Read the following article from The Economist, August 21st 1999 and answer the questions that follow.

Imported Brains

    Alien scientists take over USA!

    Give her your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to do post-docs and patent drugs galore; the wretched refuse of your teeming labs shall find funding on this golden shore. Since the 1970s, a lot of the immigrants coming to the United States have arrived with PHDs burning holes in their pockets. As a study published in this week’s Science magazine shows, America has incorporated this influx of talent so well that the top ranks of its scientific establishment are now replete with foreign-born workers.

    Sharon Levin of the University of Missouri and Paula Stephan of  State University took a look at more than 4 500 top-rate scientists and engineers who practise their craft in the United States. After checking how many of these had been born or educated abroad, they reckon that the most accomplished scientists in America are disproportionately foreign.

    The two economists began by consulting the membership rolls of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering? America’s top scientific and technological clubs—for the past 20 years. They also included the authors of the papers and patents cited most frequently in scientific literature. Lastly, they culled lists of scientists from the boards of selected American biotechnology firms.

    This dream team of researchers is one that befits a nation of immigrants. In almost all of the above categories, across almost all disciplines, the proportion of foreigners is greater than it should be considering their proportion of the scientific community as a whole. For instance, in 1980 only about a fifth of the scientists in America (those with doctorates, at any rate) had been born abroad. Over the subsequent decade, 60% of the America-based authors of the most-cited papers in the physical sciences were foreign-born, as were nearly 30% of the authors of the most-cited life-science papers. Almost a quarter of the founders or chairmen of the biotechnology companies that went public in the early 1990s also came originally from outside the country.

    The main victims of all this, according to Ms Levin and Ms Stephan, are Germany and Britain. Superficially, the reason is not hard to find. It is money. British spending on research and development, as a fraction of GDP, slumped this year to a record low of 1.8%. Germany's was 2.4%. In America, it was 2.6%. Westward ho, then, after the money. Hoping to check the outward flow, a lobby groups, Save British Science, has been pushing the British government to double its spending on science over the next nine years. Germany has pledged to double its spending by 2004.

    But that may miss the point. The proportion of research financed by the taxpayer is falling in almost all industrial countries. It is private spending that is rising. But Europe is behind America here, too, and that is not so obviously open to a quick government fix.

    Europe is not alone in its worries. China and India are also watching the American statistics, since the 2000 census is expected to show a fairly sharp increase in the supply of immigrant scientists from there, too. Skilled Asian immigrants are snapping up visas as fast as America can dole them out. In California's high-tech industries, Asians already hold over 50 000 jobs and produce $17 billion-worth of revenue.

    So, as other countries watch their talent wooed away, America is left to cope with an embarrassment of riches. But every silver lining has its cloud. If foreign scientists are so successful in America, it follows that at least some native researchers are losing out in the competition for senior positions. Opposition to immigration has classically come from the bottom rungs of American society. Is a nativist backlash possible in the quiet groves of academe as well?

Questions:

1. What is the main idea of the article?

(Studies show that America has incorporated this influx of talent so well that the top ranks of its scientific establishment are now replete with foreign-born workers. )

2. What are the major details supporting the main idea?

(   Sharon Levin and Paula Stephan investigated more than 4 500 top-rate scientists and engineers who practise their craft in the United States and find that the most accomplished scientists in America are disproportionately foreign.
    In almost all of the above categories, across almost all disciplines, the proportion of foreigners is greater than it should be considering their proportion of the scientific community as a whole.
    The main victims of all this are Germany and Britain. The proportion of research financed by the tax-payer is falling in almost all industrial countries. China and India are also watching the American statistics. Skilled Asian immigrants are snapping up visas as fast as America can dole them out. In California's high-tech industries, Asians already hold over 50 000 jobs and produce $17 billion-worth of revenue.)

3. What is the author’s view toward the topic?

(    The author thinks this is good news but he also points out that it has its problems since at least some native researchers are losing out in the competition for senior positions. )

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