"Too many athletes, too few scientists" is a broken premise: Elite athletes are valuable only because they are scarce.
Government is doing plenty to make scientists scarce as well, so perhaps we will get our wish granted, in a perverse way.
That statement is vacuous in regards to the argument he's trying to make. Anyone who is elite at what they do is scarce, regardless of occupation; that's essentially the meaning of being elite. What sets athletes apart is the degree to which society rewards that eliteness.
Like what?
I guess an academic career is not a highly payed one.
Shouldn't most scientists be getting their pay from universities, or the R&D departments of corporations? I mean, the CDC and NASA don't employ that many people in the grand scheme of things.
You don't have to be an employee of CDC or NASA to get your pay via government funding. The university signs my paychecks, but the money comes from an NSF research grant to my co-advisor.
The problem with using simplistic economic models when talking about scientific research is that it's extremely hard to quantify its value. Basic research has made tremendous advances in our health, standard of living and general wealth. It's also very difficult to determine how much each person's contribution was worth. I've read that surveys of late 19th industrialists and leaders who voted steam engine improvements as the most critical field for technological advancement for the next 100 years. It's an amusing idea in retrospect, but who would have paid for research that would lead to flight or electric rail?
CDs, lasers, integrated circuits, etc... are great! But what kind of "demand" was there for research into quantum mechanics 80 years ago? Even if the demand were quantified, how much would each scientists contribution be rewarded? Surely, Feynman and other scientists building upon Einstein and Heisenberg's ideas created something of great wealth for us! But for the most part, those scientists won neither fame nor riches.
As long as the focus is on simple short-term supply and demand, this is how it works. The scientist makes a clean pass, but it's the businessman or the engineer who takes the ball the last few paces, scores and gets all the glory. I for one believe that China is doing it right in this regard. The government is taking the lead in subsidising and investing in technological infrastructure as well as basic research to create more opportunities for private entrepreneurs in the long run.
And if I can broaden your question to engineers as well, there's some reason to think that our patent regime may be stifling innovation, which similarly decreases the demand for engineers.
But maybe I was a bit harsh. The government does fund a lot of research..
Lets take anti-intellectualism in science. It's true that a few high profile intellectuals (e.g. James Watson) have lost their jobs do to this and that there are certain questions you Just Can't Ask (e.g., "would climate change be a good thing?"). But do you really think anyone will avoid a career in science for fear of that happening? I mean, it might scare me away from psychometrics of race/gender as a field, but it wouldn't prevent me from working on quantum mechanics.
As for reducing the cost of k-12 education closer to the OECD average, why would I avoid physics as a result?