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U.S. science is in chaos

scientificamerican.com

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Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#621

Post by blindriver »

dwa3592 wrote: post #307

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.

This is what happens when we are $40 Trillion in debt.

I'm sorry that scientific projects are being cut but are we supposed to keep funding everything ad infinitum regardless of how our economy and our future is going to be crippled by debt?

EVERYONE is going to be crying about their projects being cut and there's no good way to do it where everyone is going to be happy. Some people are going to lose their jobs, and that sucks but there is no other way except having the courage to cut funding. We have to cut everything and then reorganize at a lower budget number and the reallocate funds to the most important projects.

We can't keep funding everything. You may not care about our debt but I certainly do and there's more than enough of us around that care. Our descendants are going to be fucked and that's not fair. I'm sorry you're losing your job but soon over half our budget is going to be used to pay off interest on our debt. Just the interest and not the principal. This is an economic crisis.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#622

Post by Ar-Curunir »

blindriver wrote: post #621
dwa3592 wrote: post #307

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.

This is what happens when we are $40 Trillion in debt. I'm sorry that scientific projects are being cut but are we supposed to keep funding everything ad infinitum regardless of how our economy and our future is going to be crippled by debt? EVERYONE is going to be crying about their projects being cut and there's no good way to do it where everyone is going to be happy. Some people are going to lose their jobs, and…

Maybe you should complain about the other leeches on your economy, like, eg, the military.

Science funding is a minuscule part of the US budget

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#623

Post by quantified »

onetimeusename wrote: post #617
rurp wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American Empire is gone and not coming back. It rose in a very different world and once these competitive advantages in science and elsewhere have been squandered they won't ever get back to the same level; there's too much competition from other countries now and too little faith that the US won't do this again. As much as I hate it, we're heading into a more violent and less prosperous world. Whatever that morp…

I think this is an offensive and self fulfilling view. Americans are too dumb to do science so we need to rely almost entirely on foreigners from almost entirely the same two countries to do it for us. There's lots of holes in this scheme. I don't really want politicians to control funding for science but then again we've become somewhat of a degree mill and there's a lot of useless careerism in academia. I will give…

The same is roughly true for Silicon Valley investments once the herd mentality sets in. Yet it is celebrated as being the best way for commercial progress.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#624

Post by Ar-Curunir »

onetimeusename wrote: post #617
rurp wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American Empire is gone and not coming back. It rose in a very different world and once these competitive advantages in science and elsewhere have been squandered they won't ever get back to the same level; there's too much competition from other countries now and too little faith that the US won't do this again. As much as I hate it, we're heading into a more violent and less prosperous world. Whatever that morp…

I think this is an offensive and self fulfilling view. Americans are too dumb to do science so we need to rely almost entirely on foreigners from almost entirely the same two countries to do it for us. There's lots of holes in this scheme. I don't really want politicians to control funding for science but then again we've become somewhat of a degree mill and there's a lot of useless careerism in academia. I will give…

Almost all advances in deployed PLs come from academic research. Not sure what kind of point you’re trying to make

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#625

Post by oersted »

jltsiren wrote: post #513
oersted wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In EU there are laws that force universities to give researchers a permanent contract after a couple years. The result? Everyone gets fired every couple of years. In certain fields, this implies changing country every couple of years. Not that the university is paying much anyway, often the opposite: the researcher gets their own grant and they are forced to pay a cut to the host university, or to their group leader.…

The actual law is more that you need an objective reason for a fixed-term contract in any sector. A genuine project (such as the completion of a PhD) is an acceptable reason. The availability of funding is not. In practice, it has been accepted that postdocs can have fixed-term contracts, because it's a trainee position. Similarly, an assistant professor can have a fixed-term contract before tenure. Both of those are…

As far as I remember, from when I was closer to academia, in NL postdocs had to be offered a permanent contract after 3 temporary contracts, with a maximum of 1 year per temporary contract, or something like that. I believe this wasn’t exclusive to postdocs and it is a general law for most professions.

In recent years in Spain they aggressively decreased that threshold to the point where most employees need to have permanent contracts. Interestingly it has led to significant growth because, among others factors, it has increased consumer confidence, and it has been a much smaller burden on companies than expected.

Perhaps the term “permanent” contract is confusing to some. It’s not in the sense of a functionary or tenure, where you virtually have a job for life unless there are extreme circumstances. A permanent contract is an indefinite contract, one without a specific end, where firing you needs to be properly justified, but you can be fired, certainly.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#626

Post by nikanj »

NeutralCrane wrote: post #612
nikanj wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A person who’s been told all the people doing the science look down on them. Partially true, too, based on how I’ve heard people talk about ”dumb redneck trump voters”

I spent nearly a decade disgusted with Trump but being contrarian by insisting that it was understandable why voters might support it, even if I felt they were wrong. At this point, there’s no defending it. Anyone who supports this incarnation of the Republican Party is as stupid and backwards as they’ve been castigated.

But they should still give you money to run your studies?

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#627

Post by Ar-Curunir »

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #561
chasing wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

To be honest, research funding turned stupid before DOGE. I remember talking a guy who was struggling to write the mandatory diversity statement for a grant in quantum computing.

Whatever diversity sections were required in grant proposals are nothing compared to the situation right now.

If your guy couldn’t say stuff like we will do outreach to local CCs, will design summer research programs, etc, then they’re just not a very good grant writer

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#628

Post by Ar-Curunir »

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.

Plenty of poor people across the world have scientific curiosity

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#629

Post by jddj »

blindriver wrote: post #621
dwa3592 wrote: post #307

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.

This is what happens when we are $40 Trillion in debt. I'm sorry that scientific projects are being cut but are we supposed to keep funding everything ad infinitum regardless of how our economy and our future is going to be crippled by debt? EVERYONE is going to be crying about their projects being cut and there's no good way to do it where everyone is going to be happy. Some people are going to lose their jobs, and…

It's an economic crisis where they cut taxes and start wars though

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#630

Post by ikrenji »

blindriver wrote: post #621
dwa3592 wrote: post #307

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.

This is what happens when we are $40 Trillion in debt. I'm sorry that scientific projects are being cut but are we supposed to keep funding everything ad infinitum regardless of how our economy and our future is going to be crippled by debt? EVERYONE is going to be crying about their projects being cut and there's no good way to do it where everyone is going to be happy. Some people are going to lose their jobs, and…

raise taxes on the rich, cut pentagon funding by 90% and you solved society
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