It seems to me that the level of academic discourse here is still dismal compared to, say, the US or the UK. The recent dispute by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and two NTU economists over claims the latter made in their paper, is a case in point. The economists may have been sensationalist, but with a finding that 3 out of 4 jobs created in recent years went to foreigners it�s a little difficult to be sedate. The economists later retracted their findings and admitted using the wrong data, but this doesn�t mean that the issue is over (and it�s easy to suspect that the economists came under pressure). For one thing, the Ministry of Manpower�s counter-claim that 9 out of 10 jobs created in the same time period went to Singaporeans sounds too good to be true as well. I wonder if the government will announce how they came up with their figures? Based on MOM�s own data that allegedly can�t be released to the public, and which certainly wasn�t available to the NTU profs.

Not that the profs are political martyrs. Their refusal to release their paper for public scrutiny hardly helped their case, and goes against academic ideals. Were they hiding something?

At the same time, MOM�s knee-jerk reaction was far out of proportion. The criticisms levelled at the NTU professors were very close to personal attacks, essentially accusing them of incompetence. Not a good thing to do if you want to encourage academic discussion and research in the social sciences.