How the U.S. became a science superpower • Hacker News Board

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#291

Post by dataviz1000 » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 2:32 AM UTC

ecshafer wrote: post #41

There are a couple fundamental flaws here: One is that the number one Science and Engineering powerhouse prior to WWII was Germany, not Britain. Two this totally neglects that the US received the lion's share of Scientists and Mathematicians from countries like Germany, Hungary, Poland etc with the encroachment of the Soviets and persecution of the Jewish people. While the down up approach of the US and heavy funding…

This started when George Washington went to the Jews in Newport, Rhode Island to speak to them promoting the 2nd of the 12 amendments to the Constitution, 10 of which became the Bill of Rights. Rhode Island was the last state to ratify the Constitution and this trip was to garner support to ratify the Bill of Rights which was to safeguard individual freedoms and limit the power of the federal government. Many of the Jews who first arrived in the United States did so in New Amsterdam whose families had pervious settled in Amsterdam after the Spanish Inquisition where they were forced to either leave Spain, convert to Catholicism, or be put to death.

Reiterating what the Hebrew congregation write to Washington he responded:

> For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support. [0]

It is a paradox that people living the United States with its freedoms can only continue doing so as long as they equally protect the freedoms of everyone else without bigotry or persecution.

[0] https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-06-02-...

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#292

Post by zelphirkalt » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 2:35 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #227

grafmax wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that the free market will self-correct and optimize outcomes is a well-documented fantasy. Markets don’t account for externalities, they concentrate wealth (and therefore political power), and they routinely underprovide merit goods like education, healthcare, and basic research (things that benefit society broadly but aren’t immediately profitable). As for how to address budget issues, the solution is simpl…

> Markets don’t account for externalities But on net the externalities are just as likely to be doing more good than bad. I've yet to see anyone in the public debate tallying up the positive externalities of markets. "They have externalities!" is likely to be an argument in favour of free markets, without the positive externalities a free market generates we would be poorer and more uncomfortable - it doesn't take mu…

I mean, you can easily observe it. Look at Germany. Not investing sufficiently into education, public Infrastructure, hospitals, and probably more. Inefficient bureaucracy everywhere. Long term effects already visible and only becoming more pronounced. People have a 4y political memory and electing the same shit again.

This apparently will continue until we hit rock bottom. I just hope others will be ready to face angry German mobs this time around.

Of course there is also a chance that we will finally learn something as a society and prevent bad things from happening. An admittedly tiny chance, but it exists.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#293

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 2:43 AM UTC

potato3732842 wrote: post #204

woooooo wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libertarians took over a town in NH and abolished town wide garbage collection. The free market produced a bunch of trash in people's yards, which attracted bears, causing havoc all around town. True story. That's not to say you can't solve a lot of problems with markets. It just means waving your hands at "the free market" like it's a magic talisman is a childish thing to do.

Why didn't they just shoot the bears? You'd figure libertarians would be all for that.

It would have violated the NAP.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#294

Post by zelphirkalt » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 2:50 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #282

brokeAstronomer wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> There are far too many documented instances of it actually working to call it a fantasy. Markets are a tool which can work extremely well if deployed carefully and within a sensible regulatory framework. Given that the world CO2 level keeps rising, we can't eat fish because of heavy metals and we all have forever microplastics in us, I think it's fair to question some of our assumptions. >> Markets aren't expected…

Wealth in a free market is not "concentrated", it is created. The total wealth in a free market country rises, which can only be explained by wealth being created rather than shifted around. > Clearly we want everyone to have an education not just the uber wealthy. Educational materials abound in this country, even for free. For example, I took some MIT courses that were on youtube, for free. I found my college textb…

It is not only about learning material being available. It is also about live circumstances of people. Think about when you are doing your learning. When do you have opportunity to learn. Think about what other people might be doing at that time, that prevents them from learning. Think about the mental framework you have, that enables you to learn and that others might not have.

Many times when I see some idle shop keeper wasting their time at candy crush on their phone, I think something like:

"Oh my, stop wasting your time! You could read something interesting or even learn a whole new subject!"

But then I remind myself from what a position I am thinking these thoughts. From what kind of knowledge and background. Could people start using their time better? Sure. But it will be damn hard for them, in contrast to probably many people here, including yourself, and we should not forget that. What's more is, that even if those people learned a lot about some subject, let's say even computer programming, there is no accreditation for them. Where can they go, to claim certificates or whatever, for their new knowledge, to get any chance of employment?

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#295

Post by mberning » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 2:55 AM UTC

metrognome wrote: post #257

I'm surprised that there's been no mention of Operation Paperclip, neither in the article nor in the comments here. Seems like a huge part of the story to leave out. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

Hard to overstate how much effort the US put into collecting all the best scientists in the post WWII world.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#296

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 2:56 AM UTC

fallingknife wrote: post #286

brokeAstronomer wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are fixed costs associated with running research labs and facilities. Just because private funding can (sometimes) come with lower allocations for overheads doesn't mean that research can continue at pace without the public grant overheads. The vast bulk of research money is public not private. While I will happily concede that there is always room for improvement with how we fund research, your suggestions are…

I guess the problem is that I just don't trust them. It's a bunch of university administrators and government bureaucrats (two groups I trust on the level of used car dealers) spending other people's money. I think the solution to this is transparency. If these universities want to continue getting tax exempt status and generous overhead allocations out of taxpayer funds, then they should be required to release their…

[deleted]

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#297

Post by nxobject » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 2:57 AM UTC

fallingknife wrote: post #190

Tadpole9181 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're clearly not involved even remotely in academia and are just parroting bullshit you saw on your news outlet. What's even the point when you can just declare "no, it's totally a problem and they can just magically make money appear and I'm totally aware of the negotiation process for grants". Good Lord.

I can see I've hit a nerve here. But it's ok. I understand that the fact that private research grants contain indirect percentages less than half of the federal rate and yet still the universities not refuse them is a very difficult thing for you to argue against. It's understandable that you would resort to appeals to authority and ad hominems when you can't present a logical argument.

> I understand that the fact that private research grants contain indirect percentages less than half of the federal rate and yet still the universities not refuse them is a very difficult thing for you to argue against.

Here's an easy approach to a counterargument.

Private foundation grants account for less than 10% of all research funding in the sciences [1]. The fact that researchers apply for and receive private grants has _nothing_ to do with whether their funding restrictions would be sustainable when scaled up.

https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf24332

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#298

Post by bfdm » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 3:02 AM UTC

jack_h wrote: post #52

cs702 wrote: post #7

Worth reading in its entirety. The following four paragraphs, about post-WWII funding of science in Britain versus the US, are spot-on, in my view: > Britain’s focused, centralized model using government research labs was created in a struggle for short-term survival. They achieved brilliant breakthroughs but lacked the scale, integration and capital needed to dominate in the post-war world. > The U.S. built a decent…

> In 2025, with the abandonment of U.S. government support for university research, the long run of U.S. dominance in science may be over. I find it amazing that this is the conclusion when earlier in the article it was stated that "[Britain] was teetering on bankruptcy. It couldn’t afford the broad and deep investments that the U.S. made." The US debt is starting to become an existential problem. Last year the secon…

> Last year the second largest outlay behind social security was the interest payment at a trillion dollars. This is a trillion dollars that cannot be used to provide government services.

This is just very much not the case. The government can always spend to meet obligations unless it chooses not to, whether that's interest on unnecessary bonds or social security benefits. Any restriction on the arbitrary total "debt" is a self-imposed farce and should all stop playing along.

Presenting a problem of tension for dollars is a tool used to justify withholding delivering services people want and need. It's a choice, when really the only scarcity is resources.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#299

Post by Tadpole9181 » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 3:12 AM UTC

fallingknife wrote: post #190

Tadpole9181 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're clearly not involved even remotely in academia and are just parroting bullshit you saw on your news outlet. What's even the point when you can just declare "no, it's totally a problem and they can just magically make money appear and I'm totally aware of the negotiation process for grants". Good Lord.

I can see I've hit a nerve here. But it's ok. I understand that the fact that private research grants contain indirect percentages less than half of the federal rate and yet still the universities not refuse them is a very difficult thing for you to argue against. It's understandable that you would resort to appeals to authority and ad hominems when you can't present a logical argument.

There it is again. Private research grants are often taken at loss, subsidized by the actual scientific funding infrastructure that has made the US the world superpower of science.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#300

Post by sokka_h2otribe » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 3:24 AM UTC

throwawaymaths wrote: post #125

prpl wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> We’ve seen so many reports of celebrity scientists committing fraud at our most elite institutions Can you define "many"? 100k reports? 10k reports? 1k reports? 150 reports? 15 reports? What's the incidence? What's the rate compared to the public and private sectors? What's the rate for defense contractors? Are we talking social sciences, hard sciences, health sciences? What's the field? "many" is just intellectu…

Even if it's a few. Imagine if honest researchers start chasing the fraudulent results. Now you have several people's time wasted. If the honest researcher is junior (PhD or Postdoc), their career is almost certainly over. Worse, assume the junior researcher is dishonest or marginal. The incentive is to fudge things a little bit to keep a career. The cycle begins anew... inherent in our system there is positive selec…

You might think crisis of reproducibility means everyone is faking data. No, that does not mean that. There are many factors to a crisis of reproducibility. One is fake data. A bigger one is a lack of incentive and a lack of complete data gathering details on some metric. Generally even if there is a crisis is subjective.

There's also usually a mismatch between what older scientists and younger scientists think are the right approach to studying something.

But generally, science is pretty good. You're reading small slices and assuming it actually represents all of science. It doesn't. Please give me a better sense of what ground your ear is on. I don't think it's generally representative of most science fields. Science has a cool thing where you could post totally fake data, but there are enough actors that also would question it if it's entirely unreproducible. Most issues are small nudges or selective data (e.g, retesting when data doesn't support your expectations), not blatant lies. The blatant lie stories you hear are not actually common and I'd love to hear where you think they are.