Too bad I said "sent", not "filed".
I am not saying that the relationship between population size and scientific progress is 1:1. I simply disagree with using China and India as examples considering they actually are leading in things we can actually see, such as academic papers and patent applications.
But I agree. It is hard to determine who is and isn't a "leading scientific power". We can merely give a rough list based on things we can see and count. I also agree that the relationship between population size and "scientific output" is pretty complex. After all, China went centuries where it most definitely wasn't in the lead by any metric.
Natural science Nobel laureates per capita? Not a perfect indicator perhaps (Faroe Islands is hardly a scientific center) but it tells you something about the scientific output of a country.
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