New executive order puts all grants under political control • Hacker News Board

Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control

#81

Post by seanmcdirmid » Fri, Aug 08, 2025, 6:10 AM UTC

Jimmc414 wrote: post #25

panarchy wrote: post #8

There's a reason the Americans discovered how to make atomic weapons first and it's because their researchers were living under a less oppressive state that wasn't motivated by anti-intellectualism and dumb ideology.

While I agree in spirit on the concern about political interference in science, the Manhattan Project was actually one of the most secretive, tightly controlled government programs in US history. In addition many scientists involved (like Oppenheimer) later faced political persecution during the McCarthy era. American atomic research succeeded despite, or perhaps because of, intense state control and funding

You can’t just look at the Manhattan project without looking at the research output that led up to it.

Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control

#82

Post by pyrale » Fri, Aug 08, 2025, 6:11 AM UTC

themafia wrote: post #72

ocschwar wrote: post #31

This ends science in the United States. You can't really enroll graduate students for a 5 year PHD project if their funding can be pulled at a moment's notice like this.

I genuinely don't understand this. This is due to my lack of experience in University since I never went, and my experience with laboratories, since I've only ever been in one, much to the annoyance of my best friends girlfriend at the time, who was studying Chinook and their spawning behavior. My understanding is the grants you're talking about are generally for small student salaries as they work on a given project…

> Is this not a chance to improve a rather ancient and clumsy system?

I seriously doubt that there is any will to improve the system.

> My understanding is the grants you're talking about are generally for small student salaries as they work on a given project simultaneously with their continued education.

Grants cover a much larger part of the work at labs. Basically, a grant could be paying anything except tenured salaries and administrative costs.

Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control

#83

Post by seanmcdirmid » Fri, Aug 08, 2025, 6:12 AM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #79

jimt1234 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China enters the chat.

True, they won’t pay PhD’s €28,000 a year either.

China is a pretty good place to be a scientists in certain fields. The pay is very competitive.

Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control

#84

Post by noelwelsh » Fri, Aug 08, 2025, 6:14 AM UTC

themafia wrote: post #72

ocschwar wrote: post #31

This ends science in the United States. You can't really enroll graduate students for a 5 year PHD project if their funding can be pulled at a moment's notice like this.

I genuinely don't understand this. This is due to my lack of experience in University since I never went, and my experience with laboratories, since I've only ever been in one, much to the annoyance of my best friends girlfriend at the time, who was studying Chinook and their spawning behavior. My understanding is the grants you're talking about are generally for small student salaries as they work on a given project…

Grants are usually for projects. Projects may include a portion for postgraduate students, but also pay a lot of other things such as running costs for a lab, travel, conference fees, etc. The costs of running, say, a biology lab are very high (lots of equipment, need to employ technicians as well).

Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control

#85

Post by WillPostForFood » Fri, Aug 08, 2025, 6:14 AM UTC

panarchy wrote: post #8

There's a reason the Americans discovered how to make atomic weapons first and it's because their researchers were living under a less oppressive state that wasn't motivated by anti-intellectualism and dumb ideology.

Do you really think WWII America was a less oppressive state? Do you know much harder it was to get porn back then? Or be a trans? Japanese internment? Food ration cards? Office of Censorship? Smith Act? The draft? Curfews and blackouts?

Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control

#86

Post by jonny_eh » Fri, Aug 08, 2025, 6:17 AM UTC

WillPostForFood wrote: post #85

panarchy wrote: post #8

There's a reason the Americans discovered how to make atomic weapons first and it's because their researchers were living under a less oppressive state that wasn't motivated by anti-intellectualism and dumb ideology.

Do you really think WWII America was a less oppressive state? Do you know much harder it was to get porn back then? Or be a trans? Japanese internment? Food ration cards? Office of Censorship? Smith Act? The draft? Curfews and blackouts?

All that stuff was bad, especially Japanese internment, but this feels like a whole different category. It's a full-blown ceding control of the country to one man.

Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control

#87

Post by noelwelsh » Fri, Aug 08, 2025, 6:18 AM UTC

shrubble wrote: post #76

Zaheer wrote: post #2

Related paulg tweet: https://x.com/paulg/status/1951996478555357530 "The Trump administration has suspended the funding of Terence Tao and the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics at UCLA."

All bureaucrats do this sort of thing: shut down something innocent to serve as a rallying cry. UCLA has $8 billion in endowments and the state universities in total have $30 billion in endowment funds. How many years could they fund Tao and his institute if they really wanted to?

The govt has frozen about $584 million in grants to UCLA. The endowment won't last very long if they spent it to replace that. Furthermore, endowment money often has conditions that prevent it being spent freely + it is used for other things.

Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control

#88

Post by bee_rider » Fri, Aug 08, 2025, 6:18 AM UTC

WillPostForFood wrote: post #85

panarchy wrote: post #8

There's a reason the Americans discovered how to make atomic weapons first and it's because their researchers were living under a less oppressive state that wasn't motivated by anti-intellectualism and dumb ideology.

Do you really think WWII America was a less oppressive state? Do you know much harder it was to get porn back then? Or be a trans? Japanese internment? Food ration cards? Office of Censorship? Smith Act? The draft? Curfews and blackouts?

They meant less oppressive in comparison to Nazi Germany.

Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control

#89

Post by nikanj » Fri, Aug 08, 2025, 6:18 AM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #62

If European leadership has even half a brain cell this could be the catalyst for enormous growth in European science. But they’d need to act fast.

EU will not act on this unless the bill also includes provisions to support hobby horse manufacturing in eastern romania

Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control

#90

Post by stevenwoo » Fri, Aug 08, 2025, 6:19 AM UTC

pfannkuchen wrote: post #3

I don’t really understand why so much of science is funded by the government instead of by private philanthropy. It seems like an obvious channel for corruption of science. Sure private donors have interest driven motives too but it would be diffuse across many areas not concentrated like a political party’s interests.

There's a half hour explanation of how the government funding of science research became a thing in the USA. https://www.npr.org/2025/05/28/1253247256/-higher-education-...