Science and math as the fastest personal pathways toward connectivity

■"For Immigrants, Math Is a Way to Success: The high school population is 22% Asia; the math club is 94.4% Asian," by Michael Winerip, New York Times, 18 May 2005, p. A19.

In "Mean Girls" (great movie), Lindsey Lohan's character Cady explains that she loves math because numbers are the ultimate universal language. Perhaps not a very scholarly citation, but what can I say? I like redheads.

Tom Friedman raises a lot of legitimate concerns about education in the U.S. in his "World is Flat" book, but you have to wonder if that simple reasonóit's the universal language (math and science)óis what accounts for both the high concentration of immigrant and foreign students in these fields in the U.S. and the rising tide of such human capital in countries like India and China. In effect, it's the quickest and simplest route to success on an individual level in the global economy.

I mean, that's the sort of bias that Americans long held (professional industrial and research) but don't seem to display to the same degree anymore. Does that mean we're falling behind or just moving beyond? As others swamp the technical jobs where memorization is the key initial skill set, does it make sense for America to seek to hold that line or move on to the next thingóyou know, that argument about switching to the other side of the brain that emphasizes creativity and what not? When IBM sells its PC production to Lenovo, is it "falling behind" or moving ahead? And if that's the case (moving ahead), then why would it be so different with human capital?

You know, there is always that tendency to fight the last war andóby doing soóassuming you're protecting your future when you're really just trying to hold onto your past. That's not to say that all those Indian and Chinese engineers are going to be working existing or dated technology, because they're sure as hell not going to be doing just that. I'm just wonderingóin the manner of that Feb Wired article by Pinker, was it?ówhether or not the rather ritualistic cries of America is "falling dangerously behind" that we seem to get every time our economy slows down relative to the up-and-coming high-fliers are any more profound or correct than they were last time, or the time before that, or the one before even that one.

Or do we trust in the marketplace and individual ambition to sort things out absent the "crash programs," the "man-to-the-moon" efforts, and the "Manhattan projects"?

Not saying I know. Just saying I'm skeptical of the usual doomsaying.

Errata: No. It wasn't "Pinker, was it?"