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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

#351

Post by the_gastropod »

amazingamazing wrote: post #322
dgellow wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you have strong opinions about this place for someone who joined less than 2 years ago... In my >13y active on HN I can tell you politics has always been present. It's just more likely for political topics to end up in flamewar, meaning they will get down ranked quickly. In general those stories don't stay long in the front page

I have been here longer than you. I just rotate accounts after around 1000 karma (this account will be thrown away too soon)

My Canadian girlfriend, who’s totally real, by the way, believes you.

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

#352

Post by SubiculumCode »

simonw wrote: post #339
coldtea wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

"You mispoke on that issue? No grant. You were of the wrong political perssuassion? No grant. Hurt the feelings of X group? No grant." Are you talking about not getting the grant in the first place, or are you talking about grants being cancelled after they had been approved and you had taken the money and started doing the funded work? Those two situations are different.

They are different situations, but both are equally applicable here. 1. Grants can be canceled at will. 2. All grants are approved or denied by political appointees, who are instructed to only treat peer review as advisory considerations.

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

#353

Post by swed420 »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #294
chadgpt3 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia is a de-jure democracy, just like the US. In fact I'm not sure what difference there is between them.

One big difference is that the US has been led by four different people since 2000 instead of one. Another big difference is that it's legal for Americans to insult political leaders, wish bad things upon them, or demand an end to their stupid wars. If you weren't aware of these differences, I'd encourage you to radically change your media diet; there are unfortunately many outlets which find it advantageous to exagg…

> One big difference is that the US has been led by four different people since 2000 instead of one.

But those four puppets served the same ruling class interests, and they manufactured consent for each other the whole time.

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

#354

Post by warumdarum »

The relation between world changing science and investment seems to be brutally of, so any change to whatever we have is good change. Scieence needs to be deideologized and if that cant happen, at least there needs to a politically diverse ecosystem where the results (with predictionpower and duscoveries not cultural dominance) speak for themselves.

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

#355

Post by [deleted] »

skywhopper wrote: post #203
gwerbin wrote: post #168

More of the same at this point. If you are politically connected, or stay in an narrow lane of approved work, you get your grant. But if you stray from the politically approved path, or appear disloyal to our First Citizen and the Party, then your grant will be canceled. The remaining supporters of the incumbent party like to claim that they aren't actually doing anything worse than in the past, and if anything they…

[flagged]

[deleted]

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

#356

Post by yareally »

sseagull wrote: post #190
b65e8bee43c2ed0 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think China needs the kind of scientists disproportionately affected by the bad orange man's vendetta.

The chaos is affecting pretty much all areas of science, not just the controversial ones. I work in non-controversial, pretty run-of-the-mill chemistry research and the attacks on the NSF have certainly impacted our funding situation. Very long delays in proposal review, complete pivoting to AI, etc. I have co-workers panicking over the green card changes. And the overall morale is pretty grim everywhere. Edit: don’t…

I work for an org that makes research software for chemistry and other branches of science and it's definitely hit us in sales. No one wants to spend money if they don't know if they're going to get or keep the grants they petitioned for.

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

#357

Post by FpUser »

brookst wrote: post #304
coldtea wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You did exactly what GP was commenting on - conflating something that happened occasionally in the past with policy that mandates it should happen every time today. Yes, grants were given and revoked for political purposes in the past. But what percentage of grant proposals were reviewed by an appointed political officer whose sole job was to screen out wrongthink? It did happen, but it was ad hoc and amateur. Today’…

>"Today’s administration is formalizing Soviet-style political reviews of science."

He who kills the dragon becomes one.

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

#358

Post by gammarator »

Here's a more concise summary of the proposed changes: https://elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of-key-change...

I don't think any practicing scientist of any political persuasion will think these are good for science.

Science progresses by sharing knowledge openly and publicly, so others can evaluate it, criticize it, and build on it. These severe restrictions on collaboration, publication, and public communication will damage science's naturally open, merit-based culture.

We will all suffer due to lost discoveries--maybe not today, but over years and decades.

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

#359

Post by seanmcdirmid »

shaftoe wrote: post #311
filoeleven wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

A) this court has a number of originalists, more likely to reject grabs for power than more progressive judges. There's worse things than a court that tries to adhere to the constitution when the executive branch and Congress both routinely do not. B) do you really want to get to a place where the arbiters get politically reset and degraded every time the pendulum swings? This is the equivalent of a courtroom where a…

Ya, I think the only way out is to just split the country in two. The red states can go their own way without massive subsidies from the blue states.

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

#360

Post by SoftTalker »

gwerbin wrote: post #168

More of the same at this point. If you are politically connected, or stay in an narrow lane of approved work, you get your grant. But if you stray from the politically approved path, or appear disloyal to our First Citizen and the Party, then your grant will be canceled. The remaining supporters of the incumbent party like to claim that they aren't actually doing anything worse than in the past, and if anything they…

My father was a Ph.D., a research scientist at a large state university. After understanding how political everything is under the surface, he cautioned me from ever working in a field that depended on government funding. "What one administration gives you, the next one can take away" is close to a literal quote.

Outsiders like to imagine that the pure pursuit of science without any agendas is what university research is all about. That is mostly a veneer.

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