Internatiomal science: Function, dysfunction and flowers in a grassy field
April 12, 2007 | 12:00am
Lessons from Latin America |
I am writing this article in Colima, Mexico, where my graduate student and I are conducting research in collaboration with a Mexican scientist and two of his students. My collaborator says two-thirds of his salary is based on his productivity  if he did not publish scientific papers, his salary would be one-third of what he currently receives. On two occasions, I conducted research at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institution’s station on Barro Colorado Island, in the Panama Canal. There, we got to know scientists and students from various Central and South American countries who were conducting research alongside Americans, Canadians, Australians and Europeans of various nationalities. The Hispanic scientists had international reputations, were well published in peer-reviewed journals, and were excellent role models for their students. I also had a visiting Chilean student in my California laboratory who got her own grant from the Chilean government and brought samples to my laboratory for biochemical analysis. While she was washing cuvettes (sort of a rectangular test-tube that fits in an instrument called a spectrophotometer) in the laboratory, I asked her what the word for cuvette was in Spanish. She said cubeta. Lavandera de cubetas is now a Ph.D. student funded by the Fulbright Foundation at the University of California at Berkeley. Her home department at the Universidad Catolica, in Santiago, Chile, is staffed by a number of internationally recognized scientists (I know two of them personally) who are great role models to their students, assets to their country, and active contributors  through their peer-reviewed publications in international journals  to the advancement of scientific knowledge.
It is interesting to think of how many of these countries were also former colonies of European countries and that they are subject to the same (or at least very similar) influences as those seen in the Philippines, i.e., former dictatorships, anti-communism used to justify oppression, government corruption, inequities between the rich and poor, Spanish or Portuguese and Church influences on culture and way of life, history of covert or overt US meddling in national affairs. They should have as many excuses as anyone or any country for having a completely dysfunctional scientific system.
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