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U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

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Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#161

Post by clutchdude »

michelsedgh wrote: post #128
rwyinuse wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing current administration anti-science approach to things like climate and health, I wouldn't be all at surprised if many of those who left academia were ones producing quality work that just didn't align with Trump admin's ideology.

the unscientific stuff was actually past administrations which told us cheetos is more healthy than eggs and meat lol

Turns out, if we feed data in and query it in the right way, we can come to charts that allow bad conclusions just like any other.

https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/01/16/lucky-charms-healthie...

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#162

Post by WarmWash »

kaitai wrote: post #79
ccheney wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not a good thing that these folks could do something more productive in the private sector? Just on your Fusion example alone: https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/31/every-fusion-startup-that-... Wouldn't it be better if companies like these had a larger pool of PhDs to pull from? Private sector does some things better, see Rocket Lab, Blue Origin, SpaceX, et al. This _is_ a good thing.

Your phrasing "something more productive in the private sector" is taken from the DOGE emails to federal employees. Note that in this sense "productive" means "makes money for corporations". If your utility function is different, these jobs are no longer more productive. For a very concrete illustration, I know a Veterans Administration physician who got the DOGE emails. He's been underpaid by $50k-100k per year comp…

I know a land lord that rents his apartment for $500/mo, when it's worth $2000/mo because he cares about his community.

Did I just solve the housing crisis?

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#163

Post by titzer »

It's harder to recruit PhD students and it's harder to fund them. NSF budget was cut 55% in the first year. The administration is doing everything possible to make it clear that no foreigners are welcome here. America is stabbing itself directly in the brain.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#164

Post by krona »

ForHackernews wrote: post #146
krona wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which breakthroughs, specifically? There are no Chinese institutions pumping out nobel prizes. Zero.

https://www.nature.com/nature-index/news/nature-index-resear... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Edit: Oh, that's old. In 2024 Chinese institutions only made up 7 of the top 10 most productive research centers but in 2025 they are account for 8/10: https://www.natureasia.com/en/info/press-releases/detail/911...

That's a volume based index, not impact, thus reinforcing my point.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#166

Post by Zigurd »

bigyabai wrote: post #119
JuniperMesos wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is famous for low-quality research and bad papers, which is exactly what you'd expect from a system that grants an expanded number of formal credentials to people who aren't actually doing good scientific research.

Be that as it may, China also has persistent threat actors outfoxing American cybersecurity in the form of Salt Typhoon . The cards are on the table, and the US is already undoubtedly losing several fronts of asymmetrical warfare.

If I understand Salt Typhoon correctly it's a masterpiece. The descriptions I've seen indicate that they penetrated lawful intercept. Lawful intercept operates outside network operators network management systems because it was designed not to trust the network operators. I am skeptical of claims that Salt Typhoon has been eliminated from US networks. Any such implicitly claim to detect lawful intercept traffic and ensure it isn't nefarious, which traffic that system is designed to hide.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#167

Post by dtdynasty »

recursive wrote: post #55
dtdynasty wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't stem PhDs follow some bell curve of quality? I'm sure many PhDs that are leaving don't contribute but some of them do. I personally don't see a reason for it to be skewed for only PhDs which don't contribute to leave.

These things are not in conflict. It's possible that PhD quality has a regular distribution, and that most of them aren't contributing much.

I agree with this. I guess you already believe they follow a bell curve.Then from your former comment you also believe it's worth it to lose many PhDs that don't contribute to also lose the few that do.

I guess the conflict is my value judgement that it's good to keep PhDs that don't contribute if it allows US to keep the ones that do contribute. I believe so for 2 reasons.

- Distinguishing between contributors and non contributors at scale is difficult.

- the value of research can be large from a few contributors.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#168

Post by epistasis »

dewey wrote: post #157
motbus3 wrote: post #153

[flagged]

What does AI have to do with that?

Presumably: AI automates the person-to-pseudonym connection, the searching of small bits of biographical data that accounts leak over long periods of time, across all accounts over the internet. Dedicated sleuths could do this in the past, but now it's fast and easy and at the touch of a button.

So people that are at risk, say, by having a government job, or doing publicly funded research that produces science for the common good, can now be automatically identified, blacklisted, fired, etc. etc. etc. en masse. This would have taken too many person-hours to be worthwhile for a newly installed political manager at NSF or NIH. But that list is now an easy purchase from a government contractor, named after a nefarious communication device from an SF novel, and grants are currently being cancelled on far flimsier political grounds than that.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#169

Post by giardini »

foxyv wrote: post #103
JuniperMesos wrote: post #22

The implicit assumption that this is a bad thing is grounded in the assumption that anyone who is a STEM PhD is automatically someone the US government should want to employ, which I don't think is true. Academia is a badly broken system, and many people with formal credentials like PhDs have wasted huge amounts of time and effort on producing what is ultimately low-quality scientific work. This is a pretty uncontrov…

You're kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. Sure, some PhDs are in underwater basket weaving and barely warranting the title. However, most PhDs are extremely valuable. They are pushing the boundaries of our knowledge to improve society. Some part of the hatred for the current academic system stems from legitimate concerns about how it operates. However, I think this hate is mostly driven by rampant…

foxyv says "most PhDs are extremely valuable"

Can you defend this statement?

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#170

Post by dewey »

Ancalagon wrote: post #165
motbus3 wrote: post #153

[flagged]

And? Are usernames not anonymous? Is ICE checking your HN comments at the border?

> Visa applicants are required to list all social media usernames or handles of every platform they have used from the last 5 years on the DS-160 visa application form.

https://ml.usembassy.gov/u-s-requires-public-social-media-se...

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