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U.S. science is in chaos

scientificamerican.com

421–430 of 1001 posts

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#421
post #20

[flagged]

I'm sorry to tell you this, but he hasn't been part of this administration for a while. And also i'm not quite sure you have his views on NASA funding (one of his main customers) right, you're just making them up. He is a genius though, great results on the market.

But not as smart as bernie madoff, who had much better results, right?

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#422

The government can't fund everything. Too much of the budget is tied up in transfer and interest payments squeezing out other more viable research. The federal government doesn't have unlimited funds. Something has to give.

Down voted, imagine that. Predictable as sunrise. So what should be cut?

Trump's ballroom.

Trump's "irs lawsuit settlement fund"

The salaries of all the lawyers being paid to justify illegal and discriminatory executive orders.

ICE's budget.

TSA's budget.

"Border Wall" construction costs.

Should I go on?

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#423
post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Which really tells you more about the state of mind of people asking that question. What kind of person isn't curious about the puzzle of their own existence, or the nature of the physical reality they live in (and yes, by "being curious" I mean "being willing to put a tax dollar amount to them")?

>What kind of person isn't curious about the puzzle of their own existence

A person who struggles to put food on the table and a roof over their heads, for one.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many biotech startups and private research labs thriving and paying high salaries with excellent benefits for that specialty right now - focused on genetic testing, editing, and longevity. Before moving abroad, widening the search outside of academia and considering moving internally might be worthwhile.

I'm surviving on consulting income for a wide variety of clients right now in this space, and let me tell you it's brutal and extremely difficult to get entry to this space for people that don't have a wide network and lots of industry experience. Academic experience typically doesn't count. In addition there's a severe "passion tax" for these sorts of jobs, the salary difference for a "Data Scientist, Computational…

I don't know if it's so much that talented people are being locked out, as much as it is that communities everywhere, not just industry, are requiring a level of people skills that academic people lack but nonetheless thrive without.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#426

> 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.

It certainly is when people are typing the word "black" into the search field when deciding what programs need to be cut...

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which really tells you more about the state of mind of people asking that question. What kind of person isn't curious about the puzzle of their own existence, or the nature of the physical reality they live in (and yes, by "being curious" I mean "being willing to put a tax dollar amount to them")?

That's foolish. There is certainly an amount of money on funding research that is unreasonable! Determining where that line should rest is an inherently political question. Determining who should get funding for that is also a political question. The latter question was able to be papered over for many years because the scientific community generally contained roughly equal members of both parties. Since that isn't t…

lol, are you implying science is dying because, you believe, less and less scientists are “conservative”. Do you have any notion of how ridiculous that sounds?

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#428
post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My family is looking at Missouri to Spain. Why Spain: Expat communities, cost of living, friendly visa options, beautiful climate. Why leave: Sick of U.S. politics and the way it directly and indirectly affects us and how difficult it is to escape from it - it’s a major point of conversations with family and friends, it’s on the local radio, local subreddit, local social media pages, etc. Also, I have over $7k in per…

From what I understand, Spain has their own set of politics worth losing sleep over; perhaps as an expat you won't be as attached though.

Most American ex-pats don't really understand that the thing that makes ex-pat life so attractive is that, for most of people's lives, being American in a foreign country has traditionally conferred a wide range of benefits (this is most clearly exemplified by the way Americans living in a foreign country refer to themselves as "ex-pats" not "immigrants"). The ex-pat solution assumes American exceptionalism as its foundation.

Historically Americans have benefited from income asymmetry and a fairly wide-spread desire by foreign nations not to cause too much legal trouble for US nationals abroad.

I have quite a few friends that do live, quite happily, abroad. But the common pattern for them is a.) fluency in the native language b.) historical association with the country c.) fairly large cash reserves so they can ignore any economic problems these countries are facing.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#429

US Science needed this. Racism, sexism, plagiarism, and fraud were rampant in the academic community. It's going to take a long time to fully fix the problem, but we are on the right path currently.

No it did not, and even if there was a correction needed, this most certainly is not that correction.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#430
post #303

> 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

The real "partisan" question is, "What can the GOP leadership and their owners loot without immediate negative consequences for themselves?"
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