New executive order puts all grants under political control
arstechnica.com
New executive order puts all grants under political control
1–10 of 218 posts
Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control
#2Related 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."
Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control
#3I 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.
Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control
#4I 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.
Private philanthropy doesn't feel like it's free from corruption.
Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control
#5I 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.
Is anything stopping private philanthropy from funding science today? Generally speaking it is in the government’s interest to support fundamental scientific research.
Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control
#6I 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.
What biased incentives does a government have that isn't even worse than a corporation or an individual who has large sway in corporation? How exactly would Dow Chemical funding research for understanding cancer effects on chemicals they produce not be extremely biased? Why would other rich people who are friends of the CEO of Dow fund that research? How exactly would a private donor fund something like the Apollo missions? Why would they bother when they could just reinvest their money to make more money? These billionaires could be donating billions right now and in large they aren't.
Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control
#7I 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.
Is anything stopping private philanthropy from funding science today? Generally speaking it is in the government’s interest to support fundamental scientific research.
I’m not aware of anything stopping it except for perhaps how the system is set up.
Like if I want to fund a pet study that I’m interested in, can I just call up Harvard and offer the lab $1M to work on it? I’ve never heard of anyone doing that, but I’m not really sure why it doesn’t exist (which is why I’m asking if anyone else knows).
Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control
#8There'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.
Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control
#9There'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.
But the Soviets made them second…
Re: New executive order puts all grants under political control
#10There'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.
But they didn't.
An Australian nuclear scientist working for the UK Rutherford (New Zealander) labs | Tube Alloys | MAUD program told them how to.
It took a while to convince the US scientists who were mainly interested in making big hot piles for power.
The actual building of atomic weapons (Trinity, Fat Man and Little Boy) took place under a fully authoritarian ultra secret State directed militarily controlled program that cost a significant chunk of national GDP.
The example you chose appears to be both incorrect and the very opposite of whatever point you wanted to make.