Andrew Fire of Stanford University and Craig Mello of the UMass Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts have been awarded 2006's Nobel Prize for medicine. They did so after making discoveries about fighting viruses through gene treatment. The awarding of the prize to the American pair, after 2005's award went to two Australians, marks a year drought for Americans winning the prize. Since World War II, an American has had a share in the award in roughly three-fourths of the years. In the last decade, an American has shared at least part of the award in nine of ten years.

Interesting to note. Studies show kids in American schools consistently score much lower than many of their foreign counterparts, and yet at its culmination our system consistently produces Nobelists. Is this a paradox?

Perhaps Americans possess some cultural trait that, when combined with achievment (however rare such achievment), produces better scientists.

Perhaps its the fact that Americans have a market-based, competitive system for higher education.

Market-based and competitive. You might be on to something there, but isn't our system hugely subsidized by the federal government and state governments?

And Ralph, I like your cultural trait theory--do you think it might explain why so many uneducated Americans are real handy when it comes to making crank?

"Market-based and competitive. You might be on to something there, but isn't our system hugely subsidized by the federal government and state governments?" -Buzz

Yes. Maybe I should have said MORE market based and competitive.

My uncle runs a medical research company, and he is almost entirely dependent on NIH grants to do their research and developement, and then make money from the private sector once they develop something.

I don't have the information offhand, but if my memory is correct, the US government puts far more money into medical research than any other country.

I'm not saying the market is bad, but I wouldn't herald the american medical community as the height of capitalism.

America has a lot more colleges and research institutions than anywhere else, and the geniuses are not really going to be deterred by a poor elementary school science class. So while it is a nice symbolic thing to win all these awards, it does not mean we are dominating the field.

Said uncle and I often discuss immigration and he is fine with curtailing Hispanic immigration, but insists we need all these Asians and Indians on the grounds that at virtually every single medical conference he is at, about half the people are Japan, China, Korea, or India.

Haha.

Buzz, most of our nobelists are foriegners who came here for graduate studies.

Our colleges and universities are the best in the world- bar none.

But our high schools suck.

The reason?

Too much government interference. We need to follow AZs example and allow charter schools and insitutionalize every high school in America so that they can have the same freedom to raise money and regulate that the colleges do, instead of being beholden by school boards and teachers unions.

We should abolish government run schools altogether-and just have government issue vouchers for use at private schools.

But, barring that, I wouldn't mind seeing our high school system completely charter-ized.