US must act to close the dentist gap

I love this article from Seed debunking the latest "We are falling behind in science!" hysteria. Here is my favorite line though:

Wadhwa and Gereffi found that the oft-quoted numbers didn't filter for expertise. Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics, the National Association of Software and Service Companies and the Chinese Ministry of Education, they determined that many of the Chinese and Indian degrees are "sub-baccalaureate," awarded to the "equivalent of motor mechanics and industrial technicians." They also found that in 2004, the United States actually awarded 137,437 engineering, computer science and IT bachelor's degrees, versus China's 351,537, and India's 112,000. Per capita, the report adds, that's 468 per million citizens in the US, versus 271 and 104 per million in China and India, respectively.

A 2005 McKinsey and Company Global Institute labor study found that a higher percentage of engineers in lower profile nations like Poland, Hungary and Malaysia are competitive in the global job market compared to Chinese and Indian engineers. Only about 10 percent of China's engineers and 25 percent of India's are qualified worldwide.

Still, as China and India continue to develop their universities at breakneck speed, "it's inevitable," Wadhwa said, that they will eventually produce many more qualified scientists and engineers than the US.

But, Wadhwa points out, China has more dentists too.

Quick! The US must act now to close the dentist gap before it is too late. We must not fall behind and find ourselves with worse teeth the Red Chinese. Braces technology must be improved. We must race to be first to have a man floss on the surface of the moon.

Please. All of this is just ridiculous. There is no better indicator than where people travel to find work, and I don't see that many American students commuting to Shanghai for grad school.