The beings beyond the ice wall told the NSF to go away
Ah we have a Linda Moulton Howe fan here I see =)
NSF plans end to lone U.S. Antarctic research icebreaker
11–20 of 79 posts
Re: NSF plans end to lone U.S. Antarctic research icebreaker
#12Someone ELI5: Why is the Trump administration defunding scientific research? Is there a bigger picture we're not seeing, or is it 8D chess he's playing ?
It's not subtle. Donald perceives colleges as bastions of wokeness. Nature literally endorsed Joe Biden: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02852-x Now that he's president, here come the reprisals. Zero out NSF's funding, shut down NPR, end the COVID era break on student loan enforcement, withdraw grants from Harvard.
> Donald perceives colleges as bastions of wokeness.
Is he wrong?
Re: NSF plans end to lone U.S. Antarctic research icebreaker
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not subtle. Donald perceives colleges as bastions of wokeness. Nature literally endorsed Joe Biden: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02852-x Now that he's president, here come the reprisals. Zero out NSF's funding, shut down NPR, end the COVID era break on student loan enforcement, withdraw grants from Harvard.
> Donald perceives colleges as bastions of wokeness. Is he wrong?
Yes because he’s throwing the baby out with the bath water, being completely myopic about the value add to society and what it takes to make America competitive.
Of course he’ll be dead before the real multi-generational consequences take effect.
Re: NSF plans end to lone U.S. Antarctic research icebreaker
#14> NSF has been opaque about these plans—intentionally so, Wellner believes. “They are purposely not putting anything in writing,” she says. And the planned cancellation is leaving in limbo the scientists who have cruises planned for the Palmer this Antarctic summer, which begins in December. Incompetence (we didn't think about this out loud), or malice (we didn't want to leave a paper trail)?
https://www.propublica.org/article/video-project-2025-presid...
Consider the video "Staffing an Office" where Jeff Small, a former advisor in the Department of the Interior says “When you work for the federal government everything you put in an email, text, or note is FOIAable and releasable to the American people. At interior, we had a ton of in person meetings which allowed us to speak a little more freely about the topics of the day.”
Or the video "Advancing the President’s Agenda" where former OPM director Donald Devine says "You need to keep your agenda pretty close. You got to be careful who you tell it to because if you run it through a normal process…it’s going to be in the paper tomorrow..."
It's pretty clear that the architects of our current executive branch want to keep their objectives out of the public record and out of the press. So let's go with malice.
Re: NSF plans end to lone U.S. Antarctic research icebreaker
#15The descent into scientific ignorance continues. What possible justification could you have for this?
There is no market test for “fundamental” research. So when an avenue of research secures taxpayer funding it exists into perpetuity, and as papers are published and requests for additional funding are made, it tends to grow like a tumor over the decades, getting more PhDs to be matriculated in the labs that began the avenue and grow ever more forever. Very rarely is an avenue of research closed off once the trifecta…
> When corporations that actually have a market test and profit motive are funding the research, avenues that are unlikely to succeed will be cut off sooner...
It's hard to see how your suggestion would work for fundamental advances in technology. For example, backpropagation took decades to move from an idea to industrial use. [0] It was also "invented" multiple times.
Re: NSF plans end to lone U.S. Antarctic research icebreaker
#16Someone ELI5: Why is the Trump administration defunding scientific research? Is there a bigger picture we're not seeing, or is it 8D chess he's playing ?
It's not subtle. Donald perceives colleges as bastions of wokeness. Nature literally endorsed Joe Biden: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02852-x Now that he's president, here come the reprisals. Zero out NSF's funding, shut down NPR, end the COVID era break on student loan enforcement, withdraw grants from Harvard.
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Re: NSF plans end to lone U.S. Antarctic research icebreaker
#17As a scientist (physics, not polar ice), scientists alone are too few to advocate for science alone -- we literally cannot do it.
If you want scientific research as you know it to persist in the United States, please take a moment to help support for science in Congress go viral in your community.
Empirical science is non-partisan. It is good and helpful to know what's true.
If your friends are devout readers of the bible, point 'em toward Philippians 4:8. While I'm not religious, that passage has resonated for me my entire life.
Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
Re: NSF plans end to lone U.S. Antarctic research icebreaker
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not subtle. Donald perceives colleges as bastions of wokeness. Nature literally endorsed Joe Biden: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02852-x Now that he's president, here come the reprisals. Zero out NSF's funding, shut down NPR, end the COVID era break on student loan enforcement, withdraw grants from Harvard.
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This reads like you have a serious point to make about there being two different Nature magazines, but there aren't and there is absolutely no ambiguity that could lead you toward the concept of "nature" since he linked to the magazine that you are referring to. Not funny.
Re: NSF plans end to lone U.S. Antarctic research icebreaker
#19Someone ELI5: Why is the Trump administration defunding scientific research? Is there a bigger picture we're not seeing, or is it 8D chess he's playing ?
Reproducible and empirical fact is anathema to any administration that wants the "truth" to be the talking-point of the day.
Re: NSF plans end to lone U.S. Antarctic research icebreaker
#20The descent into scientific ignorance continues. What possible justification could you have for this?
There is no market test for “fundamental” research. So when an avenue of research secures taxpayer funding it exists into perpetuity, and as papers are published and requests for additional funding are made, it tends to grow like a tumor over the decades, getting more PhDs to be matriculated in the labs that began the avenue and grow ever more forever. Very rarely is an avenue of research closed off once the trifecta…
Whether proponents of government directed Science, agree or disagree, your comment presents a well reasoned argument. At the moment it is the most substantive comment on the page. Moreover, it is a direct, good faith response to the parent commenter's question. Yet for all of this, I see that the comment has been downvoted into grey. At the time of posting, no substantive rebuttals have been offered.
This typifies the quality of discourse around defunding of "The Science" at HN.