U.S. science is in chaos • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#671

Post by Terr_ » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 11:40 PM UTC

lonelyasacloud wrote: post #660

KennyBlanken wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our capitulation to Iran, a third rate military power that we chose to attack and then lost to, is really driving home the point at the moment. Uh....that's more the fault of a president who thought a totally normal thing (arms treaties with expiring restrictions) was a "scam" (not to mention, a black man he hates was responsible for said treaty) and ripped up said treaty. We literally were in a treaty, with Iran,…

> Uh....that's more the fault of a president Who so far has been put into office twice by?

Voters, but a minority of them.* Then kept in office by a minority (43%) of Republican Senate legislators.

* Yes, that is the correct term. In each election >50% chose "Not Trump".

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#672

Post by froggy » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 11:41 PM UTC

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…

Some of the science spending was to help us prevent catastrophe and save our descendants.

The GOP cut a measly $60 million per year for scientific monitoring instruments in the ocean, yet are increasing spending by hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on things like military spending, White House security, and deporting good people they call “illegals”.

They haven’t cut the national debt because they cut taxes on the rich. Taxing the rich could pay for all the science and gradually pay down the debt. But it’s in the GOP interest to cut science to dumb down the population. Climate change is “fake” they say, meanwhile Fox acquired Roku (100+ million households), Paramount (MAGA) acquiring Warner Brothers, CBS, CNN, etc. Oligarchs taking over TikTok and their disinformation machine strengthens.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#673

Post by ribosometronome » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 11:42 PM UTC

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 majority of your argument has little to do with your initial complaint about China and India. What does poaching less of the world's best and brightest to contribute to our market and universities have to do with ensuring people are working on meaningful projects?

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#674

Post by taylodl » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 11:42 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #512

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.

russia: brain drain usa: brain drain where is everybody going ?

Relocation to the European Union is at all-time highs.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#675

Post by anon84873628 » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 11:46 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #656

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…

> The high interest environment means that biotech investing has been hit extremely hard I don't think this reasoning can work. To the extent these things are directly related, the relationship would have to be: returns on investment are at an all-time high --> more investing than usual.

When interest rates are low, capital is willing to go to riskier enterprises like biotech in order to get a larger return compared to the alternatives.

When interest rates are high, capital shifts to yield-generating, interest-bearing investments. They give higher returns with less risk.

So basically the ROI of biotech becomes less competitive compared to alternatives. You have the same number of people/firms chasing a smaller supply of investment dollars.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#676

Post by haberman » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 11:51 PM UTC

jubilanti wrote: post #644

noosphr wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a previous project I ended up talking with a scientist who couldn't shut up about how she was 1/4th Indigenous and how many grants that could open for our collaboration. If I wanted racial purity in my collaborators it get a time machine to 1930s Germany. That someone was doing this in 2022 was extremely off-putting. That they were getting government support because of it makes the me not care much about the fact…

Imagine that your people had the land you'd been living on for countless generations invaded, taken from them after a bloody campaign, where the survivors were forced into poverty in concentration camps, where they could not leave, where many women had their fallopian tubes tied without even their knowledge, where children were beaten for speaking their language, where they were intentionally and deliberately kept in…

I think you can easily turn this around: scientists who are only willing to do science if it involves preferential treatment, DEI statements, and other practices that half of the country despises are saying that it's better to do no science at all than to set those divisive practices aside and just do science.

Proponents of these policies want to have it both ways; they're at one moment just this small thing that nobody should be bothered by, but in the next moment a nonnegotiable bedrock principle that they are unwilling to stop doing, even under threat of losing funding.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#677

Post by dmfdmf » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 11:53 PM UTC

>Now, to be sure, the end product of science is supposed to be science, not grants or tenure.

"To be sure" and "supposed to be" are doing some heavy lifting here. I am not so sure about that so I suppose that for many "scientists" the end product is not science at all. I'm not impugning the whole field as there are many good and honest scientists but the SYSTEM is corrupt. I think a significant portion are gaming the system for status or money or sinecures. P-hacking, fake data scandals, the replication crisis and various fake articles getting published in top journals are omens that something isn't quite right in the science world.

My own view is that it is all due to govt funding of science and especially the NSF which should be closed ASAP. Ayn Rand discusses the problem in her article "The Establishing of an Establishment" in her anthology "Philosophy:Who Needs It". Handing out govt grant money invariably locks in the status quo, i.e. an establishment. She also points out that under such terms it is impossible even for an honest man to make good choices which is why such rackets attract scammers and con artists, even fully credentialed PhD's.

Here is an excerpt from her article; https://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/government_grants_and_sch...

Or buy and read the whole article and the anthology.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#678

Post by solid_fuel » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 11:55 PM UTC

drak0n1c wrote: post #352

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.

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.

Terrible response. Just so you understand, private companies are not doing the kind of foundational research that public funded institutes were doing.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#679

Post by SideQuark » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 11:56 PM UTC

383toast wrote: post #530

AlexCoventry wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada, Europe, China.

not much talent is going from US to Canada, it's almost always the reverse if you look at top canadian universities

Here’s evidence from 2025. 2026 has increased.

https://www.aau.edu/sites/default/files/Resources-American-S...

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#680

Post by taylodl » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 11:56 PM UTC

jjtheblunt wrote: post #613

AlexCoventry wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada, Europe, China.

where in Canada? i've _never_ heard that, but if so, great.

Personally, I would go to Toronto. Decades ago I used to work for a Canadian company headquartered in Toronto and had development offices in the states. There was a project I needed to do with a distinguished engineer that required me to move to Toronto for a few months. I really liked it. TBH, there are very few cities in the US that I would say are on par with Toronto, and none are better. Now the Winters are brutal, but they're brutal where I'm from so that's not a dealbreaker for me.