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U.S. science is in chaos

scientificamerican.com

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Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#721

Post by kalstone »

epistasis wrote: post #429
newaccount670 wrote: post #425

US Science needed this. Racism, sexism, plagiarism, and fraud were rampant in the academic community. It's going to take a long time to fully fix the problem, but we are on the right path currently.

No it did not, and even if there was a correction needed, this most certainly is not that correction.

You are willfully blind if you do not think those have been major and prevailing issues in our insitutions. To kill a virus, it can take drastic measures, like a fever. But after it's over, the host recovers and is once again healthy

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#722

Post by HerbManic »

raphlinus wrote: post #539
agumonkey wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm in Australia.

And welcome to our little odd ball land. Just remember, if an Aussie offers you a 'Golden Gay Time', take it and you will be pleasantly surprised. ;)

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#723

Post by cloche »

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…

R&D is hit or miss. And a lot will miss. It's really no different from the VC model where 90% of their startups will fail but the 10% that succeed will make up for the rest.

Pointing out a few examples that didn't go anywhere is a meaningless argument. You need to look at it holistically.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#724

Post by HerbManic »

mym1990 wrote: post #661
dnautics wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

social security and medicare?

That, interest payments, UFC fight night flyovers, ballrooms, wars, tax cuts. I would go as far as to say that the only things getting reduced funding are education and science research, but that’s just a hunch.

The massive increases to military spending would be a big part of it. Have to feed the war machine at all costs apparently.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#725

Post by noosphr »

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…

>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 structural poverty for generations, and other horrors.

Yes, it's terrible what the English did in Ireland.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#726

Post by tick_tock_tick »

eunos wrote: post #545
elgertam wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Take AI for instance. The US grid is struggling to keep up with demand, while Chinese one has a lot of headway [1]. Usually, this could be solved by an increase in spending lasting a few years which would make the debt tick up, but that would've been an absolutely fine use of debt since it buys some shiny new infra that will pay dividends for the next 20ish years. I object. The CCP is much more deeply indebted than…

> high debt > Use Total Debt I never seen that metric used anywhere else aside China

Almost no other country has it's government pretending to be so many different entities.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#727

Post by klipt »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #699
anon84873628 wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This doesn't work the way you imagine. Suppose the ROI of biotech becomes more competitive compared to alternatives, because there's an ongoing series of technological breakthroughs. The return on investing goes up (by assumption) and this means interest rates go up (by definition; they are the return on investing). Is this bad for biotech? Does it shift capital out of biotech? Obviously not.

You're using "high interest rate" to mean "biotech has great returns right now".

Everyone else is using it to mean "the Federal Reserve has set the interest rate high right now"

Very different situations.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#728

Post by tick_tock_tick »

wredcoll wrote: post #422
Blackstrat wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Down voted, imagine that. Predictable as sunrise. So what should be cut?

Trump's ballroom. Trump's "irs lawsuit settlement fund" The salaries of all the lawyers being paid to justify illegal and discriminatory executive orders. ICE's budget. TSA's budget. "Border Wall" construction costs. Should I go on?

Most of those things a tiny rounding error. Interest and social services are the only thing the government actually spends money on.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#729

Post by caseysoftware »

epistasis wrote: post #414
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.

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?

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#730

Post by johnsmith1840 »

Honestly its been a long time coming. Acting as if academia and ivy leauge level research isn't incredibly sick is dishonest.

The PRESIDENT of stanford was fired over forged research. I have personally worked very closely with 2 incredibly credentialed researcher leaders who were very very smart fudge their work.

The incentive structure for researchers is completely warped. The honest ones are there but from my experience this is all because the options a fresh PHD faces are.

1. Be a rockstar and make a breakthrough -> sucess 2. Be an honest nobody and don't get funding 3. Fudge your work -> become stanford president and make millions

Those who get caught get a slap on the wrist for reasons I hypothesize are because so many around them are the same.

The mechanism is not unique any SWE will personally know how easy it is to lie about their progress or work. Top researchers have the same effect but it's easily 10x easier for them. Which is also why I admire the good ones even more.

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