[geebee]

Huh. In "The World is Flat", Friedman laments the fact that leaders in the US are usually lawyers, whereas in Europe and Asia, they often have engineering and science backgrounds. I don't have a copy on hand... and I don't think he gets into any detail about specific leaders and countries.

There are always counter examples anyway. Much of it comes down to what people think of as "general education" - ie., when people say "you can do anything with a degree in X".

In the US, people tend to say this about humanities followed by law. So, you can do anything after studying Emily Dickenson's poetry followed by three years of learning about non-compete agreements, determining jurisdiction, learning about court procedures, and determining who owns intellectual property. Whereas in Asia, they'd probably figure you can do anything after studying ordinary differential equations and optimization science.

I actually think that the more general educational approach of the US system combined with a substantial background in science and engineering would be an incredible background for a leader, but in general, we get lawyers who have not studied science.

Which isn't necessarily a problem... wo much of it comes down to the individual anyway...