Eyes East

Last November I visited Japan for the first time and was lucky enough to visit individual labs at four different universities. As I talked with my hosts and their students I was struck by the differences between the scientific cultures of Japan and the United States. At its best, American science is all about the triumph of excellence in the land of opportunity, with 27-year-old assistant professors from all over the globe running entirely independent labs and competing on equal terms with the established older scientists. At its worst, it's a terrifying combination of Oedipus Rex, Malthus, and Cecil B. DeMille, as an expanding army of post-docs spar bitterly with their mentors over who should pursue what, fight for sparse jobs and sparser grants, and are tempted to believe that bigger is intrinsically better. Things are especially bad if you like the academic environment but don't want to run a lab. The only solution is to become a research associate, a position with little or no job security. To many Americans, Japanese science is all wrong: too much deference to age and seniority, too insular, no independence for assistant professors, and no professorships before you're 40. One measure of the gulf between the two systems is that there is no clear English word for "josyu", the Japanese name of the position that I just called an assistant professor. All the Japanese scientists I spoke with felt strongly that there needs to be more independence for researchers in their thirties, and are working towards this end. The best assistance they can get from the West is invitations to meetings, and recognition for the large number of excellent young Japanese scientists in Japan and elsewhere. When emotional issues about international trade rule the airwaves, the worst hindrance Japanese reformers can get is well-meaning foreigners standing on soapboxes and trying to revolutionize Japanese science at a distance. The charge thatJapanese science is too insular is clearly false. Since post-doctoral fellowships are practically non-existent in Japan, every enterprising graduate student has to post-doc in Europe or America, and master both the language and lifestyle of the West. If they return to Japan, these scientists will have to make frequent trips to maintain their contacts in the West. By contrast, the average Western scientist visitingJapan (including me) speaks no Japanese, and knows little about the details of science in Japan. Did you know that Japanese …