As a scientist (physics, not polar ice), scientists alone are too few to advocate for science alone -- we literally cannot do it.
If you want scientific research as you know it to persist in the United States, please take a moment to help support for science in Congress go viral in your community.
Empirical science is non-partisan. It is good and helpful to know what's true.
If your friends are devout readers of the bible, point 'em toward Philippians 4:8. While I'm not religious, that passage has resonated for me my entire life.
Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
> NSF has been opaque about these plans—intentionally so, Wellner believes. “They are purposely not putting anything in writing,” she says. And the planned cancellation is leaving in limbo the scientists who have cruises planned for the Palmer this Antarctic summer, which begins in December.
Incompetence (we didn't think about this out loud), or malice (we didn't want to leave a paper trail)?
Consider the video "Staffing an Office" where Jeff Small, a former advisor in the Department of the Interior says “When you work for the federal government everything you put in an email, text, or note is FOIAable and releasable to the American people. At interior, we had a ton of in person meetings which allowed us to speak a little more freely about the topics of the day.”
Or the video "Advancing the President’s Agenda" where former OPM director Donald Devine says "You need to keep your agenda pretty close. You got to be careful who you tell it to because if you run it through a normal process…it’s going to be in the paper tomorrow..."
It's pretty clear that the architects of our current executive branch want to keep their objectives out of the public record and out of the press. So let's go with malice.
You'll find worse quotes from the House interview [1] of Fauci's advisor David Morens. Ever since I watched a recording of his testimony I've been more willing to give incompetence "passes" to bad behavior in Republican admins.
And also keeping plausible deniability for the people at the top. They never told anyone to do anything, they decided to do this themselves. The third reich was full of this as well.
This happens all through government now. As soon as any small public body starts getting FOIA requests they stop putting anything off-color into an email and take it to phone calls and private meetings.
Hey, I'm collecting money for my expedition to see what's beyond the ice wall. I hope this will be more successful than the last expedition I sent, this time I'm sending them with a starlink terminal.
Someone ELI5: Why is the Trump administration defunding scientific research? Is there a bigger picture we're not seeing, or is it 8D chess he's playing ?
This administration and its influencers have some strong opinions about significantly shrinking the size and role of government, and eliminating activities they don’t believe the government should be engaged in.
Now that he's president, here come the reprisals. Zero out NSF's funding, shut down NPR, end the COVID era break on student loan enforcement, withdraw grants from Harvard.
If your research is funded by taxpayer dollars, you're a public servant and you should welcome public accountability. You should accept that explaining the public benefit of what you do is part of your job, and accept the possibility that the public won't see eye-to-eye with regard to that benefit.
The fundamental problem is that scientists stopped thinking of themselves as public servants, and started thinking of themselves as lecturers whose job it is to scold the public. They stopped working to follow the evidence wherever it lead, and switched to promoting trendy ideologies. Remember during COVID how we were all supposed to isolate, until the Floyd protests started and suddenly the need for isolation disappeared?
"Three-in-four liberal faculty support mandatory diversity statements while 90% of conservative faculty and 56% of moderate faculty see them as political litmus tests."
...
"For decades, college and university faculty have identified as predominantly left-leaning (e.g., affiliating with the Democratic party, self-identifying as liberal), a skew that has become more pronounced over the past three decades.[40] For instance, in the Higher Education Research Institute’s 1990 faculty survey, 6% identified as “far left,” 16% identified as “conservative,” and 0.4% identified as “far right.” In 2020 these percentages were 12%, 10%, and 0.2%, respectively.[41] College students are also predominantly left-leaning, though the rate is closer to 2:1 left vs. right, compared to 6:1 among faculty.[42]"
..."significant portions of faculty say that they would discriminate against colleagues with different ideological views in professional settings (e.g., during anonymous peer-review) or during day-to-day social interactions.[43]"
Academics successfully hacked away the branch that they themselves were standing on. Large fractions of the US electorate no longer believe that the research these academics do is a good-faith attempt to advance their interests as voters and taxpayers. And so they're not interested in funding it. Fair play if you ask me. If academia wants funding, it should do deep reforms in order to re-earn the trust of voters.
> What possible justification could you have for this
The base wants to see spending cuts in exchange for the tax cuts the rich are getting, and thinks science (especially climate science!) is a blunt tool by which liberals berate and control them.
There is no market test for “fundamental” research. So when an avenue of research secures taxpayer funding it exists into perpetuity, and as papers are published and requests for additional funding are made, it tends to grow like a tumor over the decades, getting more PhDs to be matriculated in the labs that began the avenue and grow ever more forever. Very rarely is an avenue of research closed off once the trifecta of university research labs + journals, PhDs who are minted to continue the research, and grants secured and grown.
A lot of the hand wringing by academics themselves are unfocused but circling the root cause, which is this. I would prefer corporations fund research but directed through the university system. The patents and gains are then funneled through the corporations that funded it, rather than the academics and universities with zero return to the taxpayers other than abstract “society gains” pablum, when the academics and universities truly gain all the profit.
When corporations that actually have a market test and profit motive are funding the research, avenues that are unlikely to succeed will be cut off sooner, and alternatives to the current vogue will be funded quicker. You can see a real-life example (of failure) in Alzheimer’s research which was hamstrung by decades of political control of research labs and taxpayer grants that refused to fund alternatives to the “mainstream” theories which set back society and the disease.
> When corporations that actually have a market test and profit motive are funding the research, avenues that are unlikely to succeed will be cut off sooner...
It's hard to see how your suggestion would work for fundamental advances in technology. For example, backpropagation took decades to move from an idea to industrial use. [0] It was also "invented" multiple times.
Whether proponents of government directed Science, agree or disagree, your comment presents a well reasoned argument. At the moment it is the most substantive comment on the page. Moreover, it is a direct, good faith response to the parent commenter's question. Yet for all of this, I see that the comment has been downvoted into grey. At the time of posting, no substantive rebuttals have been offered.
This typifies the quality of discourse around defunding of "The Science" at HN.
I can understand disagreeing but it is funny that someone asked for a justification and then downvoted someone providing one, without even knowing if the person actually even endorses that line of thought. Liberalism truly is dead.
Readit News
If you want scientific research as you know it to persist in the United States, please take a moment to help support for science in Congress go viral in your community.
Empirical science is non-partisan. It is good and helpful to know what's true.
If your friends are devout readers of the bible, point 'em toward Philippians 4:8. While I'm not religious, that passage has resonated for me my entire life.
Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
Who would ever work again for any research in any science that relies on government cooperation in the US?
Only all of Congress should be able to do these things, we do not have Kings and we don't tolerate Tyrants
How expensive is it to operate?
How many icebreakers does NSF operate?
Is there a US Coast guard icebreaker under construction?
Lots of generic "they're sabotaging science! We're doomed!" around here.
Sorry, just asking all the other missing questions. Carry on with the hysteria.
Incompetence (we didn't think about this out loud), or malice (we didn't want to leave a paper trail)?
Consider the video "Staffing an Office" where Jeff Small, a former advisor in the Department of the Interior says “When you work for the federal government everything you put in an email, text, or note is FOIAable and releasable to the American people. At interior, we had a ton of in person meetings which allowed us to speak a little more freely about the topics of the day.”
Or the video "Advancing the President’s Agenda" where former OPM director Donald Devine says "You need to keep your agenda pretty close. You got to be careful who you tell it to because if you run it through a normal process…it’s going to be in the paper tomorrow..."
It's pretty clear that the architects of our current executive branch want to keep their objectives out of the public record and out of the press. So let's go with malice.
[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/house-panel-takes-fa...
Source: Snowden. It only got worse from there.
Now that he's president, here come the reprisals. Zero out NSF's funding, shut down NPR, end the COVID era break on student loan enforcement, withdraw grants from Harvard.
Dead Comment
The fundamental problem is that scientists stopped thinking of themselves as public servants, and started thinking of themselves as lecturers whose job it is to scold the public. They stopped working to follow the evidence wherever it lead, and switched to promoting trendy ideologies. Remember during COVID how we were all supposed to isolate, until the Floyd protests started and suddenly the need for isolation disappeared?
"Three-in-four liberal faculty support mandatory diversity statements while 90% of conservative faculty and 56% of moderate faculty see them as political litmus tests."
...
"For decades, college and university faculty have identified as predominantly left-leaning (e.g., affiliating with the Democratic party, self-identifying as liberal), a skew that has become more pronounced over the past three decades.[40] For instance, in the Higher Education Research Institute’s 1990 faculty survey, 6% identified as “far left,” 16% identified as “conservative,” and 0.4% identified as “far right.” In 2020 these percentages were 12%, 10%, and 0.2%, respectively.[41] College students are also predominantly left-leaning, though the rate is closer to 2:1 left vs. right, compared to 6:1 among faculty.[42]"
..."significant portions of faculty say that they would discriminate against colleagues with different ideological views in professional settings (e.g., during anonymous peer-review) or during day-to-day social interactions.[43]"
https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/academic-mind-2022-wh...
Now consider that self-described "conservatives" significantly outnumber self-described "liberals" in the US electorate: https://news.gallup.com/poll/388988/political-ideology-stead...
Academics successfully hacked away the branch that they themselves were standing on. Large fractions of the US electorate no longer believe that the research these academics do is a good-faith attempt to advance their interests as voters and taxpayers. And so they're not interested in funding it. Fair play if you ask me. If academia wants funding, it should do deep reforms in order to re-earn the trust of voters.
Is he wrong?
Dead Comment
The base wants to see spending cuts in exchange for the tax cuts the rich are getting, and thinks science (especially climate science!) is a blunt tool by which liberals berate and control them.
A lot of the hand wringing by academics themselves are unfocused but circling the root cause, which is this. I would prefer corporations fund research but directed through the university system. The patents and gains are then funneled through the corporations that funded it, rather than the academics and universities with zero return to the taxpayers other than abstract “society gains” pablum, when the academics and universities truly gain all the profit.
When corporations that actually have a market test and profit motive are funding the research, avenues that are unlikely to succeed will be cut off sooner, and alternatives to the current vogue will be funded quicker. You can see a real-life example (of failure) in Alzheimer’s research which was hamstrung by decades of political control of research labs and taxpayer grants that refused to fund alternatives to the “mainstream” theories which set back society and the disease.
You asked for the justification and I provided it
It's hard to see how your suggestion would work for fundamental advances in technology. For example, backpropagation took decades to move from an idea to industrial use. [0] It was also "invented" multiple times.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpropagation#History
So much for the invisible hand of the market.
This typifies the quality of discourse around defunding of "The Science" at HN.