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U.S. science is in chaos

scientificamerican.com

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Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#761

Post by ETH_start »

joe_the_user wrote: post #396
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The institutions that built US science dominance were built in the 1950s. A fraction of Americans voted to bring America back to a cartoonish pastiche of images of the olden times (from 1950s, 1920s and 1800s) that they didn't know never existed and they didn't know that partly 'cause of education cuts starting in the 1970s-1980s.

What education cuts? Education spending per pupil has skyrocketed since the 1970s.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#762

Post by auggierose »

Let's not pretend like research funding was money well spent before Trump. It wasn't. If tax payers actually knew how research funding works in practice, they wouldn't want any of their tax dollars to be spent on it.

If $50 billion are spent on research, maybe $1 billion of the spending is actually worthwhile (totally made that number up), and that is better than $0 spent on research from a certain point of view. Wouldn't be my point of view though if I had to pay for it.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#763

Post by ETH_start »

Scientific American is not the organization to be providing commentary on this as it is in the center of the maelstrom and often cited as an example of the cultural shift that preceded the backlash.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#764

Post by watersb »

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…

Even with perfect information regarding R&D outcomes, capitalism is competitive.

Capitalism is duplication of effort.

I've never been particularly convinced by the crusade to eliminate alternatives to capitalism in the name of eliminating a society's wasteful behavior.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#765

Post by peyton »

dwa3592 wrote: post #364
drak0n1c wrote: post #352

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.

We are not convinced that we will be happy in the industry and part of it is the visa issues. She currently has a valid visa until 2029 but she just doesn't want it anymore.

[flagged]

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#766

Post by sandworm101 »

caseysoftware wrote: post #729
epistasis wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Academic experience typically doesn't count." Why not?

Because the results from an acedemic paper are not, ever, going to be injected into a customer's arm. Developing products for sale in the real world is very different than designing lab experiments.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#767

Post by Nursie »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #737
raphlinus wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Australia.

For anyone thinking of migrating to Australia, please add to your considerations the increasing groundswell of conservatism and support for anti-immigration and the very recent proclamations of anti-multiculturalism of the newly popular One Nation party: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6Y2wzmKHEU The next federal election will be interesting as to the direction the Australian public wants to take the country, but it…

And yet despite their majority, Labor still seem reticent to make big changes of the sort people are asking for, and backpedal on their initiatives and promises all over the place.

God I hope Pauline and one nation are just a stupid blip and that poll that put them ahead is a mirage though. She's doing the same bullshit playbook as the UK and US - 'elites' are destroying Australia by driving immigration! Meanwhile the richest woman in Australia is in the background holding the marionette's strings.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#768

Post by tennfown »

sandworm101 wrote: post #766
caseysoftware wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Academic experience typically doesn't count." Why not?

Because the results from an acedemic paper are not, ever, going to be injected into a customer's arm. Developing products for sale in the real world is very different than designing lab experiments.

Sure, but it would seem the solution would be to hire the recently minted PhDs and teach them through more senior staff how to operate in the real world, just like in literally any other profession.

Instead you’ll just whine until they let you import a billion more Indians

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#769

Post by anjel »

rbtprograms wrote: post #509
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…

americans pretending they aren't immigrants by using the term expat always cracks me up

americans pretending they aren't refugees by using the term expat is almost too ironic.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#770

Post by jarjoura »

anon84873628 wrote: post #682
vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly think the decline started sometime in the 80s when it was accepted that everything is solely about profits and nothing else. It took a while but the enshittification of the country is accelerating. The latest developments are in my view just a symptom of this much longer trend.

Bingo. Michael Wolff illustrates nicely how Trump is the literal embodiment of the "greed is good" 80's culture. Of course we also have Ronald Reagan to thank. And that administration spawned the career of John Roberts, which we can now see as a through line to the destruction of The Court.

It's a bit reductive to pin this on Ronald Reagan.

The entire western world had been shifting towards neoliberalism as a direct response to the eastern world shifting towards communism since WW2.

Trump also isn't the embodiment of anything other than the guy who didn't take it seriously and suddenly ended up with the job because the voters in the country decided it couldn't be any worse under him than whatever the current situation they were living with was.

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