1966, the total had reached 778, and now it stands at 2,000. This vast increase in quantity, Stephan maintains, has resulted in a discernible decrease in quality.
"The average quality of people going into science in the '70s and early '80s," Stephan claims, "was not as high as in the '50s and '60s in terms of motivation, abil- ity, and interest in science." In the 1970s, according to studies Stephan and Sharon G. Levin of the University of Mis- souri, recent Ph.D.'s in particle...