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WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

scientificamerican.com

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Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#61

Post by rayiner »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #35
rayiner wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need God's intervention. If you trust the scientific establishment to make decisions on how to allocate taxpayer dollars, then vote for an executive who promises to do that. Definitely don't vote for the guy who campaigned on taking discretion away from unelected bureaucrats.

Many of us did vote for sane ideas, like allowing scientists to make decisions about science. For instance, we knew RFK Jr would be a disaster and here we are, dealing with a resurgence of preventable diseases. In fact, "unelected bureaucrats" have been the key to whatever degree of success this democracy has enjoyed. Politicizing everything replaces non-partisan expertise with political loyalty and favoritism. It's…

[flagged]

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#62

Post by etrautmann »

glitchc wrote: post #43
wrs wrote: post #34

And a generation of young scientists starts packing their bags...

To where?

Plenty of scientists can and will work in industry roles or quit entirely. It’s already a crazy proposition and should not be made any harder. Finding funding can be a brutal and continuous challenge that demotivates many.

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#63

Post by bayarearefugee »

era-epoch wrote: post #56
glitchc wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To where?

personally know american scientists who are well into the process of relocating their work to institutions in canada or europe

Similarly, I know several scientists who were born in Europe but were long-term residents of the US running university labs here who already moved back to Europe last year, when it became pretty obvious where this was all heading.

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#64

Post by rayiner »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #55
rayiner wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The country runs on the principles of the constitution, not the institutional principles of science. Control over spending of taxpayer funds always must remain within the political system. Voters can always choose to turn over those decisions to scientists they trust. For much of the 20th century, that’s what voters did. But if they don’t trust the priorities of the current scientific establishment, they can also cho…

No, what it means is that scientists are vulnerable to punishment for speaking their minds about the administration. I will not live like that.

Only if voters remain loyal to the administration that does that, in which case that's exactly what should happen. If you want taxpayer dollars, you should make nice with the people taxpayers elect to represent them.

I do not intend to live in a country where supposedly unelected organizations think they have independent jurisdiction to spend public money independently of the political system.

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#65

Post by gammarator »

rayiner wrote: post #22
jordanpg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a lovely thought but it assumes, as with so many other things about our republican form of government, that the political appointees are good faith actors, at least with respect to funding of science. There are many reasons to suspect that the goal here is not just control of funding, but the defenestration of science more broadly because scientific findings tend to conflict with assertions politicians would l…

> That's a lovely thought but it assumes, as with so many other things about our republican form of government, that the political appointees are good faith actors, at least with respect to funding of science. It doesn't assume that. It's simply a factual matter that the rules that govern the country are those of the constitution. And the institutional principles of particular fields are subordinate to the constituti…

The political system, representing the taxpayer (primarily via Congress), has always dictated scientific strategy--do we build the Superconducting Supercollider or cancel it; do we return a sample from Mars or not; do we sequence the human genome. How big a budget do we devote to medical research compared to physics, etc. Scientists advocate, but politicians decide.

However, the nuts-and-bolts day-to-day tactical decisions have before been made through expert peer review, by scientists. Given a fixed and finite budget set by Congress, what is the best way to make discoveries?

Having been on grant review panels, it's brutal--at 5 or 10:1 oversubscription rates, your peers will find any flaw in your proposal.

Political appointees are deeply unqualified to make these judgments. To take a very specific example: the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is headed by Michael Kratsios. He has a BA in politics and has never written a scientific publication. (Every prior OSTP head was a PhD scientist.) The OMB memo says he and those like him should decide what to fund without deferring to scientists. How is he going to assess which of 50 proposals on (say) "hypothalamic SH2B1 neurocircuits and SH2B1 signal transduction pathways" is the good one?

He can't, so he'll either choose AI or graft. Both are destructive to our once world-leading scientific enterprise.

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#67

Post by rayiner »

selimthegrim wrote: post #38
rayiner wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's a lovely thought but it assumes, as with so many other things about our republican form of government, that the political appointees are good faith actors, at least with respect to funding of science. It doesn't assume that. It's simply a factual matter that the rules that govern the country are those of the constitution. And the institutional principles of particular fields are subordinate to the constituti…

And when they made Islam official religion of Bangladesh in the constitution, what’s your take on that?

My take is that they shed their blood to have their own nation and they're entitled to structure their affairs however they please. It that's also what precipitated my family to leave. Just because Bangladeshis have the right of self determination doesn't mean we have to or want to live in a country with them.

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#69

Post by SubiculumCode »

rayiner wrote: post #64
SubiculumCode wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, what it means is that scientists are vulnerable to punishment for speaking their minds about the administration. I will not live like that.

Only if voters remain loyal to the administration that does that, in which case that's exactly what should happen. If you want taxpayer dollars, you should make nice with the people taxpayers elect to represent them. I do not intend to live in a country where supposedly unelected organizations think they have independent jurisdiction to spend public money independently of the political system.

No. We have a system of laws. Canceling contracts without cause as punishment for free speech is wrong.

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#70

Post by SubiculumCode »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #60
SubiculumCode wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Republicans start proposing Communist policies, they are MAGA, not Republicans.

Neither cited countries are/were communist, they are authoritarian. That’s the political system of government, capitalism and communism is the economic system.

Fine.
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