It's not even that. One of the contributing factors is that we are no longer hiring for talent or merit. If you're a male child interested in science and in high school right now you've been through 8 years telling you that you should not go into science because they need more women of colour who follow the right religions and have the right sexual orientation. You're constantly bombarded with "SCIENCE DOES NOT WANT MEN".
And sure, we can say "well if he had the necessary grit, this would not discourage him". No. No amount of grit will get you in when governments are shaping science funding to punish having male staff. No amount of grit will get you in when indoctrination training is mandatory for the selection committees. No amount of grit will get you in when the first filter in a hiring process is to remove all males applicants.
I'm sorry but science has to go through a decline in the West for a bit. We still have some remnants to be worked through the system, but the next couple generations of Western scientists are going to be generally pretty low quality. On the bright side, science is not exclusively a Western tradition at this point. Other cultures that at least pretend to still focus on merit and talent will carry the scientific tradition forward.
It's not even that. One of the contributing factors is that we are no longer hiring for talent or merit. If you're a male child interested in science and in high school right now you've been through 8 years telling you that you should not go into science because they need more women of colour who follow the right religions and have the right sexual orientation. You're constantly bombarded with "SCIENCE DOES NOT WANT MEN".
And sure, we can say "well if he had the necessary grit, this would not discourage him". No. No amount of grit will get you in when governments are shaping science funding to punish having male staff. No amount of grit will get you in when indoctrination training is mandatory for the selection committees. No amount of grit will get you in when the first filter in a hiring process is to remove all males applicants.
I'm sorry but science has to go through a decline in the West for a bit. We still have some remnants to be worked through the system, but the next couple generations of Western scientists are going to be generally pretty low quality. On the bright side, science is not exclusively a Western tradition at this point. Other cultures that at least pretend to still focus on merit and talent will carry the scientific tradition forward.