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U.S. science is in chaos

scientificamerican.com

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Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#301

Post by smallmancontrov »

Straw wrote: post #294
smallmancontrov wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the bible cited even 1/1000th as many studies and experiments as the IPCC Reports, it would be a very different book. > If people go into the details of some absorption spectrum they risk to get cancelled. On the flickering smidgen of a chance that you are making this complaint in good faith, the reason why nobody feels obliged to walk you through the science is because for decades there has been a raging denial-o…

Interestingly, the IPCC reports themselves (not the summaries for policymakers) are quite optimistic. IIRC something like, if we do nothing to abate emissions, climate damages in 2100 will cause damage equivalent to ~3% of GDP per year. (With GDP being many times higher than now per capita). Hardly a catastrophic prediction!

I know, right? They bend over backwards to not be "alarmist," even perhaps a bit more than they should. But of course this wins them zero credit from their political opponents, which is an important lesson about politics: seeking middle ground with someone bent on destroying you is a fool's errand.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#302

Post by bdamm »

stainablesteel wrote: post #225
btrettel wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a US citizen with a PhD, I didn't experience any clear discrimination in favor of foreign students during grad school. I think the main reason so few US citizens get PhDs is because PhD "student" (they're actually workers) positions pay so poorly. Make PhD student positions have non-poverty wages and you'll see a lot more interest from US citizens. On the flip side, I think foreign students experienced a lot of ab…

im referring to the admissions process, and this discrimination has been present for decades

Are you thinking of affirmative action?

Affirmative action is by design discriminatory, but not against nationality. It's discriminatory based on race and sex. So I think your grudge is not striking the right target. And in any case, affirmative action has been mostly wound down, which began to happen when Obama was President. Not because he did anything, but because SCOTUS declared that his election was evidence that affirmative action was no longer required and thus ruled against it in new cases.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#303

Post by nikanj »

Rebuff5007 wrote: post #19

> whether there are black holes at a redshift of 10 or not is not a partisan issue. Anything that depends on a basic understanding of the scientific process, and resulting scientific facts is absolutely a partisan issue right now.

And the real partisan question is ”should the US fund studying the black holes”, not the actual science question

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#304

Post by Espressosaurus »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #296
Schlagbohrer wrote: post #33

My friends from grad school who went on to become professors tell me that not only did their grant funding dry up, but they were unable to follow through on hiring many of the grad students they had planned to hire, since the students came from foreign countries and faced new visa restrictions. So the money for science is gone, the people to do to the science are gone, and the institutions continue to not support the…

Americans voted to bring the country back to the 1950's and the plan is working perfectly

The fifties are when a lot of this infrastructure got its start.

They want the 1850s.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#305

Post by bigyabai »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #296
Schlagbohrer wrote: post #33

My friends from grad school who went on to become professors tell me that not only did their grant funding dry up, but they were unable to follow through on hiring many of the grad students they had planned to hire, since the students came from foreign countries and faced new visa restrictions. So the money for science is gone, the people to do to the science are gone, and the institutions continue to not support the…

Americans voted to bring the country back to the 1950's and the plan is working perfectly

Even the 1950s allowed for Operation Paperclip. This time is different.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#306

Post by mikeyouse »

btrettel wrote: post #230
stainablesteel wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

im referring to the admissions process, and this discrimination has been present for decades

I don't think I experienced discrimination during admissions either. Off the top of my head, I don't know any US citizens who told me that they wanted to go to grad school but were unable to be admitted to a school.

Yeah, it's just nativist nonsense from completely the uninformed.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#307

Post by dwa3592 »

My wife operates an optical trap (a sophisticated microscope, she uses it for studying gene/dna physical properties) and she's pretty good at working with that instrument. The number of people good at working that microscope are in the ballpark of 2000 (+- 1000) in the world! She has cried a lot in the last one year for the mess science research has become. We are moving out of the country at the end of August.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#308

Post by dirck-norman »

kingnothing wrote: post #195
svachalek wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US situation is mitigated by both Russia and China deciding to make massive, foolish maneuvers at the same time as ours. However neither can match how stupendously we are lighting our future on fire in every possible dimension.

What are the foolish maneuvers that China is making?

China is undergoing a 2008 style financial crisis due to real estate speculation and deflation due to very weak domestic spending.

They have drowned their municipalities in debt cumulatively equivalent to the US federal and state debt as a percentage of GDP. Localities aren’t allowed to tax but are responsible for local services and industry. Local governments borrowed heavily to hit GDP growth targets and compete with each other for investment and talent.

There is now a backwards migration of the working class back to rural towns from the cities because the incentives China gives is towards technologies that only benefit their already upper-middle class workers. About 500 million Chinese live in rural areas and over 20% of their workforce toils in the fields. That’s not changing anytime soon. Youth unemployment has been 15-20+ percent for some time.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#309

Post by phtrivier »

Many people became millionaires last week during SpaceX IPO.

Surely they will "give back" to the giants whose shoulders they were standing on, and start creating foundations to hire back those researchers, grant them enough money to continue their deep work, file plenty of patents, and let the society keep reaping benefits from its greatest minds.

I mean, what else would they do, invest in cryptos and trophy partners and sport teams and ad-based time waster and surveillance ? Naaaaah

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#310

Post by NoImmatureAdHom »

Am scientist. We needed change. This seems like a stupid way to get change, but it's better than nothing.

Academia was not doing well pre-Trump. The DEI infection ran deep - and it still does. Complete nonsense was getting funded in the social sciences and cognitive science / psychology. It was really tragic. And now all these institutions are saddled with personnel debt. The morons they hired during the DEI moral panic - some of them are even tenured by now. People who overtly aren't even doing science - they are performing their politics with science. Overtly.

This is a blunt instrument, yes. But things were going very poorly overall, and we needed a shake-up.

Given the choice between: Biden (or later Harris) is elected and things keep going the way they were going, or the current timeline, I choose the current timeline.

(P.S.: Scientific American is trash now, you shouldn't read it. https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=6202 )

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