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U.S. science is in chaos

scientificamerican.com

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Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#701

Post by browningstreet »

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.

I feel like you missed the point of moving overseas.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#702

Post by [deleted] »

_the_inflator wrote: post #691
hgoel wrote: post #420

Last year, the mood in my field, that has been relatively isolated from many of these impacts, was still very "these are uncomfortable times, but it's still possible to pull through". Recently, you can cut the tension in a room with a knife whenever matters relating to government decision making come up. Some coworkers are leaving science, promising phds and postdocs leaving to other countries, many of the more estab…

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#704

Post by tick_tock_tick »

vkou wrote: post #652
cryptoegorophy wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada? For lower salary and lower life quality?

Higher intangible quality of life, lower spending power. There are a lot of QOL advantages to living in a less violent, less polarized, less cruelty-driven society that isn't actively trying to dismantle all of its institutions and destroy itself. Especially if you're one of those people who are in the crosshairs of jack-booted thugs and their cheerleaders.

He said Canada man. If you had other reasonable options when leaving you wouldn't pick it so lets not pretend anyone moving there from the USA didn't fail already.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#705

Post by johnsmith1840 »

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…

If you knew how the academia sauce was made you'd agree with their drastic actions.

Could it have been done better? Yes. But there is literally no way an attempt at that wouldn't have gone exactly like it is now.

The closer you are to ivy leauge research the worse it looks a huge numbers of researchers have completely lost the plot. I can't imagine how bad that gets the further you get away from ivy leauge.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#706

Post by tick_tock_tick »

ArmadilloGang wrote: post #337
lmf4lol wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

where to?

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…

> 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.

I mean so you'll move to Spain and just be horrible ignorant of any issues facing the local population, living in a financial bubble where you've earned significantly move then the them and can ignore any political issues locally.

Sure it's "freeing" to just move and stop caring about "politics" and use money to smooth over or move again if anything slightly bothers you.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#707

Post by tequila_shot »

_the_inflator wrote: post #691
hgoel wrote: post #420

Last year, the mood in my field, that has been relatively isolated from many of these impacts, was still very "these are uncomfortable times, but it's still possible to pull through". Recently, you can cut the tension in a room with a knife whenever matters relating to government decision making come up. Some coworkers are leaving science, promising phds and postdocs leaving to other countries, many of the more estab…

[flagged]

I do not agree. What do you mean by EU focuses on gender studies?

Also, any country should be focused on research irrespective of AI, I do not see how AI is “coming” or how it’s related to this thread.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#708

Post by hgoel »

_the_inflator wrote: post #691
hgoel wrote: post #420

Last year, the mood in my field, that has been relatively isolated from many of these impacts, was still very "these are uncomfortable times, but it's still possible to pull through". Recently, you can cut the tension in a room with a knife whenever matters relating to government decision making come up. Some coworkers are leaving science, promising phds and postdocs leaving to other countries, many of the more estab…

[flagged]

Putting aside all the other things I could point out, my field is one where all the major players are roughly on par.

Also, this isn't about making yet another DB SaaS, it's research. AI can only help make it possible to do more than what a lone person could do before.

The problems are not the kind where AI can threaten jobs, and even for junior positions, it's well understood that sometimes things need to be done less efficiently, to allow new people to learn. It's kind of the point of a PhD.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#709

Post by tbrownaw »

khalic wrote: post #427
wins32767 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's foolish. There is certainly an amount of money on funding research that is unreasonable! Determining where that line should rest is an inherently political question. Determining who should get funding for that is also a political question. The latter question was able to be papered over for many years because the scientific community generally contained roughly equal members of both parties. Since that isn't t…

lol, are you implying science is dying because, you believe, less and less scientists are “conservative”. Do you have any notion of how ridiculous that sounds?

If you know only your own position, you know little of even that.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#710

Post by sltkr »

enragedcacti wrote: post #393
okeuro49 wrote: post #231

> But arbitrary cancellations and delayed disbursements are unprecedented. And justifying them on the basis of politics—prohibiting, for instance, grants that include language referencing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)—was unheard of until now. It is odd how removal of DEI is framed as being political, when it is the other way round. DEI schemes were deeply political, and depended on who can claim to be the bi…

I don't think requiring prospective hires to write a DEI statement is equally as political as illegally cancelling already funded and approved research into e.g. racial disparities in maternal mortality, or health equity gaps for rural Americans (yes, it's DEI even if it's for predominantly white people).

How is forcing prospective academics to pledge alegiance to the American woke left anything _but_ political? DEI statements were nothing more than obligatory loyalty oaths.
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