Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

#191

Post by burkaman » Tue, May 13, 2025, 5:07 PM UTC

mettamage wrote: post #164

burkaman wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're working on it: https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/05/europe-launches-prog... Here's an article from a European perspective: https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/usa-scientists-lo...

500 million euro's to attract scientists? I asked ChatGPT, it thought for 3 minutes and 36 seconds. You can see the Q&A here [1]. Assuming that a one year salary of the average scientist is 100K euro's [2] then that means you're trying to attract an extra 1250 scientists that will work for 4 years. That doesn't sound like a lot on a continental scale. [1] https://chatgpt.com/share/682376a6-5c68-8005-89ab-2bedd453c7..…

I respect your opinion, to me it does sound like a lot, and it's also on top of many existing programs and a few other new things included in this announcement.

> The initiative also includes a target for member states to allocate 3 percent of their GDP to R&D projects by 2030. [...] The plan, originally proposed by the French government, also proposes creating long-term “super grants” for outstanding researchers, to provide them with financial stability; these would last for seven years. The program also plans to double the amount of financial support available this year for those who decide to move to the European Union.

You can get a sense of everything they have available here: https://commission.europa.eu/topics/research-and-innovation/....

Re: Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

#192

Post by thisisit » Tue, May 13, 2025, 5:10 PM UTC

jsbg wrote: post #92

Onawa wrote: post #25

As a federal contractor within NIH, I can tell you that the damage has already been done to the United States' dominance in science. Even if every action taken by current administration is reversed, the uncertainty for foreign scientists is too much. Many that I have spoken to are looking for their exit from either gov or academic research, or looking to leave the United States completely. The Trump admins cuts are n…

> realize that you will most likely end up in industry. > Things are quite bleak right now... you think it's bleak that one's research now has to be profitable rather than being subsidized by people paying taxes?

> you think it's bleak that one's research now has to be profitable rather than being subsidized by people paying taxes?

I honestly don't understand why people don't get this - Government is not supposed to be "profitable". The whole reason to collect taxes is for good of the society. It sounds like your view is that rural towns, which are already in crisis, should be left to rot away because it isn't "profitable". The callous and lack of empathy is seriously astounding.

Re: Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

#193

Post by naasking » Tue, May 13, 2025, 5:11 PM UTC

alabastervlog wrote: post #185

naasking wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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2024/06/28 DOGE got ahold of Obama's time machine? What people expect is a connection between the claims of fraud and the massive cuts, funding pauses (which effectively destroy some research, wasting any money already spent), and disruptive reorganizations. The claim is that DOGE is uncovering so very much fraud all over the place, that you practically can't enter a government office without tripping over fraud. Whe…

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Re: Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

#194

Post by naasking » Tue, May 13, 2025, 5:12 PM UTC

Onawa wrote: post #190

naasking wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please provide evidence of fraud in government funding. Are you serious? Just go look at the recent Alzheimer's research scandal. It's the tip of the iceberg.

The fraud perpetrated by an individual which misled the field as whole is not the same as 'fraud in government funding'. Again, scientists are human and will do things for personal gain. There are mechanisms being implemented in science funding that are meant to try and curb this behavior. NIH intramural research now require the use of electronic lab notebooks, which greatly reduce the ability to doctor data post-exp…

> Again, scientists are human and will do things for personal gain.

Which was my original point.

> But saying that all funding towards a scientific dead-end due to misdirection by individual researchers is proof of fraud in government funding doesn't compute.

Who said this?

Re: Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

#195

Post by AlecSchueler » Tue, May 13, 2025, 5:19 PM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #177

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the exec, the courts, and a majority of congress I genuinely don't understand how this can be a coup when all three branches agree. I mean sure, we are well outside the strict scope of Constitution, but that ship left generations ago.

The new wave of authoritarianism uses the bureaucracy and state machine against itself. They've learnt from the past, there's no Night of the Long Knives, or the burning of the Reichstag, that's too overt. Look at Orbán, Erdogan, and similar new authoritarians, the coup is a slow grinding of every facet of democracy: grind the press, grind the judiciary, throw a new law into the mix made up by your cronies in the par…

> They've learnt from the past, there's no Night of the Long Knives, or the burning of the Reichstag, that's too overt.

They did actually try it, though, and all the prior involved got pardons from the president. Totally agree with you overall point, just wanted to point this out.

Re: Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

#196

Post by jsbg » Tue, May 13, 2025, 5:20 PM UTC

thisisit wrote: post #192

jsbg wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> realize that you will most likely end up in industry. > Things are quite bleak right now... you think it's bleak that one's research now has to be profitable rather than being subsidized by people paying taxes?

> you think it's bleak that one's research now has to be profitable rather than being subsidized by people paying taxes? I honestly don't understand why people don't get this - Government is not supposed to be "profitable". The whole reason to collect taxes is for good of the society. It sounds like your view is that rural towns, which are already in crisis, should be left to rot away because it isn't "profitable". T…

> The whole reason to collect taxes is for good of the society.

There are infinitely many things that are marginally good for society and finitely many resources to accomplish them. Spending on irreplicable research has an opportunity cost that most taxpayers wouldn’t choose. Framing it as empathy to forcibly take their income and subsidize lofty science is ironic.

Re: Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

#197

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 » Tue, May 13, 2025, 5:22 PM UTC

mystraline wrote: post #183

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The courts have been captured and politicized heavily This isn't a real thing. They're not captured, people are just on them that you don't like and they're ruling against your values. >Congress has a bare majority for republicans So the majority is governing?

So, emoluments violations, bribery, and perjury should be legal? I wasn't calling out party political disputes. I was calling out taking massive bribes, violating the emoluments clause, and perjury. Your politics are showing. I prefer rule of law, not of kakistocrat.

Where have you been for the past 25 years?? These are par for the course in our governing class. This isn't whataboutism, this is extensive behavior that we've seen for at least a generation now (e.g. expensive speeches to Wall St, congressional insider trading, revolving door of regulators/industry)

Re: Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

#198

Post by mindslight » Tue, May 13, 2025, 5:22 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #37

xqcgrek2 wrote: post #28

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I’m not sure why this is being voted down. The NSF did actively pursue DEI and the US government is obligated not to fund organizations that discriminate based on race.

Have you ever heard the phrase "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" ? The DEI groupthink definitely needed to be reformed, but we didn't need to destroy our world-leading scientific research institutions to do it. Furthermore, given the overwhelming fascist groupthink now being pushed in place of DEI, it's not even clear that we've succeeded in reducing the magnitude of required political correctness.

Re: Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

#199

Post by dakr » Tue, May 13, 2025, 5:27 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #146

whatshisface wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is an incomplete list of things that it's impossible to research in industry: 1. Astronomy. 2. Physics. 3. Geophysics concerning the parts of the Earth deeper than the crust. 4. Biology aside from medicine. 5. Chemistry aside from industrial chemistry. 6. Theoretical computer science. 7. Mathematics. I'm not blaming you for not knowing this, but I am holding my head in my hands - how can people not know about as…

> Astronomy. What benefits do you expect to see from the kinds astronomy that require this sort of funding? Sure, knowing things can be nice but this ignores opportunity costs, eg. would practical knowledge like fusion research be further along if talent weren't focused on impractical knowledge? > Physics. Not strictly true, see quantum computing for instance, lasers, semiconductors and so on. There are some types of…

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Re: Why I'm resigning from the National Science Foundation

#200

Post by naasking » Tue, May 13, 2025, 5:29 PM UTC

abirch wrote: post #188

naasking wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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You're not wrong, however, who would have funded lasers? What about CRISPR funding? Most scientists are focused on status, however, many revolutionary discoveries come out of basic research paid for by the government and not companies.

The original laser was built by the research arm of Hughes Aircraft, so I'm not sure I see the issue there. Even if Hughes was partly funded by defense, I don't really classify defense under the same category as other types of pure research funding because there's typically an actual purpose, which fits the "short-term profit" rather than "long-term benefit of humanity".

Re: CRISPR, wasn't that discovered at least 3 different times on completely independent lines of research? That suggests to me that it's sufficiently "obvious" it would have eventually cropped up in many other areas.

> many revolutionary discoveries come out of basic research paid for by the government and not companies.

Yes. I took no position about this in this specific thread, but I will just say that "X happened this way" is not an argument that X could not have happened any other way, nor that in a world where we didn't discover X because we didn't fund it publicly, we wouldn't have had just as impactful a discovery Y. There are opportunity costs to public funding and tying up intelligent researchers to goals that don't have realizable goals in the near future.