Jim Webster writes
remember that science can be performed to a level matching or exceeding the
past, but within one nation state you can have a shortage of people capable
of maintaining it. If the North American continent kept up the standards of
scientific education, then the UK would still see scientific advances and
its best people would still be able to keep up and would probably move for
the enhanced education and training.
As it is we are seeing in the UK a decreasing proportion of people with a
decent scientific education

Mind you it is a moot point how many technocrats we actually need.
Very, very, few end up doing research. Most end up in industry (and
there is not much of that left), often as a glorified maintenance man
(nothing wrong with that) and only rarely actually designing something.

Even more go into management or 'financial services'. Pretty lucrative
and often interesting. Some into teaching, even fewer as a vocation.

It's worth remembering that in the 60's only about 2% of the children
leaving school went to university and well under half of those did
sciences. Many of those went into teaching and a tiny number into
academia.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
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