Scientists Warn US Will Lose a Generation of Talent Because of Trump Cuts

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/03/national-science-foundation-trump-cuts

by andrewl • 1 year ago

25 6 1 year ago

ggm2• 1 year ago

Not wanting to disagree, I'd observe that while talent is a bit "you can't bottle it" there will nonetheless be a supply of eager, debt bearing science graduates who will take roles and knuckle down under the new rules because.. well debt and jobs and the future.

It's horrible to reduce these things to labour market conditions but I suspect science will continue to be done. Maybe not as expected, but it won't grind to a halt.

Historical comparisons to 1930s Germany and lysenkoism would be interesting. There was a brain drain. Ignoring the politics, there was a hit to the intensity of work in some fields. Soviet genetics took a huge blow. Rhodes suggests German chemistry and physics suffered.

If design and IPR behind things like mRNA drugs shifts, to europe and asia will that necessarily be worse for the world overall?

The big thing the USA has going for it, is acceptance of business failure as a norm. A million IPOs start and ten succeed is seen as a victory, in Europe the 999,990 failures are painted as the cost-to-much outcome.

orionblastar2• 1 year ago

I used to work in a college computer lab, where I helped the students learn how to use PCs and debug their programs. Talent can be taught, and people can be mentored. Pair programming can also be used to teach.

What is the difference between the Federal government's Trump cuts and Google and Microsoft cutting people?

ggm2• 1 year ago

NIH funded work underpins a lot of what happens in the strictly commercial sector. NSF likewise. So, the difference is the work is often decades long, aimed at digging foundations and feeds commercialisation where Google might be digging a trench for 5 years but will (-and has) cut for a senior managers KPI. Before this government, you would think a difficult but important long range exercise would be default-continue and now, it's default-end.

I'm not here to say one is always better than the other.

There certainly were fixed duration no repeat funding rounds but there was a continuity to the science. Do you honestly think the NIH would fund things like mRNA vaccines, in the current political environment? Or NSF back peskovite cell work, given the collapse of solar industry? These things are now down beyond the hole digging phase. There will be other fields which are like they were 10 or 15 years ago, and the fear would be the work will either happen overseas or in a Google, and target a low bar short term outcome rather than establish fundamentals.

As a non USA person my contention would be the work will be done but the IPR will be European or Asian IPR.

(Not necessarily a bad thing. And to Google, the work they did in project Loon is feeding LEO Sat stuff which defence and other people are now paying for. Its engineering more than fundamental science, but it is good work and it didn't end when alphabet decided to pull out of loon. So there's that)

fuzzfactor2• 1 year ago

What is the difference between the Federal government's Trump cuts and Google and Microsoft cutting people?

It's not all that much difference if you want to work in an academic institution, national lab, or corporate environment, and certainly not whether you are a scientist either.

Prosperity is receding according to government decree.

Different governments do this to different generations from time to time.

fuzzfactor2• 1 year ago

Not wanting to disagree

I understand what you mean but I think the "supply" is not the bottleneck that institutions can be.

Institutions that require generations to get up to momentum, before even the most qualified & experienced operators can actually make the best progress.

So I disagree quite a bit because I remember what happened with Reagan's cuts which have not yet been well recovered from, plus Trump is less cognitively sound than Reagan was back then, and Trump surrounds himself with less-honest associates to a degree that Reagan would not have tolerated either.

Looks like more than one generation to me.

Again.

Scientists Warn US Will Lose a Generation of Talent Because of Trump Cuts

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