Science in newly industrialized countries
Encyclopedia
Scientific research is concentrated in the developed world, with only a marginal contribution from the rest of the world. Most Nobel Laureates are either from United States
or Europe
or Japan
. Many newly industrialized countries have been trying to establish scientific institutions, but with limited success. There is an insufficient dedicated, inspired and motivated labor pool for science
and insufficient investment in science education
.
) is partly historical and partly social A true scientist is nurtured from the school up wards to scientific establishments. Only, if there are inspired and dedicated school science teachers in abundance, there will be sufficient number of inspired students who would like to take science as a career option and who may one day become a successful scientist.
At present in newly industrialized nations, a school teacher most often belongs to one of the lower economic strata, that is, s/he does not get sufficient respect in the society which is essential to produce motivated and inspired teachers. Therefore there is little chance that a child would learn the art of asking questions and seeking their answers. Even if 0.001% of the large populations of any of these countries learns that art, there is seldom any scope for encouragement in the colleges or universities. Universities in most newly-industrialized countries do not fare as well as some universities in East Asia (e.g. Japan
and Singapore
), Canada
, Oceania
, USA or Western Europe
, mainly because there are fewer opportunities for the meritorious; largely due to many prevalent social practices e.g. nepotism being one of them.
A career in science is not as lucrative as one in management and administration. In addition, the investment in science education is sparse because the local industry does not find it profitable. This invariably leads to fewer academic positions and these few positions are invariably grabbed by people who have influence.
, one of the leading newly industrialized countries are rooted in its caste system of its majority community namely the Hindus.
An especially interesting fact is that although People's Republic of China
as a nation has never produced a single native Nobel Prize recipient but there are a number of ethnic Chinese
living in Western
countries that have won Nobel Prizes (especially in physics),for example Steven Chu
, Samuel C. C. Ting
, Chen Ning Yang, Tsung-Dao Lee
, Yuan T. Lee
, Daniel C. Tsui
, and Gao Xingjian
; however the Nobel Prizes is not a reliable indicator due to it's western bias and political interest, for example Thomas Edison never won the prize despite his important contribution. This further reinforces the idea that cultural factors,political stability and wealth are significant factors. During the Cultural Revolution
in China (1966–1976), many academics and educated people were attacked, oppressed, humiliated and sent to the rural areas to do hard labour. The impact was severe and halted scientific progress in China.
Perhaps a possible hypothesis for this observation could be the political will of the industrialized countries, which may not be very comfortable with the challenge from NICs to their present dominant status in the world of science.
After the Second World War, a small technical elite arose in developing countries such as India, Pakistan
, Brazil
, and Iraq
who had been educated as scientists in the industrialized world. They spearheaded the development of science in these countries presuming that by pushing for Manhattan project
-type enterprises in nuclear power
, electronics
, pharmaceuticals, or space exploration
they could leapfrog the dismally low level of development of science establishments in their countries. India, for example, started a nuclear energy program that mobilized thousands of technicians and cost hundreds of millions of dollars but had limited success. Though China, North Korea, India and Pakistan have been successful in deploying nuclear weapons and some of them e.g. China and India have launched fairly successful space programs, (for example, Chandrayaan I (Sanskrit
चंद्रयान-1), which literally means "Moon Craft," is an unmanned lunar mission by the Indian Space Research Organization and it hopes to land a motorised rover on the moon in 2010 or 2011 as a part of its second Chandrayaan mission; Chang'e I, China's moon probing project is proceeding in full swing in a well-organized way) the fact remains that most of the scientists responsible for these deeds had received their terminal education from some institution/university in US or Europe. In addition there have been hardly any Nobel laureates in science who has conducted the path breaking research in a native science establishment.
The first attempts of having a Brazilian science establishment were made around 1783, with the expedition of Portuguese naturalist Alexandre Rodrigues, who was sent by Portugal's prime minister, the Marquis of Pombal, to explore and identify Brazilian fauna, flora and geology. His collections, however, were lost to the French, when Napoleon invaded, and were transported to Paris by Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire
. In 1772, the first learned society, the Sociedade Scientifica, was founded in Rio de Janeiro
, but lasted only until 1794. Also, in 1797, the first botanic institute was founded in Salvador, Bahia
. In the second and third decades of the twentieth century, the main universities in Brazil were organised from a set of existing medical, engineering and law schools. The University of Brazil dates from 1927, the University of São Paulo
- today the largest in the Country - dates from 1934.
Today, Brazil has a well-developed organization of science and technology. Basic research in science is largely carried out in public universities and research centers and institutes, and some in private institutions, particularly in non-profit non-governmental organizations. More than 90% of funding for basic research comes from governmental sources.
Applied research, technology and engineering is also largely carried out in the university and research centers system, contrary-wise to more developed countries such as the United States, South Korea
, Germany
, Japan, etc. A significant trend is emerging lately. Companies such as Motorola
, Samsung
, Nokia
and IBM have established large R&D&I centers in Brazil. One of the incentive factors for this, besides the relatively lower cost and high sophistication and skills of Brazilian technical manpower, has been the so-called Informatics Law, which exempts from certain taxes up to 5% of the gross revenue of high technology manufacturing companies in the fields of telecommunications, computers, digital electronics, etc. The Law has attracted annually more than 1,5 billion dollars of investment in Brazilian R&D&I. Multinational companies have also discovered that some products and technologies designed and developed by Brazilians are significantly competitive and are appreciated by other countries, such as automobiles, aircraft, software, fiber optics, electric appliances, and so on.
The challenges Brazilian science faces today are: to expand the system with quality, supporting the installed competence; transfer knowledge from the research sector to industry; embark on government action in strategic areas; enhance the assessment of existing programmes and commence innovative projects in areas of relevance for the Country. Furthermore, scientific dissemination plays a fundamental role in transforming the perception of the public at large of the importance of science in modern life. The government has undertaken to meet these challenges using institutional base and the operation of existing qualified scientists.
are of the opinion that the Chinese political system was hostile to scientific progress.
Needham
argued, and most scholars agreed, that cultural factors prevented these Chinese achievements from developing into what could be called "science". It was the religious and philosophical framework of the Chinese intellectuals which made them unable to believe in the ideas of laws of nature. More recent historians have questioned political and cultural explanations and have focused more on economic causes. Mark Elvin's high level equilibrium trap
is one well-known example of this line of thought, as well as Kenneth Pomeranz' argument that resources from the New World made the crucial difference between European and Chinese development.
Thus, it was not that there was no order in nature for the Chinese, but rather that it was not an order ordained by a rational personal being, and hence there was no conviction that rational personal beings would be able to spell out in their lesser earthly languages the divine code of laws which he had decreed aforetime. The Taoists, indeed, would have scorned such an idea as being too naive for the subtlety and complexity of the universe as they intuited it. Similar grounds have been found for questioning much of the philosophy behind traditional Chinese medicine, which, derived mainly from Taoist philosophy, reflects the classical Chinese belief that individual human experiences express causative principles effective in the environment at all scales. Because its theory predates use of the scientific method, it has received various criticisms based on scientific thinking. Even though there are physically verifiable anatomical or histological bases for the existence of acupuncture points or meridians, for instance skin conductance measurements show increases at the predicted points.
Today, science and technology establishment in the People's Republic of China is growing rapidly. Even as many Chinese scientists debate what institutional arrangements will be best for Chinese science, reforms of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
continue. The average age of researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences has dropped by nearly ten years between 1991 and 2003. However, many of them are educated in the United States and other foreign countries.
Chinese university undergraduate and graduate enrollments more than doubled from 1995 to 2005. The universities now have more cited PRC papers than CAS in the Science Citation Index. Some Chinese scientists say CAS is still ahead on overall quality of scientific work but that lead will only last five to ten years.
Several Chinese immigrants to the United States have also been awarded the Nobel Prize, including: , Samuel C. C. Ting
, Chen Ning Yang, Tsung-Dao Lee
, Yuan T. Lee
, Daniel C. Tsui
, and Gao Xingjian
. Other overseas ethnic Chinese
that have achieved success in sciences include Fields Medal
recipient Shing-Tung Yau
and Terence Tao
, and Turing Award
recipient Andrew Yao. Tsien Hsue-shen
was a prominent scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, while Chien-Shiung Wu
contributed to the Manhattan Project (some argue she never received the Nobel Prize unlike her colleagues Tsung-Dao Lee
and Chen Ning Yang due to sexism by the selection committee). Others include Charles K. Kao
, a pioneer in fiber optics technology, and Dr. David Ho, one of the first scientists to propose that AIDS was caused by a virus, thus subsequently developing combination antiretroviral therapy to combat it. Dr. Ho was named TIME
magazine's 1996 Man of the Year. However, the fact remains that many Chinese rue the absence of a native Chinese scientist among Nobel laureates, the genesis of which lies in the tradition laden culture.
s and muni
s can indeed be called theoretical scientists. They contemplated on several natural phenomena and reached certain conclusions after careful thought. But, that was really long long ago, once the caste
system became firmly established in the ancient Indian society there was little room left for rishis and munis. Their place was taken by the Brahmins, whose primary function was to learn the thoughts of the rishis and munis and interpret their meaning to the ruling class. They excelled in remembering and reciting, not in original thought.
The earliest applications of science in India
took place in the context of medicine, metallurgy, construction technology (such as manufacture of cement and paints) and in textile production and dyeing. But in the process of understanding chemical processes, led to some theories about physical processes and the forces of nature that are today studied as specific topics within the fields of chemistry and physics.
There was really no place for scientists in the Indian caste system. Thus while there were/are castes for the learned brahmins, the warriors kshatriyas, the traders vaishyas and the menial workers shudras, maybe even the bureaucrats (the kayasths) there was/is hardly any formal place in the social hierarchy for a people who discover new knowledge or invent new devices based on the recently discovered knowledge, even though scientific temper has always been in India, in the form of logic, reasoning and method of acquiring knowledge. Its therefore no wonder that some Indians quickly learned to value science, especially those belonging to the privileged Brahmin caste during the British colonial rule that lasted over two centuries. Some Indians did succeed to achieve notable success and fame, examples include Satyendra Nath Bose
, Meghnad Saha
, Jagdish Chandra Bose
and C. V. Raman even though they belonged to different castes. The science communication had begun with publication of a scientific journal, Asiatick Researches in 1788. Thereafter, the science communication in India has evolved in many facets. Following this, there has been a continuing development in the formation of scientific institutions and publication of scientific literature. Subsequently, scientific publications also started appearing in Indian languages by the end of eighteenth century. The publication of ancient scientific literature and textbooks at mass scale started in the beginning of nineteenth century. The scientific and technical terms, however, had been a great difficulty for a long time for popular science writing.
The colonial rule was indeed a blessing in disguise for the development of science and technology in India, as it is witnessed today. It thus facilitated the development of a Science and Technology establishment after India gained independence, especially under the visionary guidance of its first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru
. This legacy led to very successful career in science for many Non resident Indians, notable amongst them are Hargobind Khorana and S. Chandrasekhar who have won the Nobel Prize. However, the influence of the British that was once a blessing in disguise is proving as a road block for rapid growth, as most established scientists still rely on the approval of scientists from U.S or Europe before putting forth an opinion thereby making it hard for a young scientist to succeed unless s/he has the blessing from such an established scientist.
Today, the scientific research is led by the Indian Institute of Science
(IISC), IIT's (Indian Institute of Technology) and other academic institutions like International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT Hyderabad, IIIT Bangalore). Bangalore
, Hyderabad have become the R&D hub of many international organizations due to availability of cheap labor. Though, India produces more graduates than other developed countries like USA, it is lagging in number of Ph.D's produced. Now, this gap is being reduced with recent influx of highly educated Non Resident Indians back to India who were educated in developed countries like USA, UK, Australia and Europe.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the words and concepts of science and technology were virtually non-existent in Korean society. Some science courses were taught in a couple of universities but only as purely academic subjects. It can be safely said, however, up until the early 1960s Korea was a nation with neither modern technologies nor scientific research and development infrastructure.
Korea's science and technology did not exist, in any meaningful form, prior to the 1960s, it is said to be only four decades old, the time period that marks the beginning of Modern South Korea under the strongman rule of Park Chung Hee. As Korea embarked on its first major push for industrialization at that time, development of accompanying technologies became critical and the need for scientific infrastructure to support such efforts became imperative.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
or Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
or Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. Many newly industrialized countries have been trying to establish scientific institutions, but with limited success. There is an insufficient dedicated, inspired and motivated labor pool for science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
and insufficient investment in science education
Science education
Science education is the field concerned with sharing science content and process with individuals not traditionally considered part of the scientific community. The target individuals may be children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education comprises...
.
The limited success of Newly Industrialized Countries
The reason that there have been so few scientists, who have made their mark globally, from most NIC's (Newly Industrialized CountriesNewly industrialized countries
The category of newly industrialized country is a socioeconomic classification applied to several countries around the world by political scientists and economists....
) is partly historical and partly social A true scientist is nurtured from the school up wards to scientific establishments. Only, if there are inspired and dedicated school science teachers in abundance, there will be sufficient number of inspired students who would like to take science as a career option and who may one day become a successful scientist.
At present in newly industrialized nations, a school teacher most often belongs to one of the lower economic strata, that is, s/he does not get sufficient respect in the society which is essential to produce motivated and inspired teachers. Therefore there is little chance that a child would learn the art of asking questions and seeking their answers. Even if 0.001% of the large populations of any of these countries learns that art, there is seldom any scope for encouragement in the colleges or universities. Universities in most newly-industrialized countries do not fare as well as some universities in East Asia (e.g. Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
), Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Oceania
Oceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
, USA or Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
, mainly because there are fewer opportunities for the meritorious; largely due to many prevalent social practices e.g. nepotism being one of them.
A career in science is not as lucrative as one in management and administration. In addition, the investment in science education is sparse because the local industry does not find it profitable. This invariably leads to fewer academic positions and these few positions are invariably grabbed by people who have influence.
The common thread
A common thread can indeed be discerned in the state of science in many NIC's. Thus although, most of the science establishments in the major NICs can be said to be doing fairly well, none of them have been as successful as the developed countries. The genesis of this comparatively poor performance can in fact be traced to the history and culture of these countries. For example, the traditions in IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, one of the leading newly industrialized countries are rooted in its caste system of its majority community namely the Hindus.
An especially interesting fact is that although People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
as a nation has never produced a single native Nobel Prize recipient but there are a number of ethnic Chinese
Chinese people
The term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....
living in Western
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
countries that have won Nobel Prizes (especially in physics),for example Steven Chu
Steven Chu
Steven Chu is an American physicist and the 12th United States Secretary of Energy. Chu is known for his research at Bell Labs in cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997, along with his scientific colleagues Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and...
, Samuel C. C. Ting
Samuel C. C. Ting
Samuel Chao Chung Ting is an American physicist who received the Nobel Prize in 1976, with Burton Richter, for discovering the subatomic J/ψ particle...
, Chen Ning Yang, Tsung-Dao Lee
Tsung-Dao Lee
Tsung-Dao Lee is a Chinese born-American physicist, well known for his work on parity violation, the Lee Model, particle physics, relativistic heavy ion physics, nontopological solitons and soliton stars....
, Yuan T. Lee
Yuan T. Lee
Yuan Tseh Lee, Ph.D. is a chemist. He was the first Taiwanese Nobel Prize laureate, who, along with the Hungarian-Canadian John C. Polanyi and American Dudley R. Herschbach won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1986 "for their contributions to the dynamics of chemical elementary processes"...
, Daniel C. Tsui
Daniel C. Tsui
Daniel Chee Tsui is a Chinese-born American physicist whose areas of research included electrical properties of thin films and microstructures of semiconductors and solid-state physics...
, and Gao Xingjian
Gao Xingjian
Gao Xingjian is a Chinese-born novelist, playwright, critic, and painter. An émigré to France since 1987, Gao was granted French citizenship in 1997...
; however the Nobel Prizes is not a reliable indicator due to it's western bias and political interest, for example Thomas Edison never won the prize despite his important contribution. This further reinforces the idea that cultural factors,political stability and wealth are significant factors. During the Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...
in China (1966–1976), many academics and educated people were attacked, oppressed, humiliated and sent to the rural areas to do hard labour. The impact was severe and halted scientific progress in China.
Perhaps a possible hypothesis for this observation could be the political will of the industrialized countries, which may not be very comfortable with the challenge from NICs to their present dominant status in the world of science.
After the Second World War, a small technical elite arose in developing countries such as India, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, and Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
who had been educated as scientists in the industrialized world. They spearheaded the development of science in these countries presuming that by pushing for Manhattan project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
-type enterprises in nuclear power
Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
, electronics
Electronics
Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...
, pharmaceuticals, or space exploration
Space exploration
Space exploration is the use of space technology to explore outer space. Physical exploration of space is conducted both by human spaceflights and by robotic spacecraft....
they could leapfrog the dismally low level of development of science establishments in their countries. India, for example, started a nuclear energy program that mobilized thousands of technicians and cost hundreds of millions of dollars but had limited success. Though China, North Korea, India and Pakistan have been successful in deploying nuclear weapons and some of them e.g. China and India have launched fairly successful space programs, (for example, Chandrayaan I (Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
चंद्रयान-1), which literally means "Moon Craft," is an unmanned lunar mission by the Indian Space Research Organization and it hopes to land a motorised rover on the moon in 2010 or 2011 as a part of its second Chandrayaan mission; Chang'e I, China's moon probing project is proceeding in full swing in a well-organized way) the fact remains that most of the scientists responsible for these deeds had received their terminal education from some institution/university in US or Europe. In addition there have been hardly any Nobel laureates in science who has conducted the path breaking research in a native science establishment.
Science in Brazil
Brazilian science effectively began in the 19th century, until then, Brazil was a poor colony, without universities, printing presses, libraries, museums, etc. This was perhaps a deliberate policy of the Portuguese colonial power, because they feared that the appearance of educated Brazilian classes would boost nationalism and aspirations toward political independence.The first attempts of having a Brazilian science establishment were made around 1783, with the expedition of Portuguese naturalist Alexandre Rodrigues, who was sent by Portugal's prime minister, the Marquis of Pombal, to explore and identify Brazilian fauna, flora and geology. His collections, however, were lost to the French, when Napoleon invaded, and were transported to Paris by Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire
Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire
Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire was a French naturalist who established the principle of "unity of composition". He was a colleague of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and expanded and defended Lamarck's evolutionary theories...
. In 1772, the first learned society, the Sociedade Scientifica, was founded in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
, but lasted only until 1794. Also, in 1797, the first botanic institute was founded in Salvador, Bahia
Salvador, Bahia
Salvador is the largest city on the northeast coast of Brazil and the capital of the Northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia. Salvador is also known as Brazil's capital of happiness due to its easygoing population and countless popular outdoor parties, including its street carnival. The first...
. In the second and third decades of the twentieth century, the main universities in Brazil were organised from a set of existing medical, engineering and law schools. The University of Brazil dates from 1927, the University of São Paulo
University of São Paulo
Universidade de São Paulo is a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is the largest Brazilian university and one of the country's most prestigious...
- today the largest in the Country - dates from 1934.
Today, Brazil has a well-developed organization of science and technology. Basic research in science is largely carried out in public universities and research centers and institutes, and some in private institutions, particularly in non-profit non-governmental organizations. More than 90% of funding for basic research comes from governmental sources.
Applied research, technology and engineering is also largely carried out in the university and research centers system, contrary-wise to more developed countries such as the United States, South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Japan, etc. A significant trend is emerging lately. Companies such as Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
, Samsung
Samsung
The Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...
, Nokia
Nokia
Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki...
and IBM have established large R&D&I centers in Brazil. One of the incentive factors for this, besides the relatively lower cost and high sophistication and skills of Brazilian technical manpower, has been the so-called Informatics Law, which exempts from certain taxes up to 5% of the gross revenue of high technology manufacturing companies in the fields of telecommunications, computers, digital electronics, etc. The Law has attracted annually more than 1,5 billion dollars of investment in Brazilian R&D&I. Multinational companies have also discovered that some products and technologies designed and developed by Brazilians are significantly competitive and are appreciated by other countries, such as automobiles, aircraft, software, fiber optics, electric appliances, and so on.
The challenges Brazilian science faces today are: to expand the system with quality, supporting the installed competence; transfer knowledge from the research sector to industry; embark on government action in strategic areas; enhance the assessment of existing programmes and commence innovative projects in areas of relevance for the Country. Furthermore, scientific dissemination plays a fundamental role in transforming the perception of the public at large of the importance of science in modern life. The government has undertaken to meet these challenges using institutional base and the operation of existing qualified scientists.
Science in China
A question that has been intriguing many historians studying China is the fact that China did not develop a scientific revolution and Chinese technology fell behind that of Europe. Many hypotheses have been proposed ranging from the cultural to the political and economic. has argued that China indeed had a scientific revolution in the 17th century and that we are still far from understanding the scientific revolutions of the West and China in all their political, economic and social ramifications. Some like John K. FairbankJohn K. Fairbank
John King Fairbank , was a prominent American academic and historian of China.-Education and early career:...
are of the opinion that the Chinese political system was hostile to scientific progress.
Needham
Needham Research Institute
The Needham Research Institute or NRI, located on the grounds of the Robinson College, in Cambridge, England, is a center for research into the history of science, technology and medicine in East Asia. It is part of the University of Cambridge...
argued, and most scholars agreed, that cultural factors prevented these Chinese achievements from developing into what could be called "science". It was the religious and philosophical framework of the Chinese intellectuals which made them unable to believe in the ideas of laws of nature. More recent historians have questioned political and cultural explanations and have focused more on economic causes. Mark Elvin's high level equilibrium trap
High level equilibrium trap
The high level equilibrium trap is a concept developed by Mark Elvin to explain why China never underwent an indigenous Industrial Revolution, despite its wealth, stability, and high level of scientific achievement...
is one well-known example of this line of thought, as well as Kenneth Pomeranz' argument that resources from the New World made the crucial difference between European and Chinese development.
Thus, it was not that there was no order in nature for the Chinese, but rather that it was not an order ordained by a rational personal being, and hence there was no conviction that rational personal beings would be able to spell out in their lesser earthly languages the divine code of laws which he had decreed aforetime. The Taoists, indeed, would have scorned such an idea as being too naive for the subtlety and complexity of the universe as they intuited it. Similar grounds have been found for questioning much of the philosophy behind traditional Chinese medicine, which, derived mainly from Taoist philosophy, reflects the classical Chinese belief that individual human experiences express causative principles effective in the environment at all scales. Because its theory predates use of the scientific method, it has received various criticisms based on scientific thinking. Even though there are physically verifiable anatomical or histological bases for the existence of acupuncture points or meridians, for instance skin conductance measurements show increases at the predicted points.
Today, science and technology establishment in the People's Republic of China is growing rapidly. Even as many Chinese scientists debate what institutional arrangements will be best for Chinese science, reforms of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
Chinese Academy of Sciences
The Chinese Academy of Sciences , formerly known as Academia Sinica, is the national academy for the natural sciences of the People's Republic of China. It is an institution of the State Council of China. It is headquartered in Beijing, with institutes all over the People's Republic of China...
continue. The average age of researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences has dropped by nearly ten years between 1991 and 2003. However, many of them are educated in the United States and other foreign countries.
Chinese university undergraduate and graduate enrollments more than doubled from 1995 to 2005. The universities now have more cited PRC papers than CAS in the Science Citation Index. Some Chinese scientists say CAS is still ahead on overall quality of scientific work but that lead will only last five to ten years.
Several Chinese immigrants to the United States have also been awarded the Nobel Prize, including: , Samuel C. C. Ting
Samuel C. C. Ting
Samuel Chao Chung Ting is an American physicist who received the Nobel Prize in 1976, with Burton Richter, for discovering the subatomic J/ψ particle...
, Chen Ning Yang, Tsung-Dao Lee
Tsung-Dao Lee
Tsung-Dao Lee is a Chinese born-American physicist, well known for his work on parity violation, the Lee Model, particle physics, relativistic heavy ion physics, nontopological solitons and soliton stars....
, Yuan T. Lee
Yuan T. Lee
Yuan Tseh Lee, Ph.D. is a chemist. He was the first Taiwanese Nobel Prize laureate, who, along with the Hungarian-Canadian John C. Polanyi and American Dudley R. Herschbach won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1986 "for their contributions to the dynamics of chemical elementary processes"...
, Daniel C. Tsui
Daniel C. Tsui
Daniel Chee Tsui is a Chinese-born American physicist whose areas of research included electrical properties of thin films and microstructures of semiconductors and solid-state physics...
, and Gao Xingjian
Gao Xingjian
Gao Xingjian is a Chinese-born novelist, playwright, critic, and painter. An émigré to France since 1987, Gao was granted French citizenship in 1997...
. Other overseas ethnic Chinese
Chinese people
The term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....
that have achieved success in sciences include Fields Medal
Fields Medal
The Fields Medal, officially known as International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Union , a meeting that takes place every four...
recipient Shing-Tung Yau
Shing-Tung Yau
Shing-Tung Yau is a Chinese American mathematician working in differential geometry. He was born in Shantou, Guangdong Province, China into a family of scholars from Jiaoling, Guangdong Province....
and Terence Tao
Terence Tao
Terence Chi-Shen Tao FRS is an Australian mathematician working primarily on harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, combinatorics, analytic number theory and representation theory...
, and Turing Award
Turing Award
The Turing Award, in full The ACM A.M. Turing Award, is an annual award given by the Association for Computing Machinery to "an individual selected for contributions of a technical nature made to the computing community. The contributions should be of lasting and major technical importance to the...
recipient Andrew Yao. Tsien Hsue-shen
Tsien Hsue-shen
Qian Xuesen was a scientist who made important contributions to the missile and space programs of both the United States and People's Republic of China. Historical documents in the U. S. commonly refer to him with the earlier family-name last spelling, Hsue-Shen Tsien or H.S...
was a prominent scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, while Chien-Shiung Wu
Chien-Shiung Wu
Chien-Shiung Wu was a Chinese-American physicist with expertise in the techniques of experimental physics and radioactivity. Wu worked on the Manhattan Project...
contributed to the Manhattan Project (some argue she never received the Nobel Prize unlike her colleagues Tsung-Dao Lee
Tsung-Dao Lee
Tsung-Dao Lee is a Chinese born-American physicist, well known for his work on parity violation, the Lee Model, particle physics, relativistic heavy ion physics, nontopological solitons and soliton stars....
and Chen Ning Yang due to sexism by the selection committee). Others include Charles K. Kao
Charles K. Kao
The Honorable Sir Charles Kuen Kao, GBM, KBE, FRS, FREng is a pioneer in the development and use of fiber optics in telecommunications...
, a pioneer in fiber optics technology, and Dr. David Ho, one of the first scientists to propose that AIDS was caused by a virus, thus subsequently developing combination antiretroviral therapy to combat it. Dr. Ho was named TIME
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
magazine's 1996 Man of the Year. However, the fact remains that many Chinese rue the absence of a native Chinese scientist among Nobel laureates, the genesis of which lies in the tradition laden culture.
Science in India
In India, contemplative science did indeed find a place in ancient Indian culture. The so-called rishiRishi
Rishi denotes the composers of Vedic hymns. However, according to post-Vedic tradition, the rishi is a "seer" to whom the Vedas were "originally revealed" through states of higher consciousness. The rishis were prominent when Vedic Hinduism took shape, as far back as some three thousand years...
s and muni
Wise old man
The wise old man is an archetype as described by Carl Jung, as well as a classic literary figure, and may be seen as a stock character...
s can indeed be called theoretical scientists. They contemplated on several natural phenomena and reached certain conclusions after careful thought. But, that was really long long ago, once the caste
Caste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
system became firmly established in the ancient Indian society there was little room left for rishis and munis. Their place was taken by the Brahmins, whose primary function was to learn the thoughts of the rishis and munis and interpret their meaning to the ruling class. They excelled in remembering and reciting, not in original thought.
The earliest applications of science in India
Science and technology in ancient India
The history of science and technology in the Indian subcontinent begins with prehistoric human activity at Mehrgarh, in present-day Pakistan, and continues through the Indus Valley Civilization to early states and empires. The British colonial rule introduced some elements of western education in...
took place in the context of medicine, metallurgy, construction technology (such as manufacture of cement and paints) and in textile production and dyeing. But in the process of understanding chemical processes, led to some theories about physical processes and the forces of nature that are today studied as specific topics within the fields of chemistry and physics.
There was really no place for scientists in the Indian caste system. Thus while there were/are castes for the learned brahmins, the warriors kshatriyas, the traders vaishyas and the menial workers shudras, maybe even the bureaucrats (the kayasths) there was/is hardly any formal place in the social hierarchy for a people who discover new knowledge or invent new devices based on the recently discovered knowledge, even though scientific temper has always been in India, in the form of logic, reasoning and method of acquiring knowledge. Its therefore no wonder that some Indians quickly learned to value science, especially those belonging to the privileged Brahmin caste during the British colonial rule that lasted over two centuries. Some Indians did succeed to achieve notable success and fame, examples include Satyendra Nath Bose
Satyendra Nath Bose
Satyendra Nath Bose FRS was an Indian mathematician and physicist noted for his collaboration with Albert Einstein in developing a theory regarding the gaslike qualities of electromagnetic radiation. He is best known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, providing the foundation...
, Meghnad Saha
Meghnad Saha
Meghnad Saha FRS was an Indian astrophysicist best known for his development of the Saha equation, used to describe chemical and physical conditions in stars.-Early life:...
, Jagdish Chandra Bose
Jagdish Chandra Bose
Acharya Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, CSI, CIE, FRS was a Bengali polymath: a physicist, biologist, botanist, archaeologist, as well as an early writer of science fiction...
and C. V. Raman even though they belonged to different castes. The science communication had begun with publication of a scientific journal, Asiatick Researches in 1788. Thereafter, the science communication in India has evolved in many facets. Following this, there has been a continuing development in the formation of scientific institutions and publication of scientific literature. Subsequently, scientific publications also started appearing in Indian languages by the end of eighteenth century. The publication of ancient scientific literature and textbooks at mass scale started in the beginning of nineteenth century. The scientific and technical terms, however, had been a great difficulty for a long time for popular science writing.
The colonial rule was indeed a blessing in disguise for the development of science and technology in India, as it is witnessed today. It thus facilitated the development of a Science and Technology establishment after India gained independence, especially under the visionary guidance of its first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru , often referred to with the epithet of Panditji, was an Indian statesman who became the first Prime Minister of independent India and became noted for his “neutralist” policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of the principal leaders of India’s independence movement in the...
. This legacy led to very successful career in science for many Non resident Indians, notable amongst them are Hargobind Khorana and S. Chandrasekhar who have won the Nobel Prize. However, the influence of the British that was once a blessing in disguise is proving as a road block for rapid growth, as most established scientists still rely on the approval of scientists from U.S or Europe before putting forth an opinion thereby making it hard for a young scientist to succeed unless s/he has the blessing from such an established scientist.
Today, the scientific research is led by the Indian Institute of Science
Indian Institute of Science
Indian Institute of Science is a research institution of higher learning located in Bangalore, India. It was established in 1909.-History:After a chance meeting between Jamsetji N...
(IISC), IIT's (Indian Institute of Technology) and other academic institutions like International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT Hyderabad, IIIT Bangalore). Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
, Hyderabad have become the R&D hub of many international organizations due to availability of cheap labor. Though, India produces more graduates than other developed countries like USA, it is lagging in number of Ph.D's produced. Now, this gap is being reduced with recent influx of highly educated Non Resident Indians back to India who were educated in developed countries like USA, UK, Australia and Europe.
Science in Korea
Development of Science and technology in Korea has closely paralleled that of overall economy, which has been almost completely dominated by chaebols and export-oriented industries. It started with hurriedly assembled hodgepodge of institutes and organizations focusing on reverse engineering, licensing and copying, imitations, and at times right-out pirating.At the beginning of the 20th century, the words and concepts of science and technology were virtually non-existent in Korean society. Some science courses were taught in a couple of universities but only as purely academic subjects. It can be safely said, however, up until the early 1960s Korea was a nation with neither modern technologies nor scientific research and development infrastructure.
Korea's science and technology did not exist, in any meaningful form, prior to the 1960s, it is said to be only four decades old, the time period that marks the beginning of Modern South Korea under the strongman rule of Park Chung Hee. As Korea embarked on its first major push for industrialization at that time, development of accompanying technologies became critical and the need for scientific infrastructure to support such efforts became imperative.
The future
Several countries like China and India are already aware of the problem and have initiated many steps towards enhancing the enthusiasm of their youth towards science. India for example has a vibrant science talent search in place and many students have excelled in several international science competitions, like the one conducted by Intel.See also
- Science and technology in IranScience and technology in IranPersia was a cradle of science in earlier times. Persian scientists contributed to the current understanding of nature, medicine, mathematics, and philosophy. Persians made important contributions to algebra and chemistry, invented the wind-power machine, and the first distillation of alcohol...
- Science and technology in PakistanScience and technology in PakistanIn Pakistan, science and technology served as an important part of national politics, practices, and extreme national identities. From 1960s till the present, both science and technology were immediately linked to national ideology and practical functioning of Pakistan, notably the Pakistan Armed...
- Science and technology in TurkeyScience and technology in TurkeyScience and Technology in Turkey is central planned by TÜBİTAK and in responsibility of universities and research institutes. R&D activities in Turkey show a significant jump in late years.-Modern Turkey:-Institutions:...