U.S. Scientists See H1-B Visas as Major Issue Against Progress, Says Survey

The nation's scientists see H1-B visa issues as a major barrier to scientific achievement, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center.

Some 56 percent surveyed felt that issues with the visa process for foreign students and scientists represented a massive impediment, second only to the 87 percent who saw lack of funding as a “very serious” or “serious” problem.

Whether or not those issues are actually slowing down progress, U.S. scientific achievements might have something of a PR problem. The survey found that only 17 percent of the U.S. public thought that U.S. scientific achievements are best in the world; some 27 percent felt that the country’s advances in science, medicine and technology were its greatest achievements.

This somewhat pessimistic view was tempered by the public’s largely positive view of science and scientists, with 84 percent "mostly positive" on science’s effect on society, and 70 percent feeling that scientists contributed "a lot" to society’s well-being. For the latter category, the only two professions that ranked higher were teachers and members of the military.

The Pew Research Center also collaborated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to conduct the same survey with 2,500 scientists, some 49 percent of whom rated U.S. scientific achievements as best in the world. Scientists, despite the largely positive support for them and their endeavors, had a somewhat more negative view of the public, with 85 percent of them citing the general populace’s lack of scientific knowledge as a problem for science, and 49 percent feeling that the "public expects solutions to problems too quickly."

With regard to that lack of scientific knowledge, the survey found that the public was more illuminated on topics that applied more personally to their lives. For example, around 91 percent could say that aspirin is recommended to prevent heart attacks, and 82 percent could say that GPS technology is reliant on satellites. However, only 52 percent could say what distinguished stem cells from other cells, and 46 percent knew that electrons were smaller than atoms.

Scientists and the public seemed to have diverging opinions on several key issues. Specifically, 87 percent of scientists believe in evolution and natural selection, while 32 percent of the public thought of evolution as fact. Along the same lines, 84 percent of scientists believe that global warming is a reality caused by human activity, while 49 percent of the public thought likewise.

The dichotomy continues into the area of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, which 93 percent of scientists support versus 58 percent of the public. The one area of relative agreement is universal vaccinations, where 82 percent of scientists and 69 percent of the public think that all children should be vaccinated.