The shift in values and cultural stereotypes of consciousness, which has taken the form of culture wars, has affected virtually all social spheres in the United States. In recent years, it has increasingly affected the basic sciences, such as physics and mathematics. U.S. universities are in the process of implementing a system of student and professor quotas based on the principles of racial-ethnic and gender diversity. The “policy of diversity” is long-term and will have enormous consequences for American science, comparable in magnitude to the consequences of the immigration of European and, in the 1990s, Russian scientists to the United States and their contribution to American higher education and basic research in the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries.
The publication in July 1945 of the report by Vanivar Bush, Science Advisor to Presidents F. Roosevelt and H. Truman, organizer and supervisor of the Manhattan Project, which culminated in the successful creation of nuclear weapons, was a major factor in the transformation of basic scientific research into a direct productive force in American society after World War II. In a report entitled “Science, Boundless Horizons for Development,” it was pathetically argued that basic research was the main “engine of technological progress. [Bush, p. 17], and with it economic growth. In the second half of the 1940s, the main organizing and coordinating role in the field of basic scientific research was assigned by W. Bush to the state at its federal level. To this end, he proposed the establishment of an independent federal agency – the National Science Foundation (NSF), in fact the Ministry of Science, which after long delays was finally created in May 1950.
Researches of the authoritative American economists have shown that in the second half of the XX century the expenses for the basic scientific researches and the applied developments caused by them in the United States have given the growth of the labor productivity not less than 50 %, and the gain of economic efficiency has made almost 75 % [R&D and Productivity Growth, p. 29]. At the same time, experts have long drawn attention to the fact that there is no linear correlation between the growth of the number of scientists and engineers engaged in basic research and development and the rate of economic growth. Thus, according to NSF data published in the late 1980s, the number of scientists and engineers in the United States increased fivefold over the 40 years since the creation of the NSF, from 200,000 in 1950 to 1 million in 1987, but “the rate of economic growth per capita did not even come close to a fivefold increase.” [Jones, p. 760]. In other words, the qualitative composition of scientists and engineers engaged in basic research and development, their level of qualification also seems to play an important role in accelerating the pace of socio-economic development of the country.
The basic paradigm of formation of the American scientific community
W. Bush’s report marked the institutionalization of another important feature of the “human capital” of the modern American scientific community – the emphasis on immigration of the best “world brains” from other countries, at that time mainly European (Europe has traditionally been the center of formation and development of basic scientific knowledge). The U.S., with its philosophy and worldview of pragmatism and utilitarianism, concentrated the efforts of its intellectual elite on technical achievements, on the practical application of the results of fundamental discoveries made in other countries.
Throughout its history the United States has been a kind of magnet, attracting extraordinary personalities who came to America “for a combination of reasons,” and purely scientific considerations were not always in the first place. For example, in 1794 a British priest and distinguished chemist J. Priestley (1733-1804), the discoverer of oxygen, moved to the United States. J. Priestley’s public activity relatively quickly made him an English dissident, an advocate of people’s rights and revolutionary speeches. Under the influence of the French Revolution he moved to the open preaching of its ideas, which resulted in serious persecution of him and his family. By this time Priestley had become “one of the most dangerous thinkers in all England. [Joseph Priestley…]. In 1791 his house and chemistry laboratory in Birmingham were attacked, vandalized, and destroyed. Eventually he was forced to leave Great Britain and move to America precisely for political reasons. J. Priestley spent the last ten years of his life in Pennsylvania, and his move to America “set a precedent for many other intellectual exiles.
In 1872, after the American Civil War (1861 – 1865), the outstanding inventor and entrepreneur A. Bell (1847 – 1922) came to this country from Great Britain. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company, founded by him, determined all the subsequent development of the modern information and communication industry of the American economy. In 1884, an outstanding scientist and inventor of Serbian origin, N. Tesla (1856-1943), nicknamed “the man who invented the twentieth century,” came to the United States from Europe.
The “magic formula” for taking American science to the highest world level had been found. Quite quickly quantity turned into quality. In physics, from 1901 to 1959, 15, and from 1960 to 2013, 21 American immigrant scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize. In the field of chemistry between 1901 and 1959. The Nobel Prize was awarded to one, and between 1960 and 2013 it was awarded to 23 American immigrant scientists. In medicine, the ratio of Nobel Prizes awarded to American immigrant scientists during the same periods was 9 to 28. In all, in these three fields of science, the number of Nobel Prizes received by American immigrant scientists during the second period increased nearly threefold compared to the first period, from 25 to 72.
American researchers do not hide the fact that the influx of German immigrants of Jewish origin from Nazi Germany after 1933 was caused by a cultural factor – the official ideology of anti-Semitism. According to analysts, “The historical record strongly suggests that German immigrants of Jewish origin who fled Nazi Germany revolutionized American innovations.” Altogether, by the end of World War II, some 2,400 German scholars of Jewish origin had settled in the United States.
Over the next 70 years, the tradition of using the “best brains” of the planet to strengthen and reinforce American leadership in basic science has been preserved and consolidated. As American researchers I. Ganguly (of Indian origin) and P. Gohl (of Czech origin) emphasized, “the key factor in the emergence and maintenance of U.S. leadership in science, technology, engineering and mathematics is its ability to attract and retain talent from other countries. The trend toward an increasing proportion of scientists and engineers with doctoral degrees in the U.S. economy and academic world has intensified since the early 1990s. In particular, while in 1993 about 28% of those employed in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in the United States were immigrant scientists with doctoral degrees, by 2017 their share had increased to 45%; and in the academic world, that is, U.S. universities and research centers predominantly engaged in basic research, the proportion born outside the United States reached a record 49% in 2017, of which 29.0% were in permanent employment. As the NSF statistical report noted, “The proportion of scientists born outside the U.S. has increased significantly over the past 25 years. The same pattern has been observed in most basic knowledge industries – the higher the level of qualifications as measured by a science degree, the more foreign-born scientists and engineers have been employed in them.”
The fundamental reason for the ever-increasing influx of foreign-born scientists into American academia is cultural; they are attracted to “the openness of American culture, which encourages talent and imposes no restrictions based on prior ties, social status, ethnicity or national origin. Perhaps this assessment presents the atmosphere of American basic science in an “idealistic tone,” but it is important to understand that structural shifts in basic science and its role in US socioeconomic progress depend directly on a shift in the “sociocultural wind rose,” which is a kind of waymark that changes the trajectory of the possible evolution of basic science in the future.
The system of ethnic quotas is coming to U.S. basic science
The accelerating pace of demographic shifts in American society, predetermining tectonic shifts in their cultural component, has led to the formation of a steady downward trend not only in the relative, but also – in the last decade – in the absolute number of white people in the United States. In 2000, there were 211.5 million white people, or 74.4% of the U.S. population, but in 2010 the number of whites rose to 223.6 million, but their share of the total population declined to 72.4%. In 2020, according to official Census data, for the first time in American history there was an absolute decline in the white population – to 204.3 million people (almost by 20 million), which also predetermined a huge decrease in their share to 61.6%.
The rapidly increasing “colorization” of American society could not but affect all areas of it; in recent years it has also targeted the basic sciences, especially physics and mathematics. In January 2020, the prestigious and influential American Institute of Physics published an extensive report, the result of two years of research, entitled “The Time is Now. Systemic Change to Increase the Number of African Americans with Bachelor of Science Degrees in Physics and Astronomy.” The report resonated widely in the American physics community. As a starting point, the authors took data from official U.S. statistics showing that between 1995 and 2017, the number of undergraduate degrees awarded by U.S. universities at all levels nearly doubled, from 1.1 million to 2.1 million. During that period, the number of undergraduate degrees earned by African American students rose from 85,900 to 193,600, a nearly 2.3-fold increase. Thus, the percentage of African-American students earning bachelor’s degrees increased from 7.2% to 9.2%, or nearly 30%.
In the fields of physics and astronomy, the total number of bachelor of science degrees awarded in the United States increased over this period from about 5,000 to 9,000. Meanwhile, the number of degrees awarded to African Americans increased from 100 in 1995 to 238 in physics and 12 in astronomy in 2017. However, in relative terms, their share fell from 4.5% to 3.0% of the total number of degrees awarded in the U.S. during this period.
Despite the relatively large size of the American Institute of Physics report, its main recommendation boiled down to a target: to bring the total number of bachelor’s degrees awarded to African Americans in physics to 500 per year by 2030, and to 25 per year in astronomy.
However, perhaps the most important part of the American Institute of Physics report is devoted to an analytical explanation of the lack of exposure of African Americans to physics and astronomy. The authors conclude that the main reasons for the weak interest of African Americans in these sciences are not only socio-economic, but also a set of cultural – broadly defined – factors that act as an almost insurmountable barrier to the formation of a relatively strong community of physicists and astronomers among African Americans. The report explicitly states that it is “the cultural environment surrounding physics that does not favor the success of students with marginalized identities, especially African American students.”
Building on this theoretical-methodological approach, the American Institute of Physics has proposed a series of measures aimed at changing the physics and astronomy learning environment for African American students. This change should be based “on the consistent implementation of norms and values of respect for and inclusion of African Americans. African American students should “feel like physicists and astronomers and be perceived by the faculty of physics departments and schools as future physicists and astronomers. Moreover, faculty members are prescribed the role of “facilitators of the learning process for African American students. Academic support for the teaching of physics and astronomy to African-Americans, however, should aim to overcome the “ethnic minority student disadvantage model,” which holds that “such students are less capable than students of other ethnic backgrounds because of their innate identity. Particular attention should be paid to combating the notion that in physics and astronomy meritocratic “success is determined solely by ability, talent, and hard work, which can turn out to be a misjudgment of an African American student’s potential.”
Playing “student images of the physicist and astronomer” recommended by the American Institute of Physics to relevant departments and schools at American universities inevitably led to the main recommendation, the creation of a fund with an asset of about $50 million to support the education of an additional 250 African American students wishing to enter the physics and astronomy professions over the next 10 years. In fact, it is proposed to legalize a quota system for African-American students in the physics departments of American universities and schools, because under the conditions of guaranteed and “paid-for-before” education universities (especially if they are not leading scientific centers) do not care about the final goal of training “self-identified” physicists and astronomers.