Radioactivity in the Service of Man

Abstract

Much has been made of the fact that over the past two decades the United States has been the preeminent leader in the number of Nobel laureates in the sciences. However, corrected for population, we are actually behind Great Britain and Sweden. If we then subtract those laureates credited to but not born or educated in the United States, its production of scientists appears even further diminished. The most significant trend in the percent distribution of American-trained doctorates in the sciences is their overall decline, 17% in the decade between 1965 and 1975 and a further projected 10% decline in the next decade (Directorate for Science Education 1980). The decline is greatest in the physical sciences, engineering, and mathematics and statistics. Not only is there a striking decrease in the percentage of doctorates in the hard sciences, but in 1975-1976 nonresident aliens accounted for 35% of the doctorates in engineering, a fact which emphasizes the lack of interest of the American-born in physical science and technology (Directorate for Science Education 1980). In medicine, decreasing interest in research has been even more striking. The number of physicians reporting research as a primary activity decreased from 15,441 in 1968 to 7944 in 1975, and the number in research training programs fell from 4600 in 1971 to 1800 in 1977. The decreasing interest in medical inves-