Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

U.S. science is in chaos

scientificamerican.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

601–610 of 1001 posts

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#601

Post by akerl_ »

logicchains wrote: post #519
lovich wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conservative views are very anti science, look at their consensus on climate change. Of course the universities were going to be mostly liberal. Like at their core conservatives are against change, that’s the “conserve” part of their name and science is a process that constantly updates our understanding of reality.

Liberal views are very anti-science on race. Some famous professors even lost their positions just for adopting the statistically correct position that the majority of the difference in outcomes between races is accounted for by IQ, which is mostly immutable after childhood, not some societal conspiracy against certain races.

Are we just ignoring all the major societal factors that happen to children before and during childhood?

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#602

Post by snaking0776 »

archimedes237 wrote: post #173
snaking0776 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s less that it’s impossible but more that we don’t have any clue as to what causes differences among groups and many people use such measured differences as evidence for pretty deplorable ideas. There’s much more evidence for social determiners than anything biological. Everyone outside of Africa shares a single ancestor 20,000 years ago. There’s far more genetic diversity within Africa than the rest of th…

It's closer to 70,000 years. If not, then explain the Australian Aborigines.

Oh good point, sorry got the years mixed up in my head somehow.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#603

Post by turtletontine »

breakyerself wrote: post #501
nine_k wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What made places like Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, IBM Research, etc thrive? What happened to that mechanism, and can we have it back?

Those were all ultimately for profit companies. You can only get so far with basic science if some bean counter is looking for a return on investment in the near future. What those companies did is notable, but I think you are overselling their contributions to science. We've gotten way more scientific advancement from publicly funded science. There are private companies allowed to do R&D all over the world. Publicly…

I’ve seen it claimed that higher taxes on corporate profits incentivized that lab model. Better to invest in risky research than have that money taxed away. When the regulatory environment changed, shareholders insisted they should get that money through dividends and stock buybacks, and goodbye Bell Labs. I don’t know how accurate that argument is, but it certainly sounds plausible.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#604

Post by customguy »

noosphr wrote: post #579
customguy wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I wanted racial purity in my collaborators it get a time machine to 1930s Germany. If you knew more about it than some memes about racism, you'd know that the nihilism, this thin-skinned "at least we'll take them with us" sentiment you just expressed, was at the heart of it. But they had a lost war and the 1920s to be bitter about, the treaty of Versailles, not someone who "couldn't shut up" about something. The…

[flagged]

If you cannot read, why write?

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#605

Post by NeutralCrane »

littlekey wrote: post #423
twothreeone wrote: post #343

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")?

>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.

Well it’s not like the budget cuts to science are being redirected to those people. It’s going to the already rich.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#606

Post by rexpop »

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

Americans, broadly, didn't vote—those who did are obviously brainwashed cultists.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#607

Post by m-ee »

ryandrake wrote: post #463
iAMkenough wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the 20-something’s at DOGE proved anything last year, the keyword “black” associated with grant funding probably put the research on a list of DEI cuts.

I don't know why you're getting downvoted. This is exactly the kind of expertise and competence we have in the Administration right now. It is totally believable that they would do a substring search for "black" and "trans" and defund black hole research and transistor science.

They have said in depositions that they just did substring searches or fed lists to chat gpt, it’s not even a question.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#608

Post by indoorfish »

saturn8601 wrote: post #588
ArmadilloGang wrote: post #337

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…

Man Spain is mentioned as a top destination with expat influencers, youtubers and now even on hn. I get the feeling that something is going to crack at some point. You must be pricing out locals and they can't be happy about that.

Sounds like the locals are just racist then?

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#609

Post by teaearlgraycold »

spankalee wrote: post #591
teaearlgraycold wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we want to prevent this from happening people need to be able to trust their government and feel their interests are shared by their representatives.

We need people to be less racist and stop voting for politicians they hope will hurt the right people.

Less motivation for people to be racist if they have their needs met.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#610

Post by daedrdev »

marcyb5st wrote: post #45
collinmcnulty wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately there is another possibility: a return to great power competition.

I don't see that happening. The US debt will hinder any big expense that could keep it in any game long term. Take AI for instance. The US grid is struggling to keep up with demand, while Chinese one has a lot of headway [1]. Usually, this could be solved by an increase in spending lasting a few years which would make the debt tick up, but that would've been an absolutely fine use of debt since it buys some shiny new…

The US has DOUBLE its current power production in proposed expansions, mostly solar and batteries. In 2004 it had like 20%. The US grid is set to grow.
Post reply on HN