Most Scientifically Advanced?

[Joendalore]

So there's this new Nation Analysis thing that has a new category called Most Scientifically Advanced.
I even got a shiny new award from it. I don't know what it is but I love the sound of it already.
Does anyone know any key factors into what makes your nation more "Scientifically Advanced?"
My guesses are to answer issue that involve space and stuff and put lots of funding into education?
Anyone have any other guesses?

[The Church of Satan]

If I were to guess I'd say issues involving nuclear power plants, dams and wind turbines might be a contributing factor as well.

[Merconopolis]

I'd assume education, economy, human development, godlessness, etc. would contribute to it.

[Ardoki]

My nation has 112! (the world average is is 53)
http://www.nationstates.net/page=compare/nations=ardoki?censusid=70

[Resora]

How it's calculated seems a bit odd. This nation does rather poorly on scientific advancement (but much more poorly on primitiveness) despite massive levels of investment in education, environment, and a very permissive attitude towards science, while my theocratic GOP parody puppet that has banned a number of forms of science (stem cell/cloning, green, the LHC, the space program, genetics research, you name it) and invests absolutely nothing in education while spending a huge chunk of its government funding on religion is in the top 5% of the world in science and even less primitive than this nation. I mean hell, my puppet stones adulterers and shut down every bit of scientific research that conflicts with its state religion, how the hell is it less primitive?

Based on the description in the news article, I'm guessing the initial scores for this new ranking were assigned in a way that subtracts eco-friendliness from this score, which would explain the difference, even if it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Edit: Also, the news post seems to insinuate that HDI and scientific advancement will tend to be positively correlated, but that isn't the case with my nation and my puppets. My two active puppets, including the GOP parody, have below-average HDI scores, yet both score highly on scientific advancement, while the inverse is true for this nation, extremely high HDI and very low scientific advancement. Similarly, both puppets have extremely low national intelligence levels (both in the world's top 5% for stupidest citizens, actually), while you'd expect at least respectable intelligence levels would be necessary for high levels of scientific advancement.

Hopefully this is just a fluke, because otherwise it doesn't seem like this new ranking was particularly well-designed.

[Joendalore]

"Hopefully this is just a fluke, because otherwise it doesn't seem like this new ranking was particularly well-designed."
I agree with that statement.

[Bulgar Rouge]

Hopefully this is just a fluke, because otherwise it doesn't seem like this new ranking was particularly well-designed.

It's not. My original NS nation still exists and its top priorities are education and science, and it ranks lower than this one (and here I banned education and science altogether).

[Untaroicht]

I'd assume education, economy, human development, godlessness, etc. would contribute to it.

Not true. I accept any religious-like solutions to issues because my nation is supposed to be a theocratic heckhole with a religiousness rating of 233, and I still got a place in the top 5% of the world for most scientifically advanced.

[Calces millia]

My nation has 112! (the world average is is 53)
http://www.nationstates.net/page=compare/nations=ardoki?censusid=70

Mine is 297!

[Blaist Blaland]

I think I agree with the criticism, I find it odd how this nation can be below average on scientific advancement, when its economy is 100, its HDI is 97, intelligence 39, education gets 26% of the budget and the government has supported pretty much all the science issues it has got from cloning to stem cell research and rejected religious obstacles to scientific progress.

http://www.nationstates.net/page=compar ... Kollektive

From what I can tell there is a strong correlation with defense forces. And it makes sense that some scientific advancements could come from the military - but still... The results don't make a lot of sense to me.
http://www.nationstates.net/page=compar ... ensusid=46

[Resora]

Judging by the people that have posted in this thread, and by my puppets, authoritarian states/dictatorships seem to have a weird advantage in scientific advancement, while countries with more freedoms do more poorly. Both of my puppets are highly authoritarian (one is a dictatorship) and everybody in this thread that reported a high scientific achievement ranking is running a nation with little to no political freedoms (psychotic dictatorship, iron fist consumerists, corporate police state) while the left-wing utopias and civil rights lovefest have low scientific advancement.

That makes absolutely no sense.

Edit: Further poking around seems to find only two things correlate strongly with scientific advancement, economic freedom and authoritarianism. Authoritarian nations will do ok, and strongly capitalist countries will do well, but combining the two (i.e. right wing utopia, corporate police state) will grant you a very high scientific advancement score. None of the other variables seem to matter.

So basically, by NS logic, North Korea should be more scientifically advanced than Scandinavia.

[G-Tech Corporation]

Speaking as someone with a Scientific Advancement score ten times the world average, I can tell you that industry, economic freedoms, political freedoms, and a strong military are all very much so contributing factors. Too many political and civil freedoms, though, may be detrimental. The environment also plays a big role; if my nation wasn't so polluted that my citizens barter for fresh air I'd probably be near the top 100 for SA.

[Resora]

So basically, aim for a militaristic right wing utopia and you'll do well scientifically, even if you ban most forms of cutting-edge science and don't care about education.

[G-Tech Corporation]

So basically, aim for a militaristic right wing utopia and you'll do well scientifically, even if you ban most forms of cutting-edge science and don't care about education.

My nation isn't particularly right-wing, and bans no forms of science. That may be your flaw. Militaristic is quite handy though, and education spending needs to be existent, though not necessarily a priority. My region-mate has a SA of ~680, and he spends next to nothing on education.

[Resora]

Both of my puppets have scores above 260. The one with the lower score is actually the least restrictive on science. Neither spend a cent on education. One is a corporate police state, the other a right wing utopia.

So basically, what I said is confirmed; while not outright banning science may help somewhat, it is by no means necessary to actually being good at science. A theocracy that bans genetics research because it's afraid God will strike them down is going to do better than a pacifistic social democracy in science as long as it has decent industry scores and a giant military.

As for primitiveness, stonings, ritualistic human sacrifices and religiously-motivated opposition to science don't seem to have much of an impact, either. My CPS is atheistic and my RWU is theocratic, and the RWU is considered the least primitive nation.

[Polski Swiety Imperium]

How it's calculated seems a bit odd. This nation does rather poorly on scientific advancement (but much more poorly on primitiveness) despite massive levels of investment in education, environment, and a very permissive attitude towards science, while my theocratic GOP parody puppet that has banned a number of forms of science (stem cell/cloning, green, the LHC, the space program, genetics research, you name it) and invests absolutely nothing in education while spending a huge chunk of its government funding on religion is in the top 5% of the world in science and even less primitive than this nation. I mean hell, my puppet stones adulterers and shut down every bit of scientific research that conflicts with its state religion, how the hell is it less primitive?

Religion is the answer.

[Kindly Professor Hell]

I'm looking into the issues raised by this thread, to make sure the ranking is working as was intended, and also to see if perhaps some tweaking might improve things.

If you want me to look into whether the fact that nation X is more advanced than nation Y is a glitch, please post the names of the nations involved, rather than just saying "my theocratic puppet" is unjustifiably more advanced (than the posting nation). Cause, without knowing the name of your puppet, I can't check on what's going on.

Thanks!

[Zwangzug]

Another relevant thread (if you haven't already seen it).

The rankings for Zwangzug and Aguazul are what I found personally dumbfounding.

[Iguantopia]

Why is godlessness a factor? I give my people lots of freedom of religion and it makes my nation less advanced? You could still have a advanced society with some religious people in it.

[The Glorious Eternal Revolution Land]

How it's calculated seems a bit odd. This nation does rather poorly on scientific advancement (but much more poorly on primitiveness) despite massive levels of investment in education, environment, and a very permissive attitude towards science, while my theocratic GOP parody puppet that has banned a number of forms of science (stem cell/cloning, green, the LHC, the space program, genetics research, you name it) and invests absolutely nothing in education while spending a huge chunk of its government funding on religion is in the top 5% of the world in science and even less primitive than this nation. I mean hell, my puppet stones adulterers and shut down every bit of scientific research that conflicts with its state religion, how the hell is it less primitive?

Based on the description in the news article, I'm guessing the initial scores for this new ranking were assigned in a way that subtracts eco-friendliness from this score, which would explain the difference, even if it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Edit: Also, the news post seems to insinuate that HDI and scientific advancement will tend to be positively correlated, but that isn't the case with my nation and my puppets. My two active puppets, including the GOP parody, have below-average HDI scores, yet both score highly on scientific advancement, while the inverse is true for this nation, extremely high HDI and very low scientific advancement. Similarly, both puppets have extremely low national intelligence levels (both in the world's top 5% for stupidest citizens, actually), while you'd expect at least respectable intelligence levels would be necessary for high levels of scientific advancement.

Hopefully this is just a fluke, because otherwise it doesn't seem like this new ranking was particularly well-designed.

Because most research comes from private entities like company R&D Departments, which, being owned by businesses, are probably supported by your GOP puppet.

[Zwangzug]

Why is godlessness a factor? I give my people lots of freedom of religion and it makes my nation less advanced? You could still have a advanced society with some religious people in it.

Indeed. I'd expect some correlation between specifically anti-science options and being less advanced (such as Issue 33, Option 2), but not all options attributed to religious leaders (313, 1).

[Arkotania]

Arkotania is at 234.

A lot of my options generally pushed aside environmental concerns and a push for more nuclear, industries and anything else that destroyed the environment for growth(eco-friendly at -36).

I wouldnt know about religion though. Arkotania is at 10 for religiousness.

I guess anything that focuses the nation down a path of growth despite danger to environement and inidividual freedoms tends to have more scientific advancement?(Arkotania is at 1.202 Stalins, evidence of how much a bully the government is)

Does education or intelligence have to add into it? It could be that the few geniuses are monopolized by businesses/state and thus contriubute heavily to advancement even though much of the country doesnt score very high.

[Ieperithem]

How it's calculated seems a bit odd. This nation does rather poorly on scientific advancement (but much more poorly on primitiveness) despite massive levels of investment in education, environment, and a very permissive attitude towards science, while my theocratic GOP parody puppet that has banned a number of forms of science (stem cell/cloning, green, the LHC, the space program, genetics research, you name it) and invests absolutely nothing in education while spending a huge chunk of its government funding on religion is in the top 5% of the world in science and even less primitive than this nation. I mean hell, my puppet stones adulterers and shut down every bit of scientific research that conflicts with its state religion, how the hell is it less primitive?

Based on the description in the news article, I'm guessing the initial scores for this new ranking were assigned in a way that subtracts eco-friendliness from this score, which would explain the difference, even if it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Edit: Also, the news post seems to insinuate that HDI and scientific advancement will tend to be positively correlated, but that isn't the case with my nation and my puppets. My two active puppets, including the GOP parody, have below-average HDI scores, yet both score highly on scientific advancement, while the inverse is true for this nation, extremely high HDI and very low scientific advancement. Similarly, both puppets have extremely low national intelligence levels (both in the world's top 5% for stupidest citizens, actually), while you'd expect at least respectable intelligence levels would be necessary for high levels of scientific advancement.

Hopefully this is just a fluke, because otherwise it doesn't seem like this new ranking was particularly well-designed.

There's no mistake here. If you have no industry doing practical research, scientific advancement will not occur. In practical terms, your multibillion dollar academies are churning out scores of liberal arts majors.

My nation scores highly here due to high scientific permissiveness, yes, but also due to the fact that organizations exist to put this permissiveness to use. The economy is powerful enough that innovation can occur, whereas you've chained down the private sector and have not set your public sector towards scientific advancement. Practically, scientific advancement comes from three sources in the modern age: industry looking to innovate and corner new markets, industry subsidised by the government to carry out research(this is common in the United States), and government research projects. Your economy lacks the health to fuel the final one significantly, and your economic restrictions are too great to allow for either of the former.

Think of it like this: you can have the most lax gun laws out there, but if you have zero crime, no military, and a ban on hunting, few people are going to have guns, simply because nobody needs them for self defence, nobody can use them for sport or food, and noone carries them as part of their job, limiting them to collectors. Indeed, a nation with strict gun laws but a genuine need for them will have higher weaponization. Same principal.

[Undivulged Principles]

This ranking seems based on industry, particularly private industry. Looking at the top of the ranking was virtually a who's who of economic giants.

There are several examples of nations with no education spending atop the rankings. This doesn't mean they shouldn't be technologically advanced but nations with high education and high economies were not fairly represented.

Also it seems those nations that focus on environment were unfairly punished. Nations with high economy and high environment should rate very high since they are researching areas nations that focus solely on the economy never venture to research.

Corsaria ks rated as an economic power and has the highest HDI and education yet is listed as one of the most primitive nations. That makes no sense. This ranking is more flawed than public transport, if that is possible.

[Iguantopia]

Why is godlessness a factor? I give my people lots of freedom of religion and it makes my nation less advanced? You could still have a advanced society with some religious people in it.

Indeed. I'd expect some correlation between specifically anti-science options and being less advanced (such as Issue 33, Option 2), but not all options attributed to religious leaders (313, 1).

No, I usually choose more science leaning decisions but my people have tons of freedom of religion