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U.S. science is in chaos

scientificamerican.com

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Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#781

Post by platevoltage »

logicchains wrote: post #519
lovich wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conservative views are very anti science, look at their consensus on climate change. Of course the universities were going to be mostly liberal. Like at their core conservatives are against change, that’s the “conserve” part of their name and science is a process that constantly updates our understanding of reality.

Liberal views are very anti-science on race. Some famous professors even lost their positions just for adopting the statistically correct position that the majority of the difference in outcomes between races is accounted for by IQ, which is mostly immutable after childhood, not some societal conspiracy against certain races.

For real. We are doing race science on HN?

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#782

Post by Carioca »

solid_fuel wrote: post #688
Rebuff5007 wrote: post #19

> whether there are black holes at a redshift of 10 or not is not a partisan issue. Anything that depends on a basic understanding of the scientific process, and resulting scientific facts is absolutely a partisan issue right now.

I’m very familiar with the evangelical types who are running the federal government right now. Anything that doesn’t support the claim that the earth is only 5000 years old is considered a partisan issue to these fuckers.

While this is a good long-term heuristic, I'd describe the upper rungs of government as more cynical on matters of science and theology than a typical fundie.

The only relevant difference is that you might be able to push it back a bit on "strategic interest" types of arguments

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#783

Post by jdc0589 »

peyton wrote: post #765
dwa3592 wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]

how exactly did you jump to the conclusion that American ?citizen? taxpayes are propping these two people up financially? They are presumably both paying income tax in the United States as well, probably a lot of it based on his wife's profession.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#785

Post by quantummagic »

Catloafdev wrote: post #598
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…

Framing what's happening as simply 'removal of DEI' is horrifically out of touch with reality.

Correct. But not understanding how DEI drove a huge wedge into science (or at least its politics and institutions), and is actually a large component of the underlying rift, is just as horrifically out of touch with reality. The current crisis can be largely laid at the feet of the people who prioritized DEI over everything else, with utter contempt for opposing opinions. The current crisis is just the backlash.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#786

Post by lovich »

etchalon wrote: post #565
lovich wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conservative views are very anti science, look at their consensus on climate change. Of course the universities were going to be mostly liberal. Like at their core conservatives are against change, that’s the “conserve” part of their name and science is a process that constantly updates our understanding of reality.

Conservatives views are not anti-science, so much as they are a demand that science only be allowed to answer certain questions, and only answer those questions in specific ways.

That is anti science. It’s just faith based dogmatism. You also see it with conservatives calling belief in the scientific process being able to produce knowledge being called scientism like it’s just faith based.

They literally look down on the idea of updating your previous beliefs.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#787

Post by counters »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #403
counters wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a blunt instrument, yes. But things were going very poorly overall, and we needed a shake-up. You do understand that what's happening isn't merely a "shake up", right? It's the coordinated dismantling of structural components of America's innovation economy in ways that will take decades to recover from, if it all (can't do much if emigrants take their talents to China instead of the USA). Strong "cut off y…

Is China actually particularly interested in allowing non-Chinese foreigners to immigrate there ostensibly to do science but really so they can permanently settle in China and have children who are considered fully Chinese under law?

Yes. Myself and colleagues used to get outreach fairly regularly to join new faculty at universities trying to establish themselves in China. I'm in industry these days, but some of my colleagues report a significant uptick in these types of outreach over the past year.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#788

Post by fastball »

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).

Legality is orthogonal to politicality.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#789

Post by coliveira »

tennfown wrote: post #768
sandworm101 wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Because that's ultimately their goal! It's just smoke, mirrors, and complaining so they can get the cheap labor.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#790

Post by counters »

qsera wrote: post #401
counters wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a blunt instrument, yes. But things were going very poorly overall, and we needed a shake-up. You do understand that what's happening isn't merely a "shake up", right? It's the coordinated dismantling of structural components of America's innovation economy in ways that will take decades to recover from, if it all (can't do much if emigrants take their talents to China instead of the USA). Strong "cut off y…

> It's the coordinated dismantling of structural components of America's innovation economy in ways that will take decades to recover from, No, that is just your opinion.

I'm not the big Lebowski but this is the "opinion" of the majority of scientific societies in the US as well as watchdog organizations who have long followed science regulatory and spending action.

It's not exactly new. We've been through this with the crackdown on climate science during the W Bush administration, with sequestration during the early/mid 2010's, and with the budget shenanigans during the first Trump administration. Denying the painfully obvious impact of our contemporary science policy is like fiddling while Rome is burning.

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