 was elected. If you're raised in a culture like that, the chances of your growing up, finishing high school, and getting a law degree are minimal. Vance actually doesn't know anyone like himself.
Einstein was a postal clerk.
3
MoreRadishesPlease, after too many radishes wrote: "Einstein was a postal clerk."
Uhh, no. He a patent clerk in the patent office and he had a PHD in physics.
And guess what. There are many reasons to believe that his wife at the time, 1905, did some of the most important preliminary work on his mathematics. She also had a degree. But of course, there were the kids to take care of and besides, women don't do "science", right?
https://www.theverge.com/2012/4/18/2957592/einstein-special-theory-of-re...
1
Einstein worked, ironically, in a patent office.
What is the explanation for the high rate of invention in the Dakotas and Minnesota? Leonhardt owes his readers at least an hypothesis.
3
Nice point: we're killing our country for the sake of avarice at the highest levels of government.
The more we take care of our personal fortunes, the more we keep the goodies away from everybody else, the more we suffer.
Winners of this obscene game of keep away have been set free in the name of "business", of "free enterprise", the abomination that is unregulated capitalism.
It's gone on so long many believe capitalism, freedom, democracy are synonyms. But not the early theorists and adherents of capitalism who, to a man, warned of the need for careful and even ruthless regulation. Because every feature that makes capitalism great also makes it a mortal threat.
America is far over on the mortal threat side. Which is why your nascent geniuses will likely never be heard from. And why your comments reflect the bias they seek to address.
Patents reflect nothing so much as money waiting to be gathered up and socked away in some moldering Bahamian cellar, of no value to anyone.
Patents are the measure of innovation when the sole purpose of innovation is income. Your analysis suffers from a far milder case of what afflicts Congress: nothing has any value, nothing is rational, unless it has dollar signs in front of it.
Those putting our country at risk because 'business people can't innovate without more money than any family could spend in a century' won't understand that the American people will not innovate unless they have enough to eat, and maybe decent schools.
2
No child should suffer economic or educational disadvantage because of who or what their parents are- that should be the prime directive underpinning all programs that impact or involve families and children. These numbers show the high price of educational, social and economic inequality in our nation.
I wonder also about the relationship between the religious denial of modern evolutionary biology, astrophysics and other science because it runs counter to the dogma of the Evangelical and other fundamentalist Christian sects that are so pervasive in the Southeast. Add in the recent trend of home schooling and private church schools with materials biased to support the nonsense of Biblical literalists who think the planet only thousands of years old. I think part of the problem is the curse of rigid fundamentalist Christianity in the South that is hurting the kids of the region in innovation, entrepreneurship and probably the widespread embrace of modern Radical Republicanism that birthed the travesty of a President Trump.
6
The Einsteins, Feynmans and Salks did not come from high income families. Patent ownership? Seriously? Did the esteemed professors run millions of factor correlations until they could find one that fit their theory?
3
Seriously? Don't see any appalachia background in E, F, or S. For starters, emigrating to anywhere took some wherewithal. Not enormous, but enough to consider education as a decent ladder. Also, Switzerland and New York , IMO, represented allowable, if not even overly supportive, cultures. Part of one's economic level includes the educational system available to him/her. And so forth....seriously.
I am sorry, but you are terribly naive. The Oligarchs that bought the GOP and who run the country have no interest in New breakthroughs. Such innovations would create new Billionaires who might upset the status quo. The current ruling class is only interested in protecting their money and stays, and ensuring no one new climbs the ladder. When the economy and environment tank, they will retreat behind their secure walls to their controlled envirnments.
1
It would be easy to use data of this type to belittle red states but I suspect the results say a lot more about inventive types flocking to colleges and cities that recruit and support innovators, in much the same way wannabe talents relocate to Los Angeles and New York City where they're much more likely to find creative opportunities.
3
The most myopic item in the GOP's anti-economy tax bill is designating tuition waivers for grad students as taxable income. Those folks are working 80 hours a week trying to cure diseases, innovate, proble solve, etc. My neighbor has Parkinson his very smart son has just finished his Phd in Biology as he has dedicated his life to find a cure for the disease that is ravaging his Dad's life.
Grad students are already caring student loans from undergrad programs and living on ramen noodles. The GOP is anti-innovation and research.
Total incompetence meets evil.
5
Foreign countries are already recruiting American STEM graduates, mostly their own nationals who have come to the U.S for training, at this point, but more and more Americans are looking into studying or working overseas.
Other countries used to complain about a "brain drain" to the U.S., but that flow may reverse itself if the current Republican policies go into force and are maintained over the long term.
Canadian consular officials have reported an upswing in the number of American scientists and engineers wanting to go work there.
2
Einstein’s example does not suggest the need for affluence in an inventor, David.
4
The areas with the lowest percentages of patents are those with the highest percentages of theocrats - religious people who make educational and political decisions based on religious beliefs.
No theocracy has ever produced scientific inventions, health care advances, and relief from poverty. Religion is use as a way of enslaving people and making them dumber.
2
One of the most cruel and idiotic things we do is fund our schools based on local property taxes.
5
Instead of the title being "Lost Einsteins: The Innovations We’re Missing," shouldn't the title be "Lost Edisons: The Innovations We’re Missing"? Einstein was a great European scientist but not much of an inventor, while Edison was a great American inventor with his name on 1,093 U.S. patents.
7
I am an innovator and have many patents - I dispute this research. Correlation is not causation - we are still struggling to understand the "nature verses nurture" problem. Ramanujam was not comming from rich family - there are many aspects in life that can not be explained by reason. Reason is a useful tool to uncover the partial truth but innovation requires power of observation more than reason. Power of observation and connecting the dots is pre condion for mathematical formulation. We still do not know where from this power of observation and connecting the dots come - definitely you can not buy them. My own view - capacity to live with nature and observe nature is one of the powerful aspect of innovators - innovation comes from inside. Moreover, patents are a poor proxy of innovation - everyday innovation is happening in the kitchen, entertainments, fashion, arts and music and these innovations have tremendous economic value.
5
Every commenter seems to be missing the point of the research: there are systematic inequalities of income, GENDER, and RACE in terms of who has the ability to realize their talents. Patents, yes, are only one measure of "innovation" or "creativity" but it is an important--and available--one. There are other studies that show similar patterns of inequality in other opportunities not realized (e.g., gaining full professorship at a university, having a show in a major art museum). Our society is impoverished--in all senses of that word--when we systematically deny support to all our children--regardless of gender or race/ethnicity--to realize their talents. Growing wealth inequality is going to make this worse, and the growing lack of support to our public schools and universities, but so is racism and misogyny.
14
Sci-fi writer Neal Stephenson has long pointed out that a huge fraction of America's technological innovators have backgrounds like his: from northern college towns, typically with Yankee / Puritan ancestry. (As Tom Wolfe noted in 1983, Robert Noyce of Intel, "The Mayor of Silicon Valley," was the son of the Congregationalist chaplin of Grinnell College in Iowa.) Stephenson went on to write his four-volume "Baroque" series of historical novels to explain to contemporary readers how Anglo-American Puritanism laid the cultural groundwork for today's technology.
3
Ah, yet another rationalization to take money from those who have to finance social engineering projects. No thanks. We may miss a few Einsteins, but that is better than redistributionist policy masquerading as social good.
3
Fun article to read; upsetting at the same time, given that our priorities are not based on reason and common sense; no 'feelers' are sent out to 'discover' the potential discoverers/inventors/ new Einsteins out there. And a mentor to take those kids under his/her wing (hopefully many more that are poor and/or discriminated against). Trouble is, as you mentioned, that we live in a rich country, a capitalistic system, with wide inequalities and deep inequities, where the mantra of 'equality of opportunity' is nonexistent, an empty word to appease the many for the benefit of none. We have forgotten that the freedom we have carries responsibilities, and I cannot think of any more important thing than to cultivate and educate what is the most valuable piece in this puzzle, it's people. Not only to find the future 'geniuses' but to provide the incentives so the best of the best become the teachers and mentors, in a spirit of full cooperation (and not rivalry). It is disgraceful we have a brutus ignoramus in the White House who claims willful ignorance about the stupidity of wasting our talent. And a strong military 'a la Trump' is only as strong as it's weakest diplomatic corp, while our retrograde health and educational system remains in shambles. How dumb do we want to be, by not speaking to the powers in government, abusive and incompetent, before something is done to reverse our path to oblivion?
2
Mr. Leonhardt says: How can we do so? We can stop showering huge tax breaks on the affluent and reinvest the money where it’s needed."
This stark truth reveals the sick greed that is consuming Republicans and their overlords. Through much of my life in America, there was definite love and concern for the future of the country by citizens of various affiliations. Republicans are like crooks coming upon an injured man in the street who they subsequently rob blind. America is wounded by Trump and his greedy supporters. The tax bill passed by the Senate is absolute evidence of the horrible disregard for America's future couched in the language of 'America first.' The truth is: It's the rich and greedy first and only.
6
Yet another reason to allow this country to dissolve into regions reflecting common goals and philosophy of governement. Why should the blue states continually throw good money after bad at the thankless and retrograde South, especially when there seems to be so little ROI? The anti-intellectualism down there is as stifling as the humidity.
1
Blue states invest more in education, which explains why most of the high patent states are blue.
But the GOP wants to punish blue states, and make them more like the red states with weak education systems.
That is why the GOP tax plan is eliminating the deduction for state and local taxes — to lower the US patent rate, and dumb down America, so we are all like the red states.
5
The title is misleading and is an annoying instance of journalistic hyperbole. I assume the title refers to Albert Einstein (1879-1956). Einstein was not an inventor; he was a theoretical physicist who elaborated scientific theories that changed the way the laws of motion and energy are understood. Einstein is generally regarded as one of the greatest scientists in history. But the Special and General laws of relativity are not things that can be patented--on the contrary, they indicate universal characteristics of matter, time and energy. Taking those laws into consideration, however, might very well influence how a device is conceptualize or applied--but that's different. But really, the title is about as annoying as the "Baby Einstein" thing. Somebody should do an article on the misuse of Einstein's name.
5
"No one knows how many lost Einsteins there are....."
Ha! I know how many: A LOT! And it costs us all a lot of money. Experiments where smart minority kids are given encouragement to take advanced math and to take advanced study in college have all pretty much succeeded in those kids ending up as engineers or scientists.
3
OK, this is interesting. But Leonhardt lets his ideological obsession with inequality prevent him from drawing the right conclusions from Chetty's study. No matter what the problem is, Leonhardt's answer is always more equality.
He is wrong. The US has long been one of the most unequal countries in the world AND its most innovative country.
Leonhardt spins Chetty's study to make the case that the gap between the rich and the poor has cost us thousands of Einsteins. The evidence? Top students who also come from high-income families have a far greater likelihood of becoming inventors. But that is a classic error. The key word there may not be "high-income," it is more likely "family." It's not about money. The same virtues that enable families to earn high incomes are the virtues that enable them to provide an upbringing that allows their kids to fully exploit their talents.
Leonhardt seems to verify this suspicion. He mentions that kids who grow up around inventions or inventors are more likely to become inventors themselves. Exactly. The family is probably the major context where that critical exposure takes place.
So Congress may have done the right thing after all. Redistribution likely isn't the fix. But inculcating Asian family values in the bottom 80% of income earners might do the trick.
3
America is not the incubator of innovation, it is the incubator of the American Dream. America is so good at it, I doubt America knows this.
1
I find the premise of this column misguided. Mr. Leonhardt writes that "societies have a big interest in making sure that as many people as possible have the opportunity to become scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs."
Not true. Mr. Leonhardt has fallen for the romantic notion that “genius” can save society.
Science and inventions, and the "geniuses" behind them, are inherently neither good nor bad for society. One thing about them that's decidedly not true, however, is that they are the solution to the looming catastrophes brought on by such things as climate change and population growth. These are not scientific challenges. These are political challenges that must be faced by the whole societies, geniuses and non-geniuses alike.
As for entrepreneurship, this is not a viable choice for most individuals, for whom working alone is anathema.
In his enthusiasm for his many charts, Mr. Leonhardt forgot that the sentence he really should have written is: "Societies have a big interest in creating fully informed and educated citizens." That's what's needed to make the hard political choices of the future.
6
I disagree.
Climate change is a scientific and technical problem. We are refusing to research it or to research solutions such as more efficient cars, more efficient houses, more efficient lighting, etc because 50% of people in America don't believe in science and vote accordingly.
LED lights have certainly saved gillions of Watts of electricity. My Mazda 3 gets 37 mpg which is 50% more than some cars, and drives just as well. Your cell phone or iPad is tiny and uses very little power. No more giant CRT monitor and electric hog desktop. Energy star appliances are real and a good washer spins clothes until almost dry to save dryer time and a good fridge has a small compressor.
Population growth - how do you think the latest and remarkably effective birth control methods came about ? How many families easily avoided having child #3 or even child #2 rather than facing 20 years of fertility with only unreliable and clumsy methods?
Entrepreneurship - sorry, you must be older. Our children will be entrepreneurs because we have allowed good corporate jobs to be replaced by the gig economy. Whether you chose to work alone is not really relevant, you will glide in and out of teams, may work from home because you don't get office space, etc. You can't make a blah income if you have months or years of low or no employment during lulls in your industry. Part time work .. maybe I will sell on eBay to pay the bills.
Education => innovation
Solutions to climate change and our other problems are political AND technological AND entrepreneurial.
This makes me wonder just how much farther we are destined to fall behind, given that trump and his sycophantic members of Congress are bent on taxing tuition grants as income - forcing even more students to forgo getting doctorate level degrees; all in the name of giving money to the richest among us.
A question to his 32% base of 'uneducated' Americans: How much poorer do you need to get before you understand that trump does *not* care about you?
1
The author obviously does not recognize a Euthyphro problem - Smart people beget smart kids - an inventive kid is not simply a product of doing well in math - an inventive kid simply has a native ability to do math and science external to his ability to create things.
It always delight me when Yale math majors turned journalists bewail the lack of applied maths to innovation.
3
It's quite appropriate to be thinking about lost Einsteins in the time of Trump. How many ot the million Jewish children lost during World War II would he have acted to save? From the present look of things, not many. Would we now have a cure for Alzheimer's or Lou Gehrig's Disease if the right children had been saved. Sadly for the entire world, we won't ever know.
5
Mr. Leonhardt is a modest man. He just wants to re-engineer society from the bottom up. What's he going to do in the afternoon?
Sorry for the sarcasm but, honestly, can we consider something that also is not easy but might be a tad more realistic? Let's do something about our travesty of a public school system.
After 60 yrs and several trillion dollars of effort to reform public education, the one thing that is painfully clear is that we have hired the wrong people for the job. We need to close down the U.S. Dept of Education. We need to turn off the lights in the schools of education and let those faculties find gainful employment somewhere else. And, before we try to re-engineer the whole of our society from the bottom up, let's re-engineer public education from the bottom up.
Does trying to re-engineer public education, from the bottom up, sound like a quixotic idea? Not nearly as quixotic as re-engineering all of society, as Mr Leonhardt wants to do.
3
Leonhardt begins with a false assumption, namely, patents = inventiveness/innovation.
Patents require dogged persistence in hammering through paperwork and often require a lawyer. Many inventive/innovative people couldn't be bothered.
A mom who is successfully working and successfully raising children is usually very inventive -- the less wealth available to her the more inventive by necessity she becomes.
Visit a successful farm -- lots of inventiveness there, too, but not usually patented. Because as Bruce Saffron writes: "Unless you work for a deep pocketed firm and they foot the bills, getting a patent is a fool’s errand: A waste of both time and money."
Also lots of misleading correlations in this piece and many unanswered questions. Why present only the correlation between math scores, wealth and patents. Are there not also other factors worth examining, like inferential thinking, reading abilities, introvert-ism, etc.
Lastly, why the rich pockets of patents in the Dakotas and Minnesota? And why a string of 4 patents/ 1000 children along the Vermont-New York border? Vermont has one of the lower per-capita incomes in New England but has always been staunchly independent and libertarian -- in the best sense of the word. Maybe Yankee rectitude and self-reliance have something to do with it
As a social commentary the piece works but only for readers predisposed to that point of view and non-critical thinkers …. but definitely not the lost, or found, Einsteins.
7
The disturbing results are of course not by accident. Evidence today's GOP.
We spend two to three times more for a special education student of an illegal immigrant family than we do for a student at Bx Science. Reversing this pervese system will create more working scientists, than the phony solutions in this article,
3
I think we are on a downward trend for additional reasons too: Firstly, arts programs are often cut when there is a financial problem. Art makes a person think differently, makes you consider multiple solutions for a problem. It helps you learn to articulate your ideas. This is beneficial to all disciplines.
Secondly, Parents do far too much for their children. There are so many children I know who do not have any chores to do, or do much thinking for themselves. The parents do everything. The result is the children can't think their way out of a paper bag. Thirdly, many schools are "teaching to the test" and don't have time to innovate. Also, some teachers have sadly fallen into routine, and don't want to deal with a child who thinks outside the box. Lastly, our society has gotten to where we glorify sports to the detriment of everything else. Everyone's child is going to make it to pro sports. Being smart is not valued, good ideas aren't valued. Being rich and famous is more valued than being smart and a good citizen. Being "different" or thinking differently has become just a marketing slogan. Actually being different is ridiculed.
18
ALB, You are absolutely correct. In my school district the arts have been slashed in order to accommodate ESL classes. We should NOT have ESL. Teach all students in English only.
2
We should eliminate poverty, and provide educational opportunities to everyone, for its own sake. That will give us all the "Einsteins" we need. You don't need an economic justification.
If you want more "Einsteins," the worst way to do it is raise the price of a college education to the cost of a house, and burden students with a lifetime of debt to pay for it. We once had free college education for everyone in America. We can and should get it back.
I studied relativity and quantum mechanics, and read Einstein's equations. I also learned about the sociology of science, which is well-studied.
Einstein was a good scientist, but there were many good scientists.
Einstein was turned into a media cult. (And propagandists like Ayan Rand promoted the myth of genius.)
Einstein was part of a community of smart people who were brought up in comfort with a good education. (His father was an engineer who gave him magnets to play with.)
If you want more Einsteins, duplicate the conditions under which he was born.
City College of New York was one of those environments. Just eliminate tuition, and give students stipends for expenses. As we used to do. As our European competitors do. As Bernie Sanders wants to do.
14
We never had "free college" for every American child! that is an absolutely false statement!
A few wealthy areas, like NYC or California, had low or no tuition public colleges -- at a time when our population was lower -- we had NO illegal immigration -- and at most, 15% of the top students ever even aspired to college.
Today, something like 80% of all children go to college, and our population is more than double what it was in the 60s (when about 20% went to college).
No nation on earth could give a free four-year college education to every single kid -- and remember, people abuse what is "free". It would mean the worst D students, the party animals, the absolutely unsuited and bored kids would all "go to college" and hang around for 7 years to get a "degree" in general studies, at the taxpayers dime. NO THANKS!
1
The SAT scores were supposed to level the playing field by identifying kids who might otherwise fall through the cracks because they weren't lucky enough to be born into an affluent family where college followed by lifetime opportunity is pretty much a given. This study shows that by then it's much too late for many of these would be Einstein's. Now that we know that 3rd grade is the magic number we can adjust our thinking. Germany moves these gifted children into accelerated programs during middle school setting them up for a path to university regardless of their parents ability to pay for advanced classes. We could do the same thing here.
But we need to address economic inequality and food insecurity also. A poor kid who doesn't know when their next meal is going to be isn't able to focus on learning. They're too busy trying to survive. Maslow's hierarchy of needs isn't just mythical thinking. The lack of having your basic needs met as a child sets you up to be risk adverse for the remainder of your life. Am I going to start a business or take the job that feeds me and my family.
3
Germany has an interesting system but it could not work here.
In fact,they separate the "college material" kids from the loser vocational kids in 6th grade, at age 11 (not age 8) and direct those premium kids to the best courses and teachers. The loser kids have to take vocational studies for blue collar jobs -- NO CHOICE. They have no chance to attend college, period.
So it is not "free college for every German kid". It is subsidized public colleges for the lucky few who are deemed "college material". The rest get inferior educations and NO chance to join the upper middle class.
Now...imagine in the USA....we institute this. 90% of white kids and 100% of asian kids get into the college track. But only 30% of black kids and 40% of hispanic kids do -- most black and hispanic kids are directed straight into blue collar training programs and refused any college.
Imagine the lawsuits....imaging the screaming of "racism".
So we can never, ever have the German system whether it "works" or not.
1
Dear heaven, this is devastating information! Rather than trying to undercut it, we need to take it to heart and implement policy changes that take it into account so we can change what we've been doing (or, to be more accurate, not doing).
Already, we're reducing the pool of bright, inquiring minds by our limits on immigration; the last thing we need to do is stymie the potential we have here at home. Even if these kids don't become inventors or innovators, they'll have curiosity regarding their world, which will influence their families and friends. (I see this at work with my 3-year-old great-niece who is very much influenced by her 10-year-old brother's desire to learn and understand as much as he can.)
Thank you so much for your column, and for sharing such vital information!!
3
I have to agree with many other commenters that patents don't mean much and have a poor correlation with "Lost Einsteins" Yes, we need to do more to educate and encourage top level students, but this patent study adds little to our knowledge. Sadly, too much social science research attempts to say more than is really warranted.
5
At the core of inequality in the US is discriminatory housing policy. Schools' resources are proportional to taxes in neighborhoods. These neighborhoods also have the most exclusionary housing policy, which robs kids from upward mobility and opportunity.
The most productive and prosperous regions in the country such as San Francisco and New York are shunting out newcomers with their restrictive housing policy and NIMBYism. In San Francisco, new housing gets nipped in the bud by homeowners who complain about shadows and 'maintaining neighborhood character'. Generations of kids will suffer as a result of their selfishness. The first step to foster more Einsteins is to remove such weaponized and tribal misuse of local control.
4
The housing issue you speak of -- a recent NYT article -- was in suburban Berkeley -- not San Francisco. And the infill housing proposed was going to be million dollar "tiny houses" for the ultra wealthy -- not good safe housing for working class families.
Berkeley was stratified -- the very rich and the very poor -- even when I was living in the East Bay, over 35 years ago. I could not afford Berkeley, though I wanted to live there -- it was quite charming and quaint -- and had to rent in downscale, majority black Oakland (literally one mile down the street). I could WALK to the gates of UC Berkeley, but I could never really fit in there. I wasn't wealthy enough.
You should worry a lot more about providing good educations for kids in places like Oakland California (though it is rapidly gentrifying itself today) and Detroit Michigan and Dayton Ohio and Little Rock Arkansas -- and worry less about the already rich in San Francisco!
1
yep - yesterday's article about the super-rich only caring about tax cuts for personal gain - 'Welcome to 1929' - meaning great pride comes before a great fall - share market highs - before share market crashes.
Greed comes before a fall.
What happened to the US's great expansion in the 20th Century - from the 1940s to the 1980s - all trickled-down the wall with tax cuts to the greedy rich - while the poor people suffer - the US has so many poor people it may not qualify as a rich country anymore soon ...
1
Frank, We are the richest third world country now.
Every study of this type universally suggests that more spending will result in some “better” result—always, always, urging us (read, the government) to levy higher taxes to “invest”. As if Incanting that word will make me want to pay more to the government. Like the military wanting more and more to make questionable weapons systems work.
Certainly, enough should be spent to afford students the opportunity to be educated well educated if they have the stuff to make it worthwhile. But there isn’t enough money in the world to actually equalize the chances of top-level success—it just isn’t possible anyway.
The real difference in most cases are family, a special kind of intelligence in the particular area the person happens to go into or fall
Into, and a ridiculous amount of drive and determination. How many actors have that special genius, discipline, and the “it” factor to be good in nearly every role? And the luck to be brought into projects with equally great writer and directors? Surgeons who invent new techniques and procedures?
Finally, let’s try to make sure kids have enough to eat and motivated teachers before we get carried away on the idea of the next space race in our elementary schools.
Except for a patented refrigerator that never caught on, Albert Einstein was a theoretical physicist, not an inventor or innovator. "Lost Einsteins" seems like a rather poor choice to refer to this problem. But he did come from a rather middle class background: his father and uncle ran an electrical goods factory, though they did go bankrupt and had to move from Germany to Italy.
The world's most prolific inventor, by contrast, Thomas Edison, came from a highly disadvantaged background and was disabled (partly deaf).
While inequality is a serious issue in its own right, I'm not sure the "Lost Einsteins" argument is the way to address it. The sources of creativity in society are very hard to identify, and many highly inegalitarian societies like Victorian Britain and America had surprisingly high levels of economic opportunity. Think of innovators like Carnegie, Arkwright, Hargreaves, Crompton, etc.
Today we seem to be in the worst of both worlds: high inequality and low economic opportunity.
6
The plutocrats and corporate lobbyists that run the Republican party don't think about our country's future and their vision of capitalistic aristocracy strongly tilts access to the best education to the wealthy.
The true success of a nation is measured by the realization of its human capital- that is, for all of our children to be able to fully realize their potential- emotionally and economically.
No American should emerge from our education system with crippling debt that limits their ability to follow their passions and true talents. No child should be forced to attend sub-par elementary schools as a result of our system of property-tax based school funding.
Compared to other advanced nations, we do a shockingly poor job of equally providing for the educational opportunity of our children, and the statistics in this article prove it.
The wealth of this nation is sustained mostly by the natural resources we inherited and is threatened by the moneyed special interests that dominate Washington today. We sacrifice our future in exchange for their immediate profits. Tax them more, and use the money to better educate all of our children.
5
We have to look at both the Republican attacks on education exemplified in the tax bill in which the congressional version taxes the tuition benefit of graduate students and combine that with the financially abusive model that universities use to train their students and extract cheap labor. The poorer students in graduate programs which are the incubators of the innovators usually make a small stipend and work long hours in labs and teach many of the undergraduate classes of these schools. They rely on college paid stipends that are usually too small to live on without help from parents that can afford to help. Graduate programs require long years of study in which you must live at the poverty line. After the Ph.D. is achieved, a scientist will be looking at years of geographic and monetary uncertainty as they enter the post-doctoral phase. This will further discourage not only those that are without financial means but anyone that wants to start a family, create a home or stay with older parents. And finally once the post-doctoral phase is over, those scientists that still remain will face a lack of full time jobs as so many colleges have turned to the abusive practice of relying on part-time, low paying, adjunct labor. This will deny the innovator/scientist of not only a physical lab to work in but the time and money needed to create and invent. And finally we have the Republican attack on education at all levels starving it not only of money but of respect.
3
How much data will it take? How many facts are needed? The country is being led by the Know Nothing Party with its minions who lack a process to learn. These Republican congress people are mean people whose aperture is so constricted that they cannot see the dysfunction they are causing, naively believing their own children will be exempted from the damage. Their meanness is only outweighed by their lack of integrity, peddling dishonest and unsubstantiated data and verbiage as truths.
Our future success will be built upon real education and economic opportunity for as many people as possible, whether they go on to invent or get a patent, or become educated workers, consumers and citizens. The United States has often used the tax code to drive economic and social policy. We can debate the value and benefits of some these policies. However, the real data and facts make clear that supporting educational opportunity is undeniably good economic and social policy, and the right thing to support.
1
I've been waiting for some empirical data or other to support my intuitive
feeling about creativity, and this would seem to be it. These
results could be generalized to support a claim that the innate
component of creativity is distributed evenly in the population,
but the opportunity/educational component is not. And the area
under the skewed opportunity curve multiplied with the
innate curve yields a lower net value that if the former had been
more even.
1
Not only are we good at identifying the kids who can throw a football, we celebrate them, too. Many schools have math teams, robotics teams, hold science fairs, etc. But the school holds pep rallies for and reminds everyone of the football game. The papers celebrate the sports team wins. There's an entire section of the newspaper dedicated to sports. In Maine, you can watch HS sports on TV. The Portland Press Herald put the the state high school football championship on the front page. The local robotics team wins at the national level and occasionally gets a line or two buried in the bottom of a back page. Colleges specifically recruit sports stars. There's no expectation that the kids on the robotics team will get a scholarship.
If we want to find the next Einsteins, we need to celebrate and spend on cerebral achievements the same way we celebrate sports achievements.
26
Albert Einstein worked in a patent office but I don't believe he ever patented anything.
Patents seem an odd metric as others have pointed out. One of my grandfathers held a number of patents; no one in the family since has held any. Two of us did develop a life-long pleasure in fixing "things".
Grow up on a farm or in a fishing community and you soon learn to fix or make all kinds of things -- if you don't you don't eat. Necessity can truly be the mother of invention.
There are many ways to innovate that benefit society at large. Music, art, literature to name just a few and none require a patent; a copyright perhaps but not a patent.
There are many ways to innovate that do not benefit society at large: the work great mathematicians and theoretical physicists come to mind.
Finally, there's something disturbing about linking innovation and entrepreneurship.
In the end, this study seems to be an interesting correlation but little more.
8
#Fred
Albert Einstein was granted approximately 50 patents.
Einstein and Szilard (one of his former student's) invented a refrigerator with no moving parts in 1926 and patented it in 1930 but it was never commercially produced
1
I have been saying for years that we should be talking about how much talent we have squandered by not giving all of our children a high quality education starting in early childhood. But I disagree that it is only STEM education that should be our focus. All kids should get a strong grounding in those subjects but there are many whose talents are in things like writing, music, the arts, etc. Developing all those talents and more can only enrich our society. We have certainly lost scientific genius but how many potentially great teachers, artists, musicians, moral leaders, political leaders, etc. have we failed to develop?
The one field we excel at developing is athletics. It is often easier for a kid to get an athletic scholarship even when they are not talented enough to have a future in their sport than an academic scholarship. When I asked at my state's highly regarded top public university if having a strong talent in a specific academic area even if ability in other areas are not in the top level would be given extra weight in the admissions process. The answer was no, unless that talent was athletic. So a math genius or a kid who has a strong talent in languages but is a C student in other areas would have a lower chance of admittance than a basketball player who is an average - or below average - student.
6
I don't think the author took in account a time element. These inventions will be discovered in due time. It was quite amazing that we went from the first flight of the Wright Brothers in 1903 to landing on the moon and also the first flight of the 747 aircraft in 1969. It is hard to imagine that there was a delay in time and the events aforementioned in 1969 would have happened sooner due to a region of the USA lagging behind in patents.
From a medical discovery perspective, it would be better to have inventions and discoveries of new medicines occur earlier, but technology has been advancing at a very good pace the past century.
But the author has a point, that a better opportunity for those from the south and female and minority groups all over, could be beneficial to those groups, but with one invention or discovery leading to another, the change will happen in any event.
1
I wish the article had discussed the patent metric; why were patents chosen as a marker? As comments below discuss, the patent system is extremely expensive, and obtaining a patent is no guarantee of market success.
15
Just my thought Julie, though imperfect, the patent metric is publically available information so cross compare location, ideas (classifications), etc . . . You are correct that obtaining a patent is no guarantee of market success but it is a useful indicator. I use it all the time in my work to judge competitive advantages of companies in a particular set. Its useful at the company level because of cost controls you don't patent ideas unless you have a good chance of market success. with individual inventors I'm not sure it's as useful.
1
Welcome to our world Dave. Will definitely read the Chetty paper. Thanks for the tip.
4
Could someone explain the clumps in extreme northern Minnesota and eastern South Dakota, along the border of Minnesota. In Northern Minnesota's lake region, there's no significant institute of higher education, no high tech industry. In South Dakota, there are a bunch of farmers and the South Dakota State University at Brookings. German immigrants in South Dakota. Both places required do-it-yourself initiative. My father was an inventor who grew up in that part of South Dakota, but what gave people there that spark?
31
Your answer may lie in what the patents are for - agricultural related inventions?
Maybe it was the long cold winters, stuck inside. Maybe gave a person time to think, imagine and work on ideas.
Among the many reasons I think this is hooey -- a classic situation of garbage in, garbage out. What is going on in Southeastern North Dakota or Central Eastern South Dakota? More patent holders than NEW YORK CITY? or Boston? say what?
The only identifiable thing is here is the cluster effect in NORTHERN California, around San Francisco and Palo Alto-- and surely that is not a surprise -- as it is (and was even in the 80s) a locus for tech folks programmers, engineers and so on due to the presence of Apple and other tech giants. They should be probably be eliminated for distorting the results so much. If you look at everywhere else....it only shows there is no clear correlation between patents and wealth or anything else!
1
To innovate, you need to be able to take a chance with high probability of failure. With an affluent background, a failure of a new business, or new idea is not likely to destroy your life and that of your family.
Especially if the metric is patents, rather than new businesses or published papers, you need to be in a position to innovate and also to have awareness and access to the patent application process. Firms that make getting patents fairly easy are few, and recruit from top schools--that are disproportionately attended by those whose parents can afford the costs.
Published papers may be a better measure of innovation (although some of the same things that lead to non-innovative patents are present in academic settings as well.)
Starting a business may be a better indication of innovation--even if it is for a new menu and a new gourmet food truck. There may be more people showing their innovations and creativity from non-affluent backgrounds starting businesses -- perhaps because while the affluent can risk losing in a failure without destroying their lifestyles, others can take the risk because they have nothing to lose.
Many non-privileged inventors I have known were raised on a farm with its constant work, problem solving, and access to tools and welding equipment. Children of machinists, mechanics and TV repair men were also well represented. Far fewer children have these backgrounds today.
77
Good points. Interestingly, many or perhaps most the superstars of the old Bell Labs of the 1930's and 1940's were raised in small towns or on small farms in Michigan and Illinois. An exception is William Shockley, who was raised in Palo Alto. Their parents were almost all middle class - father typically a lawyer, doctor or businessman and mother a school teacher or nurse. Most did their graduate study at U. Illinois, which had a pipeline to Bell Labs. Educated middle class parents then and now are the parents of most promising college students. Yes, there are some counter-examples, but not too many.
2
I think you have an excellent point about children of farmers, machinists and other hands on tinkerers. I worry that we have just about wiped out this class of Americans.
Ironically, we did it with college. Not the education, but the expectation that being middle class required a college education and that the hands-on skills of skills of machinists and similar mechanically minded jobs were "only" blue collar and thus less valuable, both materially, but also from a values perspective.
2
Professor M: prior to the advent of Apple and other tech firms, Palo Alto WAS a small rural town of no importance or wealth.
2
Innovations, significant new products come from people who use the Great, Famous Artists as inspiration. The Arts in Education is key for The Brilliant Track. Math? Probably not, as Raj Chetty has been trained to think about Math. The most prestigious Math Programs use a heavy immersion in the Arts, Museum Quality Arts, Conceptual Arts. So, this article should have emphasized Arts, even though they were talking about Math. It is a shame that this article doesn't. So, I think this study is not correct. Are there other studies out there, especially ones that discuss the Arts?
7
See my comment to Mark Johnson's post. An important part of educational success is educated parents, and most of them have some interest in the arts, broadly defined.
1
You may find this work interesting: "those who own businesses or patents received up to eight times more exposure to the arts as children than the general public."
http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2013/a-young-picasso-or-beethoven-could-be-...
The citied article doesn't control for arts, as you rightly point out, but the data is likely hidden inside.
Inequality is a significant social problem but I am not sure if it is a defining factor in capabilities to innovate. Simple correlation of granted patents to the wealth of inventors’ parents does not say that it is the money that matters. I would argue the most of the top 20% earners reached this level because of their abilities, and the roads to such success always involve o lot of innovative thinking. So, perhaps the environment the children grow in, family values and goals, and even genetics may be the defining factors.
6
yes, but a pretty significant attempt was made to control for selection bias in terms of raw ability by conditioning the analysis on performance on 3rd grade math tests -- they compared patents granted by income group among those who scored in the top 5% of the entire population and among those who scored in the bottom 25%.
3
What about the obvious endogeneity problem? Family income and invention may both be caused by family (values, exposure to invention, and other non-wealth differences among families)?
In that case, redistribution of wealth may not help at all. It may even hurt, if say it reduces the financing available for invention by the children of the top 20% or 1%.
3
Most articles on the importance of innovation miss the obstacles to it. This one does focus on one: inequity. However, what is often lost is that there are many; some of them imposed by our organizational cultures, and even psychological barriers, including those we do to ourselves.
This article does the usual defining of innovation as primarily technical, and while it speaks of “improving life,” it defines that through patents. What about social entrepreneurship which aims directly at a social or environmental problem, which may or may not use advanced technology as an enabler. How “success” is defined is such situations in an issue for discussion, but probably not through patents.
Organizational life blocks innovation when employees sense, for example, that senior management’s prevailing assumptions must not be questioned, or the tolerance for the risk that often accompanies real innovation won’t tolerate a failure.
We’re our own worst enemies when it comes to the “certainty” with we hold so many views; us versus them, black-&-white ways of seeing the world. Our side is right—about most everything, and the other side totally off, or worse. Nuance does not exist. The growing number of recognized cognitive biases we are all potentially subject to make rationality difficult to achieve without great effort, but that does not seem to encourage us to go outside of our comfort zones for what we might be missing.
All of these things, plus more, can be obstacles to innovation.
5
It is clear why the study uses patents to define innovation. They are easy to locate and the holders are identified. While other metrics would be better for innovators in non-technical fields, or even in some technical fields, they are less well-defined. What would work for a musician, for example? Concert performances, number of pieces written? Same problem for a painter or sculptor or organizer. But in such cases it is still likely that what really matters is the parents and/or grandparents somebody chooses. Think about Barack Obama, for example. Or for that matter, Donald Trump.
2
I am not sure that patents are a good measure of creativity/innovation. I hold patents but the cost of filing for a patent and paying the maintenance fee is challenging for most budgets.
My experience and interest in invention came from my elementary school teachers, who directed by attention to biographies of inventors. I loved the biographies and was fascinated with their experiments and science. I believe these early bios had a profound impact on my life. I did not realize the emotional tie that I had with those books until I went to the Steinmetz museum in upstate NY and saw the desk, and memorabilia of Dr. Jacob Steinmetz. I was so moved by the experience that tears welled-up in my eyes.
I think I was 70 and was visiting GE as a finalist in their search for new inventions and was part of a team that was presenting an inexpensive means to store variable electricity such as solar or wind to release when the wind slows or the sun does'nt shine.
I estimate that at least one half of the books I have read are related to science/technology. I am now 80 and not certain what kind of testing is done for college admissions but in my day, I earned money by being a guinea pig for testing services to validate tests, it paid $1/hr and I learned about spatial reasoning, which I am supposed to have. One of my interests is what play activities help develop spatial reasoning: I have learned that drawing, playing with blocks, and nature/insects works by testing grandchildren.
33
When deciding whether or not to apply for patent protection of an idea, an applicant needs BOTH opportunity and money. I have several patents for medical devices, one of which is for the mechanism for the drug-eluting vascular stent. I come from an affluent family, have a Ph.D and am a medical doctor. Getting a patent is only the first step in a long, long road. Holding a patent is only as valuable as your ability to enforce it-otherwise it is simply vanity. Enforcement requires an extreme amount of money. Even if, as an individual, you sue and win at the District Court (in my case a $12 million expense), a large company will eventually steamroller you. They have more money, and more friends in high places. Now, since my high profile victories in District Court, the PTO has made it virtually impossible for any individual inventor to follow in my footsteps. Unless you work for a deep pocketed firm and they foot the bills, getting a patent is a fool’s errand: A waste of both time and money. No wonder poor or middle income people don’t get patents. They have too little of both.
83
This highlights that our system of patent law is broken. It has changed steadily for a century and more, evolving from protection of inventors with ideas into a means for the big to abuse the small.
Patents were supposed to reward and encourage inventors. Now they reward those with the money to manipulate the system, taking advantage of other people's patents they've bought or steam-rolled.
It no longer assists the development of human potential. It actually handicaps that. More lost Einsteins.
32
And if you DO work for a firm, that can pay for the patent applications and all the legal work and defending that patent....you'll be lucky if your name (or that of your team at work) is even ON the document. And you will have signed away any right to profits from that patent -- maybe if you work for a really nice corporation, you'll get a raise or a nice certificate saying "attaboy".
1
As a former technology stock analyst, I'm reluctant to express this thought...but it needs saying: why are we so focused on patents and innovation? Is there some sort of metric or body of evidence that stunning advances in technology over the past 25 years have enhanced the quality of society? Lifespan expansion has slowed down, happiness seems more elusive, civility appears to be in retreat and yet all we hear about is STEM, STEM, STEM - as though one more breakthrough is all we need to really get things in order. During my career, I spoke fluent bits and bytes, but I'm convinced that a healthy dose of Plutarch would benefit young people much more than a coding camp. If we wish for a more humane society, maybe we should be focusing on the humanities.
From my vantage point, technology has become a vehicle for aggregating enormous power and resources in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. Unfortunately, this flies in the face of the underpinnings of the American Experiment. Even innovations that were meant to decentralize (such as ARPA's invention of the Internet) have become co-opted by those who would implement centralization and hierarchy. I'm no Luddite, to be sure, but it seems so very evident that we need to play catch-up with the technology we have on hand instead of furthering our own obsolescence and marginalization.
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Thanks for this much-needed caveat about the celebration of innovation without due regard for the effects, intended and unintended, of new design and creation. (Think for a moment about how much advertisers count on our being bedazzled by claims about the "new and improved.") The point is not necessarily to stop in our tracks but to reflect carefully on the directions in which we are laying them down-- a point which in a still nuclear age is hardly itself innovative.
2
We hear STEM, STEM, STEM because for a while we ignored it. The US has fits of STEM development, followed by complete lapses. We're trying to come out of a general lapse, that's all. It may not seem to be the case, but we are ...
Creativlty can be learned, there is a lot of evidence for this. The D.School at Stanford is a good place to go. What you are suggesting is very important and the underlying principle that suports this is that reading, discussing - and other creative exercises, increase peoples' use of their imagination. This is what we lose by teaching to the tests, keeping kids too busy, focusing only on coding and forgetting the ideas. Albert Einstein should have gotten a Nobel for reminding us how important creativity and imagination is. He said "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Closing our eyes, visualizing, trying on different world views through reading and conversations, and coming to realize that imagination and creativity are the highest human attributes and that we all can use to make our lives more interesting and productive. With memorization, one can make incremental discoveries - but sea change discoveries require us all to open our lives to our own imaginations.
2
Majority of patents especially in the high tech and biotech/life science fields are issued to the fairly large groups of anywhere from 4 to as many as 20 inventors - essentially everyone working on the project in a somewhat creative capacity. As such, the invention statistics painstakingly put together by Dr. Chetty is highly likely to correlate well with the statistics of students going to earn degrees in the STEM fields, particularly the graduate ones (many STEM undergrads go either to the professional study, or to the fields of work not "breeding" inventions like sales). An additional factor "pulling" potential inventors from the disadvantaged backgrounds away from the STEM track is their greater need for decent income early in the career - and most certainly a new MD and even a hard-working sales rep earn multiples of what the postdoc would.
9
Hmmm. Results are not too surprising but the column seems a little simple in its prescriptions.
Are innovations linked to income because affluence gives more opportunity--perhaps in the form of leisure time or access to better education? Or do affluent families more often have something else--a belief in the value of academic excellence, a willingness to work hard and delay gratification for achievement, role models and parental support for success--in more abundance than other families (because their own success is often based on these same factors). I don't know but those intangible advantages may be the biggest of all.
Those other things are of course attributed often to the stereotyped Asian "smart kid" who does so well in this study.
How government programs can encourage this kind of parenting would seem trickier.
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David doesn’t get to unilaterally define “American values”. And leaving out self-reliance and liberty to do pretty much as one wishes don’t seem to figure in that value-set at all, which makes it rather uncompelling outside of Finland. Einstein came from a middle class background, not “making it” until fairly late in life, and not until he escaped early (1933) from Benny Hill’s “Mister Hilter”, emigrating to the land of the dollar bill.
This isn’t surprising, as the left’s love of programmatic design is legend: the only real game worthy of liberal adults is social architecture on a grand scale, and despite the fact that it fails again and again to improve the species, remains a central tenet of progressive approaches. Individuals really are irrelevant in the thrust to move society by the demands of big data. Yet genius is a very individual and mostly unpredictable agglomeration of genetic oddities and engrams. And genius usually pooks its head above the pedestrian regardless of economic foreshadowing.
Those who have the potential to create … usually do. And regardless of our inattention to programmatically identifying them when young and supporting them with state-sponsored subsidies, it remains that our flawed U.S. system produces more innovators with patent applications per capita than all but two other nations on Earth (Germany and Switzerland).
We must be doing SOMETHING right. Beware destroying that by seeking solutions that are too far left.
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Not sure what the point is you're trying to make about Einstein. The bulk of his discoveries and the awarding of his Nobel all occurred fairly early in his career well before his emigrating to the US. E.g.: special relativity - 1905; general relativity - 1915; Nobel (for the photoelectric effect) - 1921.
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Many of our patent holders and Nobel laureates are immigrants not originally from here and so not raised on and cultured with any "American values" let alone those you propose.
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I don't know what the Einstein example is supposed to prove. He may have "made it" after coming to the US, but his most important work (relativity) was done in Switzerland and Germany). My theory is psychological: that he functioned better as a loner than as a celebrity in the limelight.
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Jonathan Katz is probably right about the 0.05%, but those are the ones society should support along with the engineers (let's include Thomas Edison) who have built civilisation. Society needs a lot more of the 0.05.
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I hold multiple patents, but I don’t think they’re a complete measure of a person’s inventiveness. Part of my career was spent in non-profit enterprises where we disclosed inventions rather than patenting them, and another part in start-up companies that were here and gone before much in the way of patent applications could be filed.
In my experience, the liklihood of one’s name appearing on a patent is determined more by the employer’s attitude to intellectual property than anything else. From the evidence shown, one could argue that the male children of well-off parents are more likely to work for this class of employer, but to go beyond that is unwarranted. After all, these are the children most likely to hold advanced degrees in the technical subjects covered by most corporate patent applications. The correlations with race, gender and family income are already well known.
America misses a lot of its human potential. However, the names on the patent applications are not the best way to measure this.
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My father was an engineer, at a time when it was not required to have gone to engineering school nor gotten a degree. (This hurt his career later on, but not at first.) He got his experience at a magnificent, respected technical high school in our area -- with selective admissions for kids who showed exceptional promise in math and science. Then of course, he went off to fight WWII and got more technical training there.
Over a 40 year career, he had many many patents. But he got not a penny for them, and most do not even list his name, but that of his company. His employer had a policy that THEY (the corporation, Fortune 500) owned all the patents. So my dad did not profit from this at all -- not as an individual.
If this study took children born between 1925 and 1930 (instead of 1980 and 1984) and tried to make a case about "where future patent holders came from"....they would miss dad entirely. And come to the wrong conclusions!
2
For 30 years, I have kept my eye out for Albert or Alberta Einstein in New Mexico. It has been a joy to help students from any high school in any town to succeed. I don't think you find Einsteins in pipelines. You discover them by climing their mountains with them and letting them see a broad horizon and choosing the path forward. We don't all need New York or California to excel. Our challenge with education is that we don't reward creativity in most schools, the new teachers have been through this system of tests and memorization and are schedule-bound, and the parents help create a resonance of passive education, so there's no clear person to blame. As an educator, having seen the moment when a junior or senior in college understands the power of their imagination, that the magic is inside them - that they can also discover relativity by imagining themself riding on a particle of light - it is an incredible moment. There have been times when I felt guilty that no one else saw this miracle. You are right that, because of the tax bill, we are at a moment of decision. It is possible that the Native American or Hispanic or any Einstein will not be able to afford college now. It is incomprehensible that our nation and our Congress will allow this -but here we are. If tuition remission had been taxed, no one I know would be a scientist - teaching, training, dreaming. We can imagine the future by imagining life without STEM education, without discovery, without our dreams.
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Russians had a good system for finding talent. They held math contest throughout the Soviet Union starting at an early age. There were local, regionals and one up to a national winner. the system was intended to find talent and plenty of it. I worked with a young man from Tashkent who found his way to Moscow State University, no expense to him, where he majored in rocket science.
We need to do more of that. Lots more.
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I heard a lecture by Loren Graham, the MIT professor who understood Soviet science better than any other American. He accepted them on their own terms.
He gave a dismal account of how the top leaders of the Soviet Union were worried that their country was sliding back into a third world economy. They weren't even able to build a personal computer industry.
I asked him whether there was anything the Soviets did well. He said yes -- their education system. They educated more chemists than the rest of the world put together. They published science textbooks that were translated into every major language and distributed around the world at giveaway prices -- along with Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Chekov. I met an Indian scientist who fondly remembered learning science from Yakov Perelman's Physics for Entertainment.
And they had their successes. They were first in space. They sent the first man into space -- and the first woman into space. NASA is still sending equipment into orbit on the Soviet Proton rocket, which has the largest payload in the world.
And Sergei Brinn, whose Soviet-educated family of PhDs came to the US, invented Google.
Does anyone doubt that the US, and the world, would be better off if the Soviet Union was sill in existence under Gorbachev, than it is under Putin?
1
I suspect a bigger problem is sheer distraction. How many kids’ eyeballs are glued to iPAD screens playing video games? Or cellphone screens? Or LCDs?
A book I had to read back when I was a “tween” in 7th grade (when Caesar was in Rome, let me tell you ...) was “Study Is Hard Work”. Amen.
Wish I could find a copy.
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Just found it.
The author is William H. Armstrong. It's at Amazon, on his page (he also wrote the novel "Sounder", later made into a movie).
The blurb states "this is the best guide ever published on how to acquire and maintain good study skills".
$8.49 Kindle edition. Worth every penny.
"Reinvest the money where it's needed" Sorry but the link between spending and education performance is pretty weak. Please tell us exactly where "it's needed" and how it will be effectively used there. The best approach would probably be to get these smart kids into special schools that track them into university STEM programs. My guess is kids in the NYC STEM magnet schools have a much higher patent rate than even equally smart big city kids because of the culture of these schools. Kids tend to adopt the values and goals of their peers/classmates. Success Academy also has a great track record but liberals tear it down and fight it in every way they can.
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If this chart is correct (I have doubts about the methodology), kids in NYC are NOT doing spectacularly at growing up to receive patents at all. They are doing no better than kids in relatively poor New Hampshire or Southern Indiana.
2
Very interesting patterns, but ascribing the differences to inequality of income is a stretch. One could superimpose a map of culture instead of income and find the same differences. People growing up in an area where families value academic excellence and achievement are going to be more successful in any mental endeavor, not just patents. Redistributing income to reduce inequality will have no effect on culture and thus would not likely change the patterns.
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I say Dr B is right at first and then wrong. Changing the pattern of income redistribution from favoring the already rich, as we have now even before the new tax deform, to favoring everyone who needs a leg up in order to get started in achievement, can have a major effect on culture. I don't say it's automatic, but great maldistribution of income and wealth is a great impediment to its victims.
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Actually, redistributing income will have a powerful effect on culture. Giving people enough money to afford health care and avoid hunger will alter the culture of fear that permeates among the lower classes. Fear caused by poverty prevents children from focusing on school. It's hard to work on your academics when you're afraid that you may have anything to eat for dinner.
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Appreciate the comments by Thomas and SMC, but I believe culture is mostly determined by one's family, religion, and community; income has little to do with it. The first generation of immigrants for any group arrived here very poor, but those who raised their children with a supportive culture were successful by the next generation.
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We don't need more would-be Einsteins (or Edisons). We need fewer. Every society needs a few innovators, just as it needs a few dentists, but more isn't better.
The glut of ambitious young would-be Einsteins and Edisons ruins the career prospects of all of them, and discourages the very few who really should be making that attempt.
The cutoff, if there were one, on math skills (there really isn't one, because successful invention requires a complex combination of skills, mostly unquantifiable) isn't the top 5%. It might be the top 0.05%.
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Jonathan Katz makes assertions but provides no apparent factual basis. I believe he has everything backwards. An analogy: To get major-league baseball players, it isn't enough to find a few hundred small boys, no matter how talented they appear, and train them for years until they're old enough for the majors. That way, the pool of potential major-league players would be too small to give enough good ones for one team. As for the .05% cutoff, it's the same problem: we can't pick out that .05% (accepting this number for argument's sake) until we see them do their stuff. Talk of a cutoff is merely thoughtless.
18
On top of that, really great math skills are much much rarer than good-to-great baseball skills.
2
"Every society needs a few innovators, just as it needs a few dentists, but more isn't better." Although stated as though it is a fact, this is an opinion. Indeed, an opinion not supported by any facts. In my opinion, that isn't worth much.
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