Andy wrote
A major thing, probably the major thing, that drives most people today is money, how to get more of everything. [snip] Wall Street was such a big draw until the crash that there was a visible drain in the sciences, and the slack was picked up by foreign students. *[How] did you find this out?... Andy: I didn't reason this, I read it, and not just once. Math and science is not our strong point, at least at the high schoollevel. Graduate science is being taken over by foreign students. Their (sic) own systems are catching up, and they're here in greatnumbers, in the MIT's and other places.
*On the value of foreign students coming to the US to study science: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK11500/
In the meantime, we're not cranking out scientists. If anything, we're still chomping at the bit to teach creationism instead of evolution. However, Wall Street was a magnet. That's just a fact.
*When you say that 'we' are chomping at the bit to teach Creationism, to whom does 'we' refer? Certainly not to the same 'we' who are not 'cranking out scientists.'
Andy: This might be true, I can't speak from experience. However, businesses still want MBA's, not liberal arts graduatesper se. If someone isn't going on to get an MBA, they'll major in business, which happens a lot. If an employer has a choice between an English major and a business major, which one do you think he'll probably hire for his marketing department? That business as a major has proliferated speaks for itself.
Well, you might want to browse these sites and see whether they confirm your view that there has been a proliferation of business majors.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/01/21/freshmen http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/12/13/business http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/blog/the_decline_of_the_business_ma.php http://daniellesayz.com/2011/02/poor-economy-triggers-a-decline-in-business-majors/ http://daniellesayz.com/2011/02/poor-economy-triggers-a-decline-in-business-majors/http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/09/14/the-decline-of-the-mba&view=comments <http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/09/14/the-decline-of-the-mba&view=comments>
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/2011/09/16/applications-for-mbas-decrease/ Robert Paul