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Most of the middle of the article - the rant about field trips and the somewhat sweeping (borderline hilarious) statement that the Soviet Union failed due to an inability to innovate despite its reverence of scientists - strikes me as irrelevant to the main argument. Which so far as I can tell goes like this: 1. Children aren't very good at / don't enjoy science. 2. If they become scientists, we won't pay them very well anyway. 3. Therefore, they shouldn't have to bother with it. [omitted middle of article] 4. However, we still need scientists. 5. So let's import them as cheap labour. While I could characterise that as 'flawed logic,' I'm not even sure that an argument is advanced in the first place. If anything it's an economics argument masquerading as moral philosophy/social policy. Which is either sloppy thinking or plain disingenuous. Anyone else care to pick apart the structure? It's a long time since I did this sort of thing, but I recognise the feeling in the pit of my stomach: this looks to me like stating a contentious view simply to get a rise out of people, with little concern paid to whether the argument is coherent. Which, as others have noted, is a pity, since some of the detail points are interesting. Sophia, you used to be good at ripping apart my blithe assertions - care to do the same trick here? :-) -- Jonathan Sanderson 'If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.' (Pascal) ********************************************************************** 1. To suspend yourself from the list, whilst on leave, for example, send an email to [log in to unmask] with the following message: set psci-com nomail 2. To resume email from the list, send the following message: set psci-com mail 3. To leave psci-com, send an email to [log in to unmask] with the message: leave psci-com 4. Further information about the psci-com discussion list, including list archive, can be found at the list web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/psci-com.html 5. The psci-com gateway to internet resources on science communication and science and society can be found at http://psci-com.org.uk **********************************************************************