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EDUCATION IS CRITICAL TO SOUTH AFRICA'S efforts to alleviate poverty, the country's highest priority. But what is the relative importance of the elimination of illiter- acy; the strengthening of primary, sec- ondary and tertiary education; and of establishing centres of excellence devoted to research in certain scientific fields? Relevant to this question is that the wealth of a nation is correlated with the citations earned by the publications of its scientists: those scientists, normally with doctorates, are more numerous in rich than poor countries. From this, it is often inferred (i) that scientists contribute directly to the wealth of a nation (by means of discoveries and patents). It then follows that, in poor countries, scientists should be encour- aged to do more research, and to publish more papers. Consequently, poor coun- tries should increase significantly their numbers of doctoral graduates. But these inferences may not be valid, because correlations do not necessarily imply causality. An alternative inference may also be valid: (ii) rich countries can afford to employ many scientists whose publications increase the kudos of the nation, especially when those papers appear in journals such as Nature and Science which receive enormous public attention. Poor countries, where educa- tion levels are low, can ill-afford the luxury of increasing the number of over- educated scientists with doctorates, who write papers that are mostly of academic interest.

How many scientists does South Africa need?