The Smog of Reprisal

Peter Wood continues to display his attempt to spin a story with fancy footwork presentation, ignoring facts and common sense while making his slanted argument.

1. Wood: “Rather than correct the underlying problem, the state agency plowed ahead with a policy based on spurious research—and the whistleblower got fired.” Where is the evidence for the claim the research was spurious? Yes, the researcher was found to have lied about his degree, but that doesn’t make the actual research spurious. If you go to the Daily Bruin article, you find that Enstrom is the extreme outlier in research on the topic. There is, according to several other authorities mentioned, a consensus based on thousands of other studies that supports the policy matter. Wood doesn’t mention that.

2. The official UCLA explanation for his termination includes that he failed to meeting his funding threshold. Is that true? Is it in dispute? Does Wood consider that just cause for termination of a non-tenure track research faculty? Is termination for failing to reach funding part of the brutal world of university science funding and something that happens all the time without regard to the politics of someone’s research?

3. Wood: “Enstrom has also been targeted by the left-wing advocacy group Source Watch, which devotes a page to him.” Why does Wood need to say “left-wing advocacy group,” but provide no such label to Reason.TV which is clearly a right-wing freemarket libertarian advocacy group? And how about the editorial page of the San Diego Union Tribune or the Hot Air blog, which Wood quotes approvingly? Fair and balanced? Neutral and accurate? Hardly. And if you go to the Source Watch site, you find that the page on Enstrom has actually been reviewed by him (apparently for accuracy). That generosity doesn’t extend to Reason.TV or to Wood himself with their opponents.

4. Wood: “Reason TV strongly suggests that Enstrom was fired in retaliation for his role as a whistleblower.” But, the UCLA official statements say this is not the case, that the cause was his research not aligning with the department mission and didn’t meet funding requirements. Is failing to align with the department mission not just cause? Is it not true? Wood simply ducks the question.

5. Wood tries to explain away problems an objective observor might have with Enstrom’s research by saying he is an iconoclast. Wood offers this as well: “he was at the time a skeptic on the health dangers of second-hand smoke.” Actually, a much more accurate way of phrasing this would be to say that Enstrom had throughout his career operated in the realm of “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” funding from the tobacco industry and its front groups. His recent research on particulate pollution serves the cause of rolling back restrictions on diesel trucks in California. Indeed, the Reason TV piece is obviously and simply a propaganda piece for the truck industry which uses Enstrom to try to create a “plausible” basis for reversing pollution regulations on diesel trucks.

6. Wood darkly suggests that the AAUP has “been silent” on the Enstrom matter. Yet this case has been dragging on since last spring. One might say that Wood has “been silent” on it until now. Has Enstrom brought his case to AAUP? Or just to the trucking industry and FIRE?

Perhaps there is a matter for concern here, but without addressing the basis for non-renewal of Enstrom’s appointment (mission and funding levels) it’s hard to know. Rumors that someone voted against Enstrom as reprisal are, after all, just rumors. Has Enstrom’s case gone through an appeal at UCLA? Wood doesn’t tell us.

Chuck Kleinhans

Hien Tran was suspended for two months without pay but was not fired. The blog site Hot Air Reports that “Tran got a 60-day suspension and a demotion, but still works as an air pollution specialist for the state despite his record of fraudulent representation.” http://hotair.com/archives/2011/04/02/ca-legislators-threaten-hearings-if-ucla-fires-carb-whistleblower/.

There is more news on this case from FIRE (http://thefire.org/article/13019.html) which reports, “Twelve members of the California State Legislature have written UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block and Provost Scott Waugh a letter decrying UCLA’s treatment of longtime Department of Environmental Health Sciences faculty member James E. Enstrom.” Engstrom is due to meet with Chencellor Beck today (Monday, April 4) to present his appeal.

Peter Wood

Dear DavidT, your observation that your university reserves “academic freedom” to tenured members of the faculty surprises me, Would you be willing to divulge what university that is? The concept of academic freedom has been around for many centuries, although in the United States it is most commonly seen through the lens of successive AAUP statements, beginning with the 1915 Statement of Principles. None of these statements presented academic freedom as something limited to tenured faculty members. Moreover, most universities in my experience have adopted formal statements that explicitly recognize that academic freedom extends to all faculty members. It would be odd to have a policy that reserves the right to teach, pursue research, and speak publicly to the tenured faculty, who are the class of faculty members least in need of such protection. Odd–but clearly not impossible.

I am not familiar with UCLA’s declared position on this. Perhaps a reader can direct us to the relevant policy statement. In any case, the general principles of academic freedom would certainly extend to Dr. Engstrom’s case.

Your raising the issue that academic freedom does not protect work outside the faculty member’s area of expertise is not relevant here. Dr. Engstrom was operating squarely within his area of expertise. He had published research on the exact question at issue before CARB, and he initially critiqued Mr. Tran’s report on its merits. The scientific flaws in that report were sufficiently serious that Dr. Engstrom became suspicious about Mr. Tran’s scientific background, and only at that point did he bring to light the Mr. Tran’s fraudulent credentials.

I agree that there is much more to be learned about this case that I have mentioned or that the sources at hand provide. I am struck, however, by the tone of defensiveness in several of these comments. Yes, Dr. Engstrom was “soft money” funded. We do not know at this point whether his external funding had dried up and, if it had, for how long. When someone in a research position is in this situation universities typically extend a period of bridge funding at least until applications for new external support have had a chance to run their course. Did UCLA proceed in that fashion or did it seize a lull in his funding as a pretext to get rid of a researcher who had netted two of his senior colleagues by catching them in acts of seriously unprofessional behavior?

The appearances right now don’t at all favor the University in this case, and I’ll venture the prediction that, when the dust settles, Dr. Engstrom will prevail.

The University of California Academic Personnel Manual statement on academic freedom may be found at http://www.ucop.edu/acadadv/acadpers/apm/apm-010.pdf . How the protections apply to nonfaculty academic appointments is more than a little unclear…

Dr. Wood: Your comment that “Your raising the issue that academic freedom does not protect work outside the faculty member’s area of expertise is not relevant here. Dr. Engstrom was operating squarely within his area of expertise” urges me to ask you to read my note again. I did not suggest that there was any such issue in Enstrom’s case: this was simply an illustration of one of the good points you have made about academic freedom in the past.

I was trying to draw the parallel between two issues in academic freedom: what it protects, and whom it protects. You have written before that academic freedom should protect everyone, in some form, from students to administrators. You have not weighed in on adjunct faculty, as far as I know.

I am surprised that you are surprised that academic freedom is not extended to junior, untenured faculty in my own university – and in many other universities with which I am familiar. The cases that test these issues are rare, but I will remind you again that tenure has for many years been regarded in the popular wisdom of academia as an opportunity to do the controversial research or publish the out-in-left-field paper. In other words, once one is protected by the academic freedom that tenure grants, a little pushing of the boundaries is possible. I am familiar with only a couple of cases in recent years in which junior faculty who did not get tenure have raised academic freedom issues, and as far as I know, in both cases this was thrown out as a factor that they could appeal to. As I also noted, I am not even sure what it would mean for an adjunct faculty member to have academic freedom, given the very precarious nature of that status. What rational university would tie its hands with such a strange policy?

As you once wrote, Academic Freedom is a broad, bold concept. We encourage pushing the boundaries, testing new ideas, going out on a limb to push science and scholarship further. But there is also academic freedom, a narrower, legal issue that many universities formalize in written policies. In my limited experience, when they begin to think seriously about what it is and to whom it is extended on a day to day basis, adjunct faculty certainly don’t get it. I suspect that there are universities in which it is extended to junior, tenure-track faculty. I’ll go further: I assume there are. I also assume that the first time an assistant prof. who is denied tenure raises the academic freedom issue, his/her university quickly re-thinks the matter.

“his research on air pollution did not align with the department mission and failed to reach funding requirements, according to a June 9 layoff notice from Richard Jackson, environmental health sciences department chair.”

I find it telling that no one latched onto this disturbing quote. “…his research on air pollution did not ALIGN with the department mission” is a troubling statement suggesting that if a scientist can honestly prove that the department mission is wrong then they must be fired, their actual science not even addressed. If his research countered common thought then it is worth looking into. America has the highest rate of dishonest scientists because apparently they are buying into politics not science. The Dept mission should be TRUTH.

Chuck, if you’ll notice, Enstrom’s INITIAL funding was NOT through tobacco companies but through the American Cancer Society (for 38 years) and ACS pulled their funding because Enstrom’s results didn’t align with their mission. He had to pull funding from somewhere. Since Glantz’s own tobacco funding went unremarked (of course HIS findings did align with the “accepted” science) why not use them?

Of course, a good way to malign someone is to leave them scrambling for funding because the ACS wasn’t interested in SCIENCE, simply someone pandering to their own prejudices. I think the E&K study is actually a very obvious example of what’s wrong with “science” in our country and why it is truly not worthy of trust.

A great article. It is a pleasure seeing a book by a biographer of poets being made into a movie by a serious-minded actor. A good day for academe and a great tribute to Paul Mariani.

Dear temple99:
You are so right. Sorry for the error — reporter was going off incorrect info on that from a news release. Thanks for the correction — that part of the story has been revised. Moreover, stay tuned. I think A&A’s going to have a follow up on this that you might be interested in.
Best,
Alex Kafka, a Chron editor

Prhelm, these are not short-term savings.  They are permanent, long-term savings–it’s money that’s already in the budget attached to tenured faculty lines that are going empty.  New faculty members hired at entry-level salaries will inflate the budget at precisely the same rate as the current tenured, senior faculty members, with one exception, which is the two salary increases they’d get for promotions.  Chickenfeed in the overall budget picture.

We have millions of dollars in long-term contingency funds already, in quasi-endowment funds, various reserves, and other places.  We also already have substantially over $150k in budgeted funds for faculty development, so that’s not a pressing need either.  While out endowment could certainly be larger (which institution’s couldn’t?), it’s big enough that adding a couple hundred thousand in salary savings to it is basically immaterial.

Any of these options is an investment in the institution’s future.  Raising salaries increases faculty satisfaction and makes it easier to recruit new faculty.  Adding faculty lines in pressing areas or in new curricular areas is likely to improve the institution’s academic quality.  Both of these outcomes are more valuable than increasing our endowment earnings by $5,000 or $10,000 per year, which is what a deposit of $200k into the endowment would do.

Sanjoaquin, my thoughts exactly.  Thanks.

I like your logic but you stopped short of saying one thing, “full-time faculty add value to the university”.  That is why hiring more faculty or giving pay equity to existing faculty is important.  By depending more on adjunct faculty we are lowering quality, making teaching less consistent and cheating our students.  Hiring full-time faculty adds value through increased enrollment, increased quality and all the faculty-lead initiatives that never get mentioned (like new and improved programs, student advising, mentoring, etc…).  Cost increases in higher education have very little to do with faculty salaries but the solution seems to be reducing the number of full-time faculty.  The result is lower quality and higher costs.  That is why people question the value of higher education.

and if money is the problem, why don’t they just move to a POD model, which would cost them practically nothing?  they could still publish and promote those avanthick tomes (and offer free pdf downloads of the books)—there’s no law says they have to stick to ye old archaic deadtree traditional “trade publishing”

Mr. Bill Knott seems to be suffering under the sad delusion that a University press is somehow beholden to society and must therefore publish only what that society “wants” to read. One wonders if he suffers from the similar delusion that to do so would be to serve the demands of a University’s reason for existence. Or, in “populist” terms, does Mr. Knott actually think valorising the status quo is the work of the academy? Lest one forget, Duchamp’s “Fountain” was not something that merely rehashed the status quo. Beat poetry was not something that simply regurgitated what was already there. There is always an avant-garde to a status quo, and it is the work of the academy to make known this avant-garde, to explore (if not necessarily judge) it, and to essentially nourish it. This necessarily entails a degree of not elitism but enlightenment. Do not confuse the two, for in doing so, you display your own stunning ignorance of the difference and of the importance of that difference. Elitism is unearned; enlightenment is earned. To be of sufficient intellectual fibre that one can engage with the unknown, the new, the weird–this is the work of intellectuals. This is why academics and the academy exists.

Your way would destroy millennia spent in pursuit of the boundaries of human awareness. 

Were the taxpayers funding said University press???

I think we have to move beyond the idea that universities will continue to support culture or the liberal arts. I believe that universities will continue to educate students in the fields of engineering, law, business, economics, etc; and those who care about the humanities will find other ways forward.

How much money does the UC Press want to revive the series and keep it going? Does it want to make it a purely donor-supported series?

a couple quotes:

from the TLS, 07/08/11, page 9, Tim Blanning reviewing an anthology of European Romanticism notes that many Romantics sought 

‘an alliance that was populist . . . . for cultural value in any society was not to be found among
the classically educated elites, with their sophisticated but artificial culture, but with the common people. . . . The Hungarian poet Sandor Petofi proclaimed: “folk poetry is indeed the true poetry.  Let us set about making it supreme!”  He was writing in 1847, the year before a wave of revolution swept across Continental Europe and gave retrospective piquancy to his further observation that “if the people rules in poetry, the day cannot be far off when it will rule in politics too.” ‘

and:
 
from Laurie Smith’s essay, “Subduing the reader,” in Magma magazine:

(http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=14974)

:— the last sentence from his penultimate paragraph:

“We need always to be alert to writers who claim that good poetry must be difficult, accessible only to the educated few, and see this claim for what it is – fascist.”

…

I see what you did with part (2) there, but honestly, we could just allow colleges to pay players whatever they liked, rather than imposing an arbitrary cap on their income. 

Quite why it’s OK to regulate the pay of college football and basketball players is beyond me. Are there any other examples of professions where collusion to limit worker compensation is acceptable?

Goodness.  Everyone seems to have read Jbarman’s post and assumed he is an out of touch parent with a child who is not ready for college.  Can we not allow these poor youngsters to just act their ages?  We are talking about teenagers here, people.  Proximity of food is important.  His child sounds very much like my two teenagers, who, by the way, are excellent, and very happy, students.  Some kids are driven and focused about everything at a young age, like apparently ruthgree’s daughter.  Others are like my senior–they take their time, and they procrastinate.  We were a little worried early on and mentioned a gap year.  She looked at us like we had just suggested a sex change operation.  Let’s be honest–college searching is on top of all the other stuff they have on their hyperactive plates and I don’t blame my daughter for thinking of it as a bit of an albatross. I felt the same way at her age, i.e. overwhelmed by the possibilities.  She was almost brought to tears by the size and density of
the Fiske Guide.  But this is where parents come in.  Knowing our daughter, and remembering how we felt at the same age,
we helped her focus on colleges that we thought would suit her basic
criteria and our basic criteria for a fit.  Then we toured some of
them. We have now toured 7 and lifestyle
issues were as important to her, and possibly more so, than the student teacher
ratio. And why not?  They are going to spend four crucial years living at this place and they might as well pick one that makes them feel happy and has amenities that please them.  The rest will fall into place if the list is drawn up properly.  Student teacher ratios and graduation rates?  That is the kind of thing that should be taken into account in coming up with your initial list, and then used as a differentiating factor when making a final choice.  It is not something that means much to a teenager and/or is what they are most interested in while reading the college bios or touring.  They want to know if it has their potential majors and how it feels.  Think of it as similar to your search for an apartment/house or a life partner.  It’s feel and fit.  As for communications from the schools, I think Ms. Supiano’s conclusions are just right.  These kids are growing up in the information overload age and they don’t need more and more environmentally objectionable snail mail or more emails.  They may or may not be interested in your school, but an initial contact with a follow up is really enough, with further follow ups dictated by their responses if they provide any.  If they like you, they will contact you.  This generation is amazing about doing their own research.  I agree with ruthgree that barraging them with stuff is ridiculous.  It just makes them roll their eyes and go deaf.  I’m guessing that’s not the response you’re looking for.  By the way, our tours were enjoyable but mostly ended with daughter ambivalent.  She thought several were quite nice and could see herself at them but she wasn’t jumping up and down.  On the last tour, daughter turned to us as soon as it was over and said, “I want to apply ED here!”  So many parents told me, and I didn’t really believe them, it’s practically immediate–they know it when they see it.   

Early decision  :)

About the economic argument for learning languages — a monolingual family member is a senior executive in an American company (Fortune 500).  As a teen and business major in college, he disdained language study, saying he just wanted a job in business in the U.S. where he could use English.  When he began with the company, to his surprise, they immediately sent him to Korea for two years.  Then Mexico. Then China. Today he not only wishes he’d learned at least some level of Spanish, Chinese or other world language, but he also hires employees who are bilingual.  He’s a senior VP and all the people in his unit are bilingual.  Even when they don’t always need the language, he says they are unarguably more sophisticated international thinkers who optimize the company’s work.

Certainly some MBA’s will stay highly local, but the trend towards internationalization is not going away.  And some people achieve more through their international perspective, gained especially by engagement with foreign languages. 

One simply cannot do serious and credible work in comparative international analyses of anything—anything—or gaging what and how your products or services can be marketed or their products and services can be imported or. . .or. . .or. . .in a monolingual English environment.  Yes, English is the default second language of the world, and we can have a long discussion about how that happened
(air traffic control and avionics, original language of computer hard drives and internet software, mass marketing of entertainment, military occupations, and finance; along with the fact that English is a comparatively easy language to learn with no gender rules, no declensions, and an analytic syntax, etc.) but it ain’t the only language out there.  I came into international work in my 60s, with half-decent knowledge of French and slightly less than that in German, and since then, both have improved by multiple grade levels, and rudimentary skills in Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Dutch, and Russian are now in the portfolio—at least on reading tasks.  Of course it helps to have friends in other countries who can help you.  But all this happened as a by-product of environments and tasks—as it would for anyone—and is a matter of great joy.  Larry Summers has his head in a place that cannot be mentioned in public communication.

A counter opinion.  I am a plant scientist.  I read hundreds of papers a year and in my 30+ year career I must have looked at more than 20,000 papers or abstracts looking for things of interest.  I have never come across a paper I needed to have translated and never attempted to get one translated.  I have never had the need to describe a new species and since I am not a taxonomist I have no need for botanical latin.  The botanical rules recently scrapped latin descriptions and so there is no longer even that language niche.
A lot of interesting plant physiology was written in the 19th century in german and sometimes in french.  Since I am interested in the history of science I sometimes miss having no german but it is not essential for my research.
Scientific english is developing the characteristcs of a classical language.  It is not really close to any spoken form of english and apart from technical terms has a very small vocabulary and simple sentence structure.  A sentence of more than 20 words is too complex.  This results from the simple fact that in writing a paper you have to realise that 90% of your readers are using english as a second language. (The last sentence is too long:  I could not use it in a paper).
In the case of non-english languages there is a real problem concerning the form of the language taught.  Someone with an liberal arts background is just about useless to help translate a scientific paper in a foreign language because they have not got the vocabulary or understandng of the subject matter.  Try finding a french speaker in Australia who has more than highschool-level science.

In some english speaking countries the ability to speak a foreign language has heavy socioeconomic implications.  In Australia most speakers of foreign languages are migrants or their first generation children.  However, the educated version of their first language is quickly lost generationally. For example, most young Australian chinese who have grown up in Australia cannot read or write chinese at all and know only the kitchen version of the language. The other group who can speak a foreign language are the spawn of the asperational middle class who have been sent to private highschools.  It is almost impossible to learn a foreign language from scratch in the public school system.  Ability to speak French, German, Japanese or Chinese simply means you were sent to a snotty private school. It is used as a social class marker, especially against the first generation university student from a publc school.

I have never understood why any supposedly “practical” or “pragmatic” individual (as opposed to all of us dreamy humanists) would think it AT ALL a good idea to enter into delicate negotiations — whether in the service of a business deal or a diplomatic/geopolitical question — in which BOTH sides speak English, but ONE side also has another language at their disposal in which they can converse without being understood.  Doesn’t Larry Summers feel a bit apprehensive when he is conducting high-level discussions in English with a foreign partner and they  turn to their colleagues and say something he doesn’t understand?  Isn’t refusing to learn a foreign language effectively a HUGE concession of power to all those obliging foreigners who speak English for our convenience?

. . . and Einstein never used a PC, but then times change, or they don’t.  I have never read a plant physiology article, but I am glad you have.  It seems strange for an academic to argue that it is better to know less. 

Having lived and worked in different countries, I agree with the position that Americans should become more internationalized.  Part of that is learning another language.  What no one has addressed in this forum is, which language?  Learning another language as an adult (well enough to be conversant) requires a significant investment in time, energy, and brainpower.  That’s my excuse for learning only one other language.  But, which?  In my work I would benefit from knowing Arabic, Mandarin, Korean and Spanish.  I have to admit to my limitations in being able to handle only one at a time.  At the K-12 level, how do we choose which language/s is/are best for American children to learn?

The bias is apparent in the last paragraph, (spawn??) which influences the entire first part or why the author disdains second language learning.

More importantly, he is making conclusions based solely on his own specialty, even if it is science.  I am currently doing literature reviews in the areas of criminal justice, substance abuse, and adolescent pregnancy and have come across quite a few articles in a foreign language, including French, Spanish, German, some Scandinavian language, and 2-3 that use character-alphabets–Arabc?  Don’t really know.  In the these areas of learning, there are international conferences, professional organizations, and sharing/coeding of information and thus, writing jourmal articles in languges other than English.

“Wer keine Fremdsprache kann kennt seine eigene nicht.”

Quoting Martin Hoffman, he argues, “To speak a single language is to be enclosed in one cultural possibility–to be preordained to live in the linguistic and cultural cage into which you are born.” — what a great quote!
Your points are all salient…”First, we cannot deny the economic importance of languages for global competitiveness, or indeed for national security and diplomacy.” — Yes, although English tends to be the lingua franca of business, being able to communicate at every level of the supply chain is important to rendering those “high-level decisions” that make business transactions profitable. 
“A second argument in favor of languages relates to cognitive development and flexibility” — if we continue the thinking on business-related value of learning different languages; then, surely cognitive development and flexibility are traits any employer would want. However, these skills are valuable in a range of human endeavor from friendships and other interpersonal relationships to business deals. 

“Language study encourages us to deconstruct the linguistic world as we know it, to tolerate ambiguity, and to embrace cultural “otherness.” Dealing with uncertainty and navigating is tricky and uncomfortable terrain is something to be taken very seriously, especially as the world struggles with financial disarray and its long-term consequences. In consideration of the growing income inequality that has gotten so much attention lately, the experience of being “outside” one’s comfort zone may come most readily for some through learning a new language. This at the lower end of income distribution may have  daily reminders of being outside “comfort zones.” I my primary field of interest, jazz, this is what happens in improvisation… the artists moves out of his comfort zone, away from the written score, and “translates” the language of the score into his/her own expression. This takes courage, years of training and mastery of one’s instrument, and certainly a strong helping of creativity.

Which leads me to my next and final, for now, point — learning other languages (and I think we should all learn more than one beyond the mother tongue) requires dedication, attention to detail, rote memorization, and as with music — practice, practice, practice! Surely these skills are useful in business and they are certainly necessary in daily life. 

 Exactly.  And as I always tell students considering international business, foreign service, or NGO work, if you’re in a negotiation where they can understand your private conversations but you can’t understand theirs, you will be at a profound disadvantage.

True, very true.  I even live in China at the moment and find it hard to speak Chinese to some younger locals even though my Chinese is far superior to their English.  I think you have to be very arrogant and forceful with your foreign language in order to speak it well. But then the non-Americans develop “arrogant” stereotypes about us, so it really is a lose-lose situation sometimes.  Someone mentioned the “ugly America” in another posts, but after traveling abroad and working in foreign countries for many years, I only see Americans actually wanted to learn about other cultures.  I would say “beautiful Americans” and “ugly Non-americans” actually.

As being bilingual also shows a relationship to demographics, it is useful to know that we do not advance our own inceptions of cultural diversity, by acting out a demonstration of titles and roles, or by eating fast food. 

There’s been some research that found that English-Spanish bilingualism has a moderate association with increased income, except in the public sector ( http://www.cccco.edu/Portals/4/TRIS/research/Abstracts/Workforce%20Development/bilingual.pdf ).  Since many English-Spanish bilinguals in the US may experience educational disadvantages and employment discrimination, a moderate association with increased income may indicate that there is something associated with bilingualism that helps people overcome disadvantages, and still get to a higher income level.  The biggest association between language and income in that study though was English language ability.  If foreign language learning does increase one’s understanding and appreciation of English, it might help that way too. 

A foreign language takes much time and effort to learn, however the moderate association between higher income and English-Spanish bilingualism suggests to me that it sure didn’t cost the learners any income.

I think one an additional value in learning a foreign language is that it may give people a greater ability to understand history, because it wasn’t all that long ago that modern English did not exist, so nobody spoke it.  A bilingual could at least understand more deeply that the thinking processes of historic people do not equate to modern thinking, and the fact that they spoke a different language highlights that. 

Bart Schuster
OnlineGraduateSchool.tripod.com/All.htm
Twitter.com/arrive2_net

I wholly agree with this article and I appreciate how it talks about the hard and soft skills language learners have. But, what is unfortunate is that articles such as these do not simply state what really matters to all of those who do not speak another language or care to: if you know a second (or third) language, you make more money; your company makes more money; both are more competitive. Unfortunately, until we talk in terms of monetary gains (salaries and profits) most people could care less.  It is not until you tell a student that knowing another language and studying in another country could increase your pay by 30% or more (according to some surveys) that s/he stands up and takes note. Unfortunately again, the discussion has to center on that, or politicians, leaders, university professors, students, and others will not take note. I wish the debate could center more about how learning a language and knowing a culture enriches one’s life, but, quite simply, most people do not care.

Thanks for your reply.

In the research I cited ( again: http://www.cccco.edu/Portals/4/TRIS/research/Abstracts/Workforce%20Development/bilingual.pdf ) the effect of educational attainment was statistically controlled.

The researchers tried to limit the affects of ethnic discrimination in the findings by including only Hispanics in the sample.  However it seems to me that many of the bilinguals may have had Spanish as their first language, and therefore would be more likely to experience discrimination based on an accent.  Since educational attainment itself was statistically controlled it should not be a factor. 

Correlation does not prove causation, no doubt, but the main point I was making does not  require an attribution of “causation”. I’m saying that to the extent that learning the second language took time and effort, which might have been directed to other learning, the apparent absence of this “other learning” did not correlate with less income. Or, you could say it the other way around, in that population, spending time learning a second language (and thus becoming bilingual) correlated moderately with more income (outside the public sector). 

Bart Schuster
OnlineGraduateSchool.tripod.com/All.htm
Twitter.com/arrive2_net
 
 

The problems regarding education in your country that reflect on education/language learning are a separate issue, but certainly explain you views and biases and actually, I understand.  However,  I have studied French, Italian, Polish, and advanced Spanish and am nowehre near rich, or upperclass.  Again, there are great big differences between your  hard sciences and my area of social sciences.  I  have been in Lithuania, Poland (and managed conversational useage of both) and met people from many countries;  not everything is conducted in English.  More importantly, there are many reason to learn and study another language, this one being low on he list.
P.S.  I teach Research Methods and have plenty of experience.