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Path: utzoo!utcsri!sask!alberta!cdshaw
From: cdshaw@alberta.UUCP (Chris Shaw)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Potshots
Message-ID: <251@pembina.alberta.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 4-Mar-87 22:49:27 EST
Article-I.D.: pembina.251
Posted: Wed Mar  4 22:49:27 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Mar-87 03:38:01 EST
References: <206@fornax.uucp> <3063@watdcsu.UUCP> <241@pembina.alberta.UUCP> <3077@watdcsu.UUCP>
Reply-To: cdshaw@pembina.UUCP (Chris Shaw)
Distribution: can
Organization: U. of Alberta, Edmonton, AB
Lines: 47

In article brewster@watdcsu.UUCP (Dave Brewer, SysDesEng, UWaterloo) writes:
>
>>From: cdshaw@alberta.UUCP (Chris Shaw)
>>Nonsense. Michigan State (Lansing) outranks (my alma mater) Waterloo on the
>>all-important prestige scale? Gimme one exact Very Large Scale Break!
>
>	Not knowing Lansing I can't comment, but it will always be possible
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  neither does anybody else.
>	to choose specific examples where my general comment 
>	regarding prestige will be wrong.

Come on Mr Brewer, you can do better than this. My point was this: There are 
a huge number of US schools whose research prestige is nil. You happen to
be attending one of the top 5 Math, top 20 CompSci/Engineering schools on the
continent. Period. Toronto is similar (i.e. different specific fields).

>	If instead of taking the current state of Toronto say, and cloning
>	10 more, we took the current state, and produced 5 improved
>	"super"-clones then I agree with your conclusion.

The point you're so desperately trying to make is that if you doubled Toronto's 
budget then it then Americans would be travelling North for their education.

I don't think that the margin is 2, I think that the margin is 1.3
Actually, most of this cash in the US comes from that huge fount of free bucks,
the Military. For example, a recent report from MIT indicated that more than 25%
of their research funds were from the DOD. Another interesting statistic
reported recently in IEEE Software indicated that the "top 5" CS
schools in the US got the lion's share of DOD money. Say about 50%. The 
remaining schools of the top 30 got 45%, and the rest got bits & pieces.

The fault I find with your estimation of research quality in US vs Canada is 
that you're comparing their top 5 with our top 5. When 50% of the US military's
research budget is spent in their top 5, one expects a skew. MY point was
that if you take a look at US schools 6-30, and applied the factor of 10,
Canadian schools come out ahead, simply because within the 6-30 range, there 
is not such a gross funding skew.

>						   Try not  to become  a  man
>UUCP  : {decvax|ihnp4}!watmath!watdcsu!brewster    of success but rather  try
>Else  : Dave Brewer, (519) 886-6657                to  become a  man of value.
>                                                         Albert Einstein

-- 
Chris Shaw    cdshaw@alberta
University of Alberta
CatchPhrase: Bogus as HELL !