WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/white-house-proposes-new-rules-giving-political-appointees-final-say-on-research-grants/

by jordanpg • 2 months ago

316 451 2 months ago

scientificamerican.com

amanaplanacanal2• 2 months ago

A return of Lysenkoism. Nice!

fkdk• 2 months ago

Next up: Lawmakers put Indiana pi bill back on the table.

InsideOutSanta• 2 months ago

New study shows: earth has four corners.

RiverCrochet• 2 months ago

I'm betting in that particular time and place you couldn't privately conduct scientific research under Lysenkoism. It had to be approved by the government to exist at all. I'm no historical expert nor USSR expert though.

If these rules go into effect, is it not true that individuals, state governments, and non-governmental organizations could still fund scientific research that the federal government won't fund?

Of course there's still research that only the federal government could fund. A big example is e.g. DARPA and the Internet. Imagine if that was only funded and supported by a few states.

Starman_Jones2• 2 months ago

If these rules go into effect, is it not true that individuals, state governments, and non-governmental organizations could still fund scientific research that the federal government won't fund?

This administration’s actions towards Harvard and other schools would suggest not. If a state or university is doing verboten research, the federal government can make them stop. Previously, that didn’t happen - it was unthinkable. Now, it’s forever on the table.

ndsipa_pomu3• 2 months ago

Brawndo's got what plants crave!

pstuart9• 2 months ago

I'm curious to see how this is defended by the party members here.

Science should be guided by science, not ideology.

jordanpg3• 2 months ago

Unfortunately, these are agency rules. Congress can intervene, but only with major legislative action, which is unlikely. There will be hearings and Senators will express great concern, but the Administration will probably be able to do whatever they want. If anything slows this down, it will be the courts.

pstuart9• 2 months ago

The courts have truly been the last line of defense.

Congress being neutered is not an accident, hopefully it will be less fucked if the power balance shifts.

And as the OP is inherently political in what it's calling out, that is not the motivation -- it's the science. I get the fact that in the end, everything's political but partisanship itself is a cancer on the body politic. Just as we seem to be in late-stage capitalism, we are entering late-stage democracy. It pains me that we effectively arrive here by choice.

rayiner14• 2 months ago

If Congress wants to earmark that money for a particular purpose it can enact that into legislation. If it wants to empower the executive to make the decision, they can do that too.

Those are the only people who get to decide. Congress can’t turn over the expenditure of taxpayer funds to people who aren’t politically accountable.

andai• 2 months ago

Indeed. Science has always been purely neutral and free any kind of social, cultural, institutional or economic pressures. That's the whole point!

dc3962• 2 months ago

Science? Maybe in an ideal world. However, how science actually gets done has always been at the mercy of social, cultural, institutional, and/or economic pressures.

rayiner14• 2 months ago

The country runs on the principles of the constitution, not the institutional principles of science. Control over spending of taxpayer funds always must remain within the political system.

Voters can always choose to turn over those decisions to scientists they trust. For much of the 20th century, that’s what voters did. But if they don’t trust the priorities of the current scientific establishment, they can also choose to put that control back in the hands of political appointees. The institutional principles of science cannot override the prerogative of voters to decide how their money is spent.

jordanpg3• 2 months ago

That's a lovely thought but it assumes, as with so many other things about our republican form of government, that the political appointees are good faith actors, at least with respect to funding of science. There are many reasons to suspect that the goal here is not just control of funding, but the defenestration of science more broadly because scientific findings tend to conflict with assertions politicians would like to make. I would submit that people flying on planes, using cell phones and computers, and going to the doctor don't want that, even if they think they do.

SubiculumCode16• 2 months ago

No, what it means is that scientists are vulnerable to punishment for speaking their minds about the administration. I will not live like that.

BrenBarn5• 2 months ago

The country runs on the principles of the constitution, not the institutional principles of science.

Well no wonder we're so fucked. The constitution is a disaster.

pstuart9• 2 months ago

The country is supposed to run on the principles of the constitution

FTFY

But then your counter is likely some form of originalism as you've been instructed. The current administration and it's pet SCOTUS have no interest in the Constitution or they wouldn't be so hell bent on making POTUS king for life. A mad king at that.

delichon• 2 months ago

The people who have the power of the purse should be accountable to the voters.

ncallaway• 2 months ago

That’s Congress and they are.

The executive branch does not hold the power of the purse, and the fact that you can casually use that phrase in reference to the executive branch shows how far we’ve fallen as a country in a decade.

A very sad state of affairs.

analog31• 2 months ago

Even aside from who manages the purse, accountability doesn't need to mean being able to defend every single funding decision. That would be a sign of bad management in any business, for instance. To me it means competently managing an institution.

Georgelemental3• 2 months ago

Science is a tool. It does not "guide", no more than a hammer guides.

stirfish• 2 months ago

The form of a tool guides its use. You can tell what a hammer is for just by picking one up.

SubiculumCode16• 2 months ago

I get a research grant after peer review. The grant funds my salary and propels my career. I criticize Trump publicly about his graft. Trump tells them to pull my grant. My career takes a hit, and I lose my house.

Or I can be a chickenshit, and praise Trump and have a career, however pathetic. I routinely ask them to approve my results before publishing, just in case. I apply for grants looking at vaccines and autism. Every Friday, I spend an hour talking about how Trump is America's chosen one.

jszymborski• 2 months ago

Guides as an astrolab or compass might

Capricorn2481• 2 months ago

Do you have anything substantive to say beyond meaningless aphorisms?

noobermin• 2 months ago

American moderates are amazing. "Let's see how suburban republicans feel about this that Trump has done! He's really spoiled his chances next election!" You guys have been waiting for the non-fascist republican voter for more than a decade at this point.

soerxpso2• 2 months ago

"Science" can do as much science as it wants on its own dime then. Public funding should be guided by public oversight, not career bureaucrats.

khriss2• 2 months ago

Public funding should be guided by public oversight, not career bureaucrats.

Isn't congress the elected, public oversight body? Or are you proposing that each and every employee of the federal govt be elected to prevent the horror of the 'career bureaucrat'?

KingMob• 2 months ago

Unless you're advocating for mass direct democracy, with public votes on everything under the sun, a certain level of delegation is inescapable at scale.

You say "career bureaucrats" as if they can't be fired or controlled, but that's obviously wrong (since they're being fired and/or controlled right now).

QED, they ARE still under public oversight. (1) Voters vote for (2) elected officials who oversee (3) agency bureaucrats.

ChrisArchitect• 2 months ago

What's Happening to Science in America

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48313687

gjvc• 2 months ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ChrisArchitect

globalnode• 2 months ago

Its all the way down to the bottom now, enjoy.

quantum_state• 2 months ago

It would spell the start of major corruption and the end of American sciences. God, please do something about it!

rayiner14• 2 months ago

You don't need God's intervention. If you trust the scientific establishment to make decisions on how to allocate taxpayer dollars, then vote for an executive who promises to do that. Definitely don't vote for the guy who campaigned on taking discretion away from unelected bureaucrats.

unclebucknasty4• 2 months ago

Many of us did vote for sane ideas, like allowing scientists to make decisions about science. For instance, we knew RFK Jr would be a disaster and here we are, dealing with a resurgence of preventable diseases.

In fact, "unelected bureaucrats" have been the key to whatever degree of success this democracy has enjoyed. Politicizing everything replaces non-partisan expertise with political loyalty and favoritism. It's a direct path to the destruction of critical institutions, undermining the public trust, and authoritarianism.

bayarearefugee3• 2 months ago

Not exactly the start of major corruption.

The Trump 2.0 administration was already easily the most corrupt in American history well before these rules were proposed.

To their credit(?) they don't even try to hide it, they are just fully corrupt out in the open, because they know the cultists who support them will support anything they do.

sbayg2• 2 months ago

It’s always the poor and uneducated voters that get the blame. It’s never the actual billionaires who got Trump elected and who control everything he does and much of the media zeitgeist because, you know, 100s of billions can really flood the zone. I don’t think you’re evil for being fooled, but try to think a bit deeper about where power and blame lie. It’s not uneducated rural folk the median yuppie finds uncool.

Georgelemental3• 2 months ago

“We warned of this exact form of government overreach in science a year ago,” says Colette Delawalla, founder of the science advocacy group Stand Up for Science. “It replaces expertise with political appointees, globally decouples the U.S. and completely guts our scientific ecosystem.”

If you want to be independent of the government, don't take money from the government. If you are mad because you don't agree with how the government is making decisions, say so. But don't pretend it has anything to do with "government overreach"

paulryanrogers4• 2 months ago

Science has often been funded by private and state benefactors. Regardless of the source, it's most often successful when the funds have few or no strings attached.

Perhaps more political oversight will make research more accountabile to the population at large. In this era I suspect it's far more likely to benefit the few, those born into power and fame who are consolidating their power. Scientists with resources and accountable only to other scientists are uniquely dangerous to those unwilling to give up their power.

kelnos9• 2 months ago

Yeah, it's a little disingenuous to make an argument like that. This isn't overreach; it seems like it's completely allowed by the law written when Congress delegated spending decisions around these kinds of grants to the executive branch.

We may not like it (I certainly don't), but this is one of the times when Trump seems to actually be acting within his authority, and not pushing at or past those limits.

wrs• 2 months ago

And a generation of young scientists starts packing their bags...

glitchc2• 2 months ago

To where?

thatcat• 2 months ago

A Thielian sea steading homeless encampment for intellectuals in international waters named Titanic II.

Taek• 2 months ago

To somewhere other than science

era-epoch• 2 months ago

personally know american scientists who are well into the process of relocating their work to institutions in canada or europe

darknavi• 2 months ago

Beyond the environment

etrautmann• 2 months ago

Plenty of scientists can and will work in industry roles or quit entirely. It’s already a crazy proposition and should not be made any harder. Finding funding can be a brutal and continuous challenge that demotivates many.

SOLAR_FIELDS• 2 months ago

If I were a young unencumbered scientist, I say this as someone born and raised in the US and having lived in EU for awhile, I would be going anywhere but the States. I’d rather take 1/4 the money to not be a part of whatever disgusting thing is happening currently.

montagg• 2 months ago

They’re already doing it. To anywhere they can be safe.

frm88• 2 months ago

Prospera. Thiel funded, independent of any laws of the country, no rules on ethics in science etc. /s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%B3spera

srean2• 2 months ago

Wait, wasn't that post revolution USSR / Mao's China ? Or in their words, only correct science is "Marxist" science

SubiculumCode16• 2 months ago

When Republicans start proposing Communist policies, they are MAGA, not Republicans.

fnordpiglet• 2 months ago

Neither cited countries are/were communist, they are authoritarian. That’s the political system of government, capitalism and communism is the economic system.

michaelhoney• 2 months ago

and so continue the decline to a dumber, poorer, nastier nation

spacedoutman• 2 months ago

Well, america had a good run i guess?

Hope china can step up and fill the gap.

tgv• 2 months ago

Fill what gap? That of state-controlled research? Early indoctrination? Mass supervision? Revisionism?

stogot• 2 months ago

You were downvoted but yes, hoping a state-controlled, authoritarian, single party politically led, genocidal government will ”step up” to better less-political research is faith without reason and ignorant of history

cookiengineer• 2 months ago

But it's got electrolytes!

My question is now: Which company is gonna buy the IRS now?

jaggs• 2 months ago

My vote is on Brawndo.

overfeed• 2 months ago

"Intuit IRS" has a ring to it. In the same umbrella org as Turbo Tax, for the obvious revenue-growth synergy, and long-term strategic alignment that unlocks tax-payer value.

anticensor• 2 months ago

That sounds a lot like Kemal Unakıtan model, that purported to privatise the Administration of Privatisation.

whatshisface• 2 months ago

This may seem extreme, but it must be considered in the full context of the package of policy proposals that would also eliminate the grants themselves. This balances out any concerns of bias. See you in 50 years when we read about the consequences (on European electronics.) :')

srean2• 2 months ago

Europe needs to get it's shit together. It has very not been together.

nielsbot8• 2 months ago

Nothing like the collapse of the global hegemon to spur you into action...

ZeroGravitas• 2 months ago

Though most of the people who say that kind of thing about Europe seem to have no problem with the people doing this kind of thing that is under discussion.

So was it a clear eyed critique of government policy or was it just idiotic support of fascism?

There's a dude in this thread openly supporting cronyism in government and there's been a general undercurrent of open contempt for democracy, so we can't really assume good faith and sanity from people.

idiotsecant• 2 months ago

The natural state of all human political systems is autocracy. It takes constant vigilance to keep the train on the tracks and avoid that low energy state. The problem is that we only really see the consequences of these kinds of immensely stupid policies once every few generations. Nobody alive was around the last time we had this argument, so we get to do it all over again.

0xbadcafebee• 2 months ago

The OMB is headed by Russell Vought, lead architect of Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 plan for the Trump administration.

This is far scarier than any single rule about research grants, and I'm not sure why nobody's talking about this.

The OMB writes the budget to enact federal policy. And critically, no federal regulation can exist with the OMB approving it. By making this appointment explicitly political, they have carte blanche to completely rewrite all federal regulations to be exclusively conservative ones. This would have been crazy to attempt before, but with Trump 2.0, this is the new norm.

One of the things they are doing right now (it's been approved and the rules are now active and legal, so it is now happening) is converting 50,000 civil servant jobs into political appointments. This means having a job in government no longer serves the whole nation, it's now an ideological function to serve a single political party. Literally weaponizes the federal government to punish opposing political views and enforce one view on everyone (there's no other point to political appointment). And if the party in charge ever changes, it now means everyone will be laid off and replaced. Every few years. So nothing will ever get done in government now, except for extreme short-term pushes for radical political agendas, because nobody will stay long enough to know how the government works to do anything else. Move fast and break things with the largest economy in the world, radical political agendas, and 380M people.

The OMB also can review and block all proposed legislation going to Congress, vet all official congressional testimony, and block any agency from publicly disagreeing with the President. Military generals, health officials, science experts, ecologists, intelligence directors... they can block all of them from giving any testimony to Congress. That's an actual power the OMB has.

They can also block money Congress has already allocated, meaning that your representatives in government are now completely useless, because whatever party is in the Executive can nerf anything your reps have passed. The Supreme Court could do something about it, but won't, because it's now a Conservative Supermajority. There is no reason for them to disagree because they already ideologically agree.

Finally, the OMB can issue a rule that every agency that wasn't officially under the Executive before, has to submit all its rules for Executive approval. Meaning the Executive would control all government agencies.

In any other context, in any other country, this would be called a single-party authoritarian coup. When they create rules that outlaw other political parties (that's what authoritarian governments do to retain single party control) - and assuming the democrats don't just give up - it will be the official start of civil war. Coming to you Fall 2028.

kelnos9• 2 months ago

This is far scarier than any single rule about research grants, and I'm not sure why nobody's talking about this.

Not sure what you mean. Lots of people have been talking about it since he was appointed to the role. I've known about it and been pissed about it for quite a long time now.

thisisit• 2 months ago

It seems seeding chaos is the only thing these guys know how to do. What happens (or happened) when the shoe is on the other foot and the other guy wants to push climate science and vaccines? Run to Texas courts to stop the federal government? Thereby wasting lot of time doing nothing.

I can only say Bravo to Americans who think this constant fighting is somehow going to help the country.

stouset4• 2 months ago

I think we all need to be honest with ourselves about the fact that they are very clearly not intending to ever allow the shoe to be on the other foot.

The upcoming midterms are very plausibly the last free and fair elections we will ever have in this country. As deeply unpopular as this administration is right now, the Democrats will need an enormous amount of luck for the size of historic landslide it will require to take the house and senate, and even then they need to do so by enough that they can impeach and convict.

That is just about the only plausible path towards preserving democracy at this point. And I’m not really holding out hope.

I’d be happy to be told that I’m wrong. So please, tell me I’m wrong.

Alpha3031• 2 months ago

If a conviction really happens wouldn't the very fine people just invade the capitol again?

kelnos9• 2 months ago

I think you're wrong. I don't know that for a fact, of course, but I'm not that pessimistic.

I don't think Democrats will win the Senate this fall (though there's a chance they will, and I'd be happy to be wrong here). The House is reasonably likely. Either way, they won't have the supermajority needed to convict on impeachment.

Trump is doing a lot to try to destabilize elections and put his thumbs on the scale. His recent order telling USPS not to deliver mail-in ballots to anyone not on some list that the federal government is compiling is troubling. The SAVE Act is troubling, but fortunately still hasn't gained enough support to pass (though it's far from settled that it, or something like it, won't).

But I think a big strength in the US is that all elections, even for federal offices, are administered by the states. The federal government does have some constitutional say in how they're administered, but changes there generally require acts of Congress (which is hard, even with GOP control), and I expect any and all executive orders around election matters to be challenged in court, and hopefully largely thrown out. Red states will continue to do what they usually do to disenfranchise voters they don't like; nothing new there. Blue states will continue to be blue, and will do what they need to do to keep things as sane as possible. Purple states are a more difficult proposition, but there are few enough of them that it's easier for people to keep an eye on what's going on in them.

I think we'll know a lot more after we see what happens during the midterms (not by the outcomes, but in seeing what happens with the electoral process). I wouldn't expect the 2028 elections to be significantly different than what we see this fall. If the courts disagree with election-related changes the GOP have been trying to impose for this year, it's unlikely they'll be more amenable to them in two years.

I expect that the GOP (and MAGA folks in general) will reject the results of the 2028 presidential election if a Democrat wins. They'll dial up the "big steal" lies again, just as in 2020, and will push even harder with that narrative. Hopefully the law changes since then around vote certification will help avoid a repeat of all the crap we saw around that event. Will institutions stand up to that misinformation campaign? I'm not sure. I hope so, I think so, but I'm not sure. I'm cautiously leaning toward optimism.

rullelito• 2 months ago

Americans and Republicans seem so fine with this. Amazing to see this happen live.

nielsbot8• 2 months ago

Republicans in power and the capitalist political class, sure. But the average American on the street? They don't want this.

chneu• 2 months ago

But they're not willing to give up their 3rd Starbucks or the day or the door dash delivery or Amazon prime. They all too overworked. Only poors go to protests.

hdgvhicv3• 2 months ago

They voted for this. In larger numbers than in 2020 and 2016.

Eddy_Viscosity22• 2 months ago

The average american on the street does not know how grant applications were approved before this change and they will continue to not know how grant applications are approved after this change.

khriss2• 2 months ago

'A republic, if you can keep it'

Reply by Ben Franklin, when asked about what kind of govt the newly independent United States should have. The words seem particularly fitting in current times.

nomilk3• 2 months ago

This means research projects will be optimised for political boasting.

Sounds terrible, but is it? It incentivises high-impact research (otherwise politicians can't boast about it), and less research into trivialities that common sense says aren't worth the public funding.

kelnos9• 2 months ago

It means research projects will also be optimized for political ideology. That's not good.

insane_dreamer3• 2 months ago

No, it incentivizes research that is aligned with the current administration's political ideologies.

common sense says aren't worth the public funding

who is deciding what is "common sense"?

FriedFishes• 2 months ago

"less research intro trivialities that common sense says aren't worth the public funding"

In your eyes, science and research is a linear process, governed by some "common sense", in which important and high impact discoveries are found as an immediate and direct consequences of the previous important and high impact discovery?

I'm trying not to get angry at a stupid HN comment, but surely we can think through what we write sometimes.

tsimionescu• 2 months ago

Consider one basic question: how much high-impact research do you think this would incentivize into global warming? Or is the looming global ecological catastrophe not high-impact enough?

defrost4• 2 months ago

A lot of political appointees struggled with Why should we pay for shrimp running on treadmills? (The case for curiosity-driven research)

~ https://www.statnews.com/2025/04/03/basic-science-curiosity-...

Some just couldn't grasp the why, others understood perfectly well why their major donors wanted to squash studies on environmental stressors that might impact fisheries.

nomilk3• 2 months ago

Being curious definitely leads to discoveries. But important discoveries can also be made by saying "Topic X, if better understood, might lead to a cure for cancer - let's look into (and fund) that".

We could think of this problem as a slider from 0-100 where we allocate from 'none' up to 'all' our research budget to curiosity-driven research.

Political appointees having a say will likely move the slider toward the 0 (not necessarily to zero). I'm just not sure it's a bad thing.

boron1006• 2 months ago

Sounds terrible, but is it?

Yes

It incentivises high-impact research

It incentivizes work that sounds impressive to laymen. Actual work tends to be technical and might not sound super exciting.

If 20 years ago, a politician had to get up and explain that we were spending millions of dollars training computers to recognize a strawberry, likely the entire field of machine learning would not exist today.

rsynnott3• 2 months ago

Thing about common sense is that it isn't.

digitaltrees• 2 months ago

After all the work to build a meritocracy and professional non political expert bureaucracy… in only a year they have reintroduced the spoils system. Politicians will now be given budgets to reward supporters with the financial spoils of their power. So gross

stymaar• 2 months ago

Great idea, all the US needed was scientific political commissars…

insane_dreamer3• 2 months ago

Another terrible blow to science. It's going to take decades to recover from this even after Trump and his corrupt cronies are gone.

general1465• 2 months ago

Just add political commissars to army units (aka politruks) and horseshoe theory can be considered completely proven

enoint• 2 months ago

https://archive.ph/kYkjS

jmclnx• 2 months ago

I am sure China is loving what the US/Trump is doing. Already China is about to take the lead in medical research and I think it is ahead in renewable energy.

With this, I guess the US will end up as a third rate country much quicker.

Carioca• 2 months ago

A friend in a prestigious European university said that applications were up in basically all fields

NordStreamYacht• 2 months ago

Win win for Europe and the USA, both get what they want.

danielbln• 2 months ago

Berlin "boutique" tech consultancy, we are seeing a noticable increase in Israeli and US engineers into our hiring pipeline. The braindrain from the autocratic countries is real.

mountainriver• 2 months ago

That’s why they put on such a big parade for him. Trump is essentially the fulfillment of their strategy, and is easily played by stroking his ego

tempodox• 2 months ago

If you want to stay a scientist, you have to emigrate. The art of continually licking the right asses to keep funding going is not science.

jadar2• 2 months ago

Hasn’t academia always been that way?

gcr• 2 months ago

Yes but in ways whose solutions admit some level of creativity or ingenuity

SamoyedFurFluff• 2 months ago

Generally, academia has always had a measure of bias to it. However the bias was never so blatant and never so against producing an environment where good research could feasibly be created. The vast majority of research is non political increments of existing non political increments where the main conflicts are personal beefs among flawed individual PIs and maybe being asked what fig leaf one offers to ensure that the funding doesn’t just go to a bunch of white wealthy straight men. Once you have funding you can be set for years to focus on your work, assuming you don’t do something dumb like make sexist or racist remarks, and even then your funding is generally secure you just might not get a new round 3 years later(probably will though because controversies die pretty fast).

I know a lot of hay and media exists about how academia is yadda yadda biased and anti intellectual. But of course a lot of that is cherry picked examples of controversial figures or individual missteps among individual institutions. This is a bit like taking a classroom with one rowdy asshole and then declaring the whole school must use physical violence as discipline from now on.

shiandow• 2 months ago

It was better not perfect but there is value even just in keeping up the pretense

SubiculumCode16• 2 months ago

No.

Jerry2• 2 months ago

Emigrate where? And why do you assume that the country you're gonna emigrate to will have the funds necessay to fund the research? US grants are the biggest and most generous in the world. I think the USG spends over $900 Billion every year. Europe spends about 1/10th of that. Other option is China but as a foreigner, you will never get a grant there unless you work for someone else.

tuwtuwtuwtuw• 2 months ago

I think his main point was that the art of continually licking the right asses to keep funding going is not science.

throw0101c• 2 months ago

Emigrate where? And why do you assume that the country you're gonna emigrate to will have the funds necessay to fund the research?

If the choice is between $0 in the US and >$0 someplace else, you emigrate to >$0 if you want to continue your research.

gmerc• 2 months ago

the US used to spend. Now borligarchs decide.

bhokbah• 2 months ago

1/10th?

US: $848B (2024)

EU: $508B (2024)

---

UK: $102B (2023)

Switzerland: $22B (2023)

Norway: $8.2B (2024)

OECD "Gross domestic spending on R&D"

skywhopper• 2 months ago

Does the US spend that much anymore? How much are you willing to compromise the integrity of your research to get your slice of what’s left?

OtherShrezzing• 2 months ago

I think the USG spends over $900 Billion every year. Europe spends about 1/10th of that

Do you mean that the EU spends 1/10th that, rather than Europe? Because France, Germany and the UK all spend €100-150bn each in grants depending on how you set your definition, and that’s atop the EU’s grant money.

Just eyeballing the figures across different countries, it looks like the USG distributes approximately the same amount in grants per capita as the EU & UK. Certainly not a 90% diff.

coldtea• 2 months ago

I think the USG spends over $900 Billion every year. Europe spends about 1/10th of that

Way off, it's way closer, even if we're just talking EU. EU (the body) alone is about 200 billion/year. EU member states are like 1-1.5 trillion/year.

buildfocus• 2 months ago

Europe is the obvious answer. As others have posted, your numbers here are way off. And on the flip side, there's now some major programs actively encouraging this with special grants, support, relocation bonuses: e.g. ATRAE in Spain, EURAXESS, "Choose Europe For Science", Max Planck Transatlantic Programme.

biophysboy• 2 months ago

That number is for the United States, not the United States government

scrollaway• 2 months ago

Europe.

We fund science, research and we have accelerated programs for researchers affected by these kinds of things.

If you're interested, email me (see profile). I have been helping Americans emigrate to Europe (for free) for several years.

croes• 2 months ago

USG spends over $900 Billion every year

If you spend $900 Billions on BS you will lose to other countries that only spend 1/100th of that.

Quantity over quality doesn’t work in science because reality doesn’t care who paid how much.

testfrequency• 2 months ago

Funny that your take away from protecting science was “where are you going, we have all the money so just dance with the devil and pray your research doesn’t conflict or debunk any political views”.

b65e8bee43c2ed02• 2 months ago

I don't think China needs the kind of scientists disproportionately affected by the bad orange man's vendetta.

Macha• 2 months ago

Well if they want to stop all improvements to their electric car industry that is letting them out compete European, Japanese and US manufacturers, solar panels have clearly not been important to them, and their rocket programs don’t need anyone working on transfer orbits and god forbid anyone describes the materials they test as “diverse”…

sseagull2• 2 months ago

The chaos is affecting pretty much all areas of science, not just the controversial ones. I work in non-controversial, pretty run-of-the-mill chemistry research and the attacks on the NSF have certainly impacted our funding situation. Very long delays in proposal review, complete pivoting to AI, etc. I have co-workers panicking over the green card changes. And the overall morale is pretty grim everywhere.

Edit: don’t forget how he’s forcing NSF headquarters to move. All the NSF, not just the “bad” research.

Almost everyone has entertained the idea of leaving the US for more stability, which is required for research.

vonneumannstan• 2 months ago

You mean Vaccine researchers? Or renewable energy researchers?

m0llusk2• 2 months ago

There is a lot of private funding available with a broad range of targets and boundaries.

platevoltage5• 2 months ago

If we aren't funding progress with our tax dollars then what are we even doing?

dnnddidiej• 2 months ago

Boots. Licking boots.

GuestFAUniverse2• 2 months ago

These boots are made for walking!

gwerbin5• 2 months ago

More of the same at this point.

If you are politically connected, or stay in an narrow lane of approved work, you get your grant. But if you stray from the politically approved path, or appear disloyal to our First Citizen and the Party, then your grant will be canceled.

The remaining supporters of the incumbent party like to claim that they aren't actually doing anything worse than in the past, and if anything they are just cracking down on things that they see as subjectively bad, so it's fine. And there's an element of truth in that: so much of American policy for a long time has been subject to agency interpretation and judicial review, and there was always room for political maneuvering and corruption in the system. Where the truth becomes a lie is the omission that this is the systematic ramping up from something that happens occasionally in a mostly-functioning system, to something that happens constantly and is systematically designed to facilitate corruption and politicization.

reactordev• 2 months ago

The Chairman will have the final say

GuestFAUniverse2• 2 months ago

Do you mean zombie-homelander?

evrydayhustling2• 2 months ago

Besides the brutal impact on those already invested in the American research community, this is one more nail in the coffin when it comes to competing for new talent. What researcher in their right mind would move their research and their future to the USA to join this clown rodeo?

It is unbelievable to watch my country give up its most unfair (and yet mostly positive) advantage -- a nearly free option on the top talent of the entire planet. Here's hoping that the increasingly multipolar research world can find ways to be even more efficient in creating new knowledge.

sandworm1013• 2 months ago

Well, any research related to weapons programs. Jobs/grants in the fields of laser research, AI, material sciences, mathematics, chemistry and aerospace are safe... so long as you dont talk to outsiders.

enraged_camel• 2 months ago

> What researcher in their right mind would move their research and their future to the USA to join this clown rodeo?

Well, not all research is publicly funded. I think private funding is still fine for the most part. But yes, public research is dying a painful death.

boothby2• 2 months ago

As a Canadian on a hiring committee, it's fascinating to talk to Americans who hate the political environment but still don't want to relocate.

jjtheblunt2• 2 months ago

What researcher in their right mind would move their research and their future to the USA to join this clown rodeo?

what about private companies making profits luring researchers?

SoftTalker2• 2 months ago

My father was a Ph.D., a research scientist at a large state university. After understanding how political everything is under the surface, he cautioned me from ever working in a field that depended on government funding. "What one administration gives you, the next one can take away" is close to a literal quote.

Outsiders like to imagine that the pure pursuit of science without any agendas is what university research is all about. That is mostly a veneer.

matthewdgreen• 2 months ago

"Political" in the context of research funding generally doesn't mean what it means under this administration. Administrations have always shifted priorities as far as what scientific fields they want to fund, and individual PMs have also made more opinionated choices. This is normal and expected. A DARPA PM is limited to a 7-year term to ensure that fresh blood constantly enters the system. What's happening now is political in the "partisan political" sense, where specific grants are being killed because they violate political priorities or because the researchers spoke up against the President. This is new.

ETA: Slightly off topic, but a colleague had his already-granted NSF grant killed by DOGE because it contained the word "censorship". He was researching ways to allow Iranian people to bypass their regime's Internet censorship.

PaulDavisThe1st6• 2 months ago

"What one administration gives you, the next one can take away" is close to a literal quote.

We created laws to prevent this from being the case. They work(ed) most of the time.

The current administration believed that it didn't have to follow those laws. After being slapped down multiple times by courts for this, they want to change the law(s) so that what your father said becomes true. But worse - "what the administration gave you last week, they can take away next week".

SubiculumCode16• 2 months ago

As someone actually in the field at a research university, who regularly applies for grants and has served on study section review boards for NIH federal grants, I have to do a strong disagree. Has it ever happened? Sure. Is it the norm? Not until now.

Also as someone who lost a grant from this administration for supposed DEI (it was fucking biology, but ignorant fucks didn't give a shit), I also want to say fuck them.

nutjob2• 2 months ago

Put more simply, it all becomes a slush fund for the regime in power.

onlyrealcuzzo• 2 months ago

Ah, yes, grants should definitely be tied to how much you want to brownnose for the current political team.

What could go wrong?

Definitely not more corruption.

Definitely not more uncertainty that kills gross fixed capital formation.

jballer• 2 months ago

This cuts both ways: grants are more valuable as political favors when they are immune to cancellation, and grants with objectively-established value are harder to terminate without political blowback.

SubiculumCode16• 2 months ago

When grants are primarily determined by peer review from scientists, with strict enforcement of rules preventing conflicts of interest, they are not about political favors, but easy cancelation of those grants makes science makes for a terrible research environment.

throwaway85825• 2 months ago

If you are politically connected, or stay in an narrow lane of approved work, you get your grant.

That's how its always been, it's just that most people are not attuned to academic politics.

SubiculumCode16• 2 months ago

Bullshit. Academic politics exist but not to the degree your comment suggests. These are not equivalent situations.

boredatoms• 2 months ago

What do they think will happen when the other party gets power

ck2• 2 months ago

if the Dems don't also take back the Senate, this country is done

it will take longer than this decade, maybe even next, to restore the brain loss and faith in secure jobs for research

basically this country will just become a highway of non-stop warehouses, alternating ICE prisons vs "AI" datacenters

science, medicine, all research and development just gone to other countries

platevoltage5• 2 months ago

Ever notice how there really always just enough Democrats in the senate to tank a progressive bill? The Senate needs to go honestly.

culi2• 2 months ago

When the constitution was first written up, senators were all appointed. People had to fight to amend the constitution to allow us to even vote for senators. And the presidency was definitely not meant to have as much impact as it does today. The whole thing seemed drawn up to give the "vibes" of a democracy while protecting elite interests. In fact James Madison basically explicitly admits this in Federalist No. 10. He supposed that true democracy would result in people voting to redistribute wealth and, the founding fathers all being bourgeois, that just wouldn't do.

intended• 2 months ago

At a US conference last year, people thronged a session that talked about studying in Korea. This would be an empty room at, pretty much, any point in the past several decades.

The amount of capability that America is burning is impressive. I suspect that people outside of academia are not as alarmed, since its not part of daily life.

However it matters the same way that a drug discovery today is life saving 10 years down the line, after its gone through all the processes to go to market.

gmueckl• 2 months ago

The PHD level domai experts that will enter the labor market about ten years from now are the generation that enters college now. Some of the best teachers and advisors will no longer be at US institutuons by then. So this expert pool will shrink, setting back companies working on cutting edge stuff that drives economic growth. The full impact of the current science policy will take time to materialize, but it will have a big effect beyond academia.

wileydragonfly2• 2 months ago

Remember when the director of NIH, an unlicensed MD, lied to congress two months ago and swore the award letters were coming? I do.

xtiansimon3• 2 months ago

“The document would also ban…block spending on things like publishing papers and attending conferences.”

This is not just picking which ideas the government supports. This sounds like it’s taking all the “fun” out of having grant funding.

Sure, that’s a flip remark, but doesn’t this have a similar sense of arguments against other government funded programs?

~SNAP food assistance is raising food prices~ [1] or ~SNAP food assistance is my tax dollars going towards anyone who says they’re hungry.~ [2]

And don’t forget to mention the replication crisis.

~Public funded grants let scientists go to parties and publish junk science.~

The cynical would argue it’s proof the scientific community is filled with charlatans milking a system that can’t police itself.

[1] https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYNZT43R705/

[2] https://www.instagram.com/reel/DY2k2MNxf97/

lmeyerov2• 2 months ago

Useless russian-troll-style argument:

- With no workers working, no worker fraud problem, sure. If you cut core scientific processes, politicize science, and destablize paycheck predictability enough to chase everyone good out of science, then yes any small amount of waste is also caught in the cuts.

- This seems to increase what you call bad "fun": Increases abuse of tax funding being corruptly given to projects advocated by political appointees despite rejection by scientific peer review. Vicious feedback loop.

xtiansimon3• 2 months ago

"Useless russian-troll-style argument"

Surprise! I'm just a middle-age American reading HN with his coffee trying to wrap my head around the topic. I don't think this remark helps anyone understand your argument. Doth protest too much.

I'm wondering if you're focused on the "approved" science, and missing the idea this corruption is riding on the back of even a "small amount of waste", and an overall rejection of scientific activities in the face of the replication crisis. All part of the schism of your facts and our facts insanity.

ChrisLTD• 2 months ago

It’s sad to watch my country commit suicide. Not only will my compatriots be poorer for it, but the rest of the world will be too.

libertine2• 2 months ago

Well it could be worse because in the end it's still a democracy, for how long that's yet to be seen.

Look at Russia, they jumped off a cliff to protect a regime from democracy, and people are checked out - they take no accountability and still act confused of why Russia is being despised - all while accelerating economic and demographic decline with more than one million casualties in a special 3 day military operation.

You can't make this up.

chadgpt33• 2 months ago

Russia is a de-jure democracy, just like the US. In fact I'm not sure what difference there is between them.

jLaForest• 2 months ago

Tell that to the people of Alabama who just had their primary election results cancelled

bigfudge2• 2 months ago

Democracy is about more than elections. Having a functioning public sphere, justice system, and media are all part of it too. From a Northern European perspective, the US hasn't been a functioning democracy for quite a while now — it's just becoming more and more obvious now that the republicans have stopped even pretending those principles and institutions are important.

The flagrant corruption and voter suppression efforts underway at the moment make the next 2-3 years the final chance to bring it back from the brink. That doesn't just mean a Democrat winning. It means an actual democrat (lowercase) winning and building a coalition to repair what has been broken. I don't personally think that looks very likely, but I hope for all our sakes it can happen.

ndsipa_pomu3• 2 months ago

Have you considered that all the people just watching are maybe enabling it?

SubiculumCode16• 2 months ago

The degree of protest will always revolve around the degree to which it impacts personal economics, food security, and risk of physical harm.

appreciatorBus• 2 months ago

Could oversight like this lead to politics overriding science?

Sure, of course.

But to even ask the question presumes that politics isn’t already overriding science within the academy, just from a different direction.

diydsp• 2 months ago

The old way is a magnet pulling everything toward the industrial military consumer complex.

This new direction turns the magnet around and pushes away everything else.

softwaredoug4• 2 months ago

The thing about this is it’s incredibly easy for a denied institution to claim legal standing to challenge the governments scientific funding decisions. The institutions that get funds (universities) are well resourced. Society in general seems gradually less tolerant of trying to appease Trump - so they will likely sue instead of appease.

So they’ll be sued. The theories will be tested and we’ll see exactly where the line is (eventually). And probably somewhere uncomfortable, given SCOTUS.

There are legitimate ways agency political appointees can set funding priorities. Like this year we’ll focus on Alzheimer’s. But of course, we should take the least charitable reading of this - that it’ll likely be used for shenanigans. Punish enemies. Award cronies. Go after junk science, etc.

mhalle• 2 months ago

As the article says, legal action up to this point has been based on the fact that the government created policies that didn't follow its own rules under, for example, the Administrative Procedures Act.

So now the administration is attempting to follow those rules to create these new procedures, which they believe will then be lawful.

If they are successful, challenges would have to be made judicially based on non-procedural grounds, or through Congress.

softwaredoug4• 2 months ago

Yes, but even following APA, the order doesn't have the strength of statute.

They can follow APA to come up with all kinds of illegal rules. And the actual rules are so broad they could be used from anything sane to something that might be just political revenge.

The actual language:

“As part of the merit review process, Federal agencies must perform pre-issuance reviews to ensure that Federal award proposals selected for funding are consistent with applicable law, Federal agency priorities, and the national interest.”

ninjagoo• 2 months ago

Maybe we need to strengthen civic/philanthropic infrastructure around Science and Technology to reduce reliance on government funding cycles.

Science and Educational purposes are valid 501(c)(3) purposes. A donation to a 501(c)(3) that funds open-source scientific software, public STEM education, basic research, science grants, or public-interest tech research can be deductible.

Up to 60% of Adjusted Gross Income can be tax-deductible as charitable contributions to a qualified 501(c)(3) with itemization, depending on the contribution type.

This would create a non-partisan defined/dedicated non-profit funding layer with serious governance that will benefit all sides. Might be possible to go global.

This would need serious structure: independent board, conflict-of-interest rules, grant review, public reporting, no private benefit, and probably fiscal sponsorship first.

Maybe this deserves a separate Ask HN to avoid derailing this thread: would people here actually support or help design a 501(c)(3)-style vehicle for public-benefit science and technology funding?

47282847• 2 months ago

would people here actually support or help design a 501(c)(3)-style vehicle for public-benefit science and technology funding?

Why a hypothetical? Plenty of options available to donate to or to contribute otherwise. Not help built it, help grow and maintain it.

btown• 2 months ago

Arguably, these vehicles do exist... in the form of 501(c)(3) university endowments. They endow professorships and graduate fellowships, pay for facility buildouts and infrastructure, and provide a strong pipeline of financial aid to allow talented undergraduates to pursue research rather than needing to repay debt immediately after graduation. And unused funds are invested in public and private markets, ensuring minimal waste and sustainable capital growth. And non-profit universities have strong and time-tested governance rules on many if not all of the dimensions specified.

But these very endowments have been special cased as additionally taxable, despite that status, under the 2025 OBBBA, resulting in research budget cuts [0].

Would independent endowments as you describe them be more immune?

[0] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/college-endowment-tax...

griffey• 2 months ago

Problem is that the current administration is ALSO going after 501c3s. They just changed the rules for reporting via 990 tax forms (that non-profits in the US use to report their activities) to make them far more detailed and require more details about where and how money is being spent. On the surface, most people read that and think "good, more information is better" but what ends up happening is that foundations and other large donors may shift the way they give due to the new ruling, which will leave huge swaths of non-profits without funding.

abjectai_42• 2 months ago

How is this different than adding DEI requirements, the inability to study schedule 1 drugs, or the restrictions placed under the Dickey-Wicker amendment?

Federal grants have always been subject to politics.

SpicyLemonZest7• 2 months ago

It's different because it explicitly prohibits deferring to peer reviewers and explicitly requires that grants must "advance the President's policy priorities". Previous restrictions were guiderails for or additional screens on top of the underlying merit-based review; now the merit-based review is secondary and the primary criterion is whether the President's minions like the proposal.

JCTheDenthog5• 2 months ago

How did the merit-based review regularly let things like these through? (Picked by scrolling at random through a list of cancelled grants):

$2.4 million for "Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) Girls in a Robotics Leadership Project"

$1.2 million for "FW-HTF-R: Collaborative Research: Virtual Meeting Support for Enhanced Well-Being and Equity for Game Developers"

$700k for "CAREER: Advancing Equity in Middle School Mathematics by Engaging Students and Families of Color in Participatory Design Research"

Etc., etc., etc.

cineticdaffodil3• 2 months ago

I still think we should allow for grant hunting. If you can disprove a paper, you get the grant money attached to it. Make it a economic worthy endavour to destroy bad science.

MagicMoonlight• 2 months ago

Then you would just fake your results in order to steal someone's grant

cineticdaffodil3• 2 months ago

Pssht - Let them fight..

mold_aid2• 2 months ago

How would you handle non-competitive grants

cineticdaffodil3• 2 months ago

Safety deposists or insurrance by labs/universities- if your work is later refuted- your employer has to pay for that bad investment..

jleyank• 2 months ago

If you don't have stable-duration grants, if you can't publish, if you can't present there's no reason for PhD's, p-docs or junior faculty to become involved. Going to do wonders for extra-US facilities and groups.

insane_dreamer3• 2 months ago

I'm very involved in obtaining and performing on gov grants, and I can say pretty categorically the US is going from the best place to do science, to possibly the worst (in developed democratic countries). And we're only 1.5 years into this shit show.

(Unless you're doing science for military development. Then the funding spigot is open.)

And to those who say "oh, it's the same as it was before, just different ideologies" -- no, it is not at all the same. Not even comparable.

tarkin2• 2 months ago

So the US won the cold war and eventually decided to emulate their defeated opponent. It's quite a character arch.

ScoobleDoodle• 2 months ago

It looks like at the moment Russia is winning in the end: Links between Trump associates and Russian officials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates...

How the Russian interests have taken over significantly invalidates the purpose and existence of the FBI, CIA, and NSA.

But then again, President Biden's administration had multiple grounds to prosecute Trump for crimes committed, whether the attempted coup or espionage with top secret documents or Epstein, and they just did not make it happen in a way that had any effect.

ragazzina• 2 months ago

You know propaganda has worked flawlessly when you see the US doing US things and the comments are “just like Russia / North Korea / China!”

derelicta2• 2 months ago

"What are we? A bunch of ASIANS??"

jaybrendansmith• 2 months ago

Don't worry, everybody. This will take some time to have an effect. In the meantime, the people who actually make this country great will consign these criminals to the dustbin of history. It happened in 1890, you will see it happen soon, and I am there for it. I just hope it happens faster this time. I don't have 40 years to wait.

SubiculumCode16• 2 months ago

So...as a scientist, I can lose my funding if I exercise my free speech and publicly disagree with Trump?

What is this, North Korea?

tootie• 2 months ago

No it's worse than that. Your grant application must be actively aligned with their political agenda. If you are polite, deferential and apolitical but you want to study climate change you will be rejected.

SubiculumCode16• 2 months ago

Ahh, so I should study vaccines and autism and tylenol

GolfPopper• 2 months ago

What is this, North Korea? Given how mind-numbingly servile the ruling party is to their autocrat, it sure looks like North Korea sometimes.

warumdarum• 2 months ago

The relation between world changing science and investment seems to be brutally of, so any change to whatever we have is good change. Scieence needs to be deideologized and if that cant happen, at least there needs to a politically diverse ecosystem where the results (with predictionpower and duscoveries not cultural dominance) speak for themselves.

DangitBobby4• 2 months ago

so any change to whatever we have is good change

Things can definitely get worse.

gammarator5• 2 months ago

Here's a more concise summary of the proposed changes: https://elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of-key-change...

I don't think any practicing scientist of any political persuasion will think these are good for science.

Science progresses by sharing knowledge openly and publicly, so others can evaluate it, criticize it, and build on it. These severe restrictions on collaboration, publication, and public communication will damage science's naturally open, merit-based culture.

We will all suffer due to lost discoveries--maybe not today, but over years and decades.

wisemanwillhear• 2 months ago

Why does science need to be through the government? Irrespective of the proposal, science research is just as open after this change as before so long as it's funded by private citizens who can control the channels through which they donate to this work.

On the other hand, if we can't get private citizens to donate to science research, then they are not likely to vote for it either--polls don't register much of a concern from the average citizen*. I don't think most of us want to be under a dictator or go back to having a king.

That means the only practical option is to act of our own volition and support science through vocal advocacy and private money. In this way, we can each donate to the research we care about the most with maximum academic freedom.

* https://news.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.asp...

frigidwalnut3• 2 months ago

Private citizens fund scientific research through their taxes. This has been the most practical way to fund science for decades.

PaulDavisThe1st6• 2 months ago

It was realized some time ago that having citizens decide to "donate to the research we care about" was not the most efficient way to get the most important research done. So we switched to a system where we pool our resources (taxes), and then use a somewhat complex process (described in TFA) to decide how to allocate them to possible research.

jpalawaga• 2 months ago

This is a very “taxation is theft” take.

Everyone knows that many things that are not directly beneficial to society would go unfunded because humans optimize for what’s around them, and things that are self-interested.

There isn’t even alignment. One person wants to fund science, the other wants to fund high speed rail, the other wants farm subsidies, one wants social security and the other wants the military. Government balances all of that together. Of course people will make value judgements about their pet interests and declare the other aspects to be better funded separately.

halJordan• 2 months ago

Science needs to be done through the government because of a) hire incredibly expensive science is and b) hire incredibly concentrated wealth is.

The USG is quite often the only group able and willing to fund most projects.

fasterik• 2 months ago

Private capital is good at funding research that is likely to provide a short-term return on investment. It's not so good at funding basic research, where most of the paradigm-shifting breakthroughs come from. These provide a huge return on investment, but it nets out to society at large on time scales of decades or centuries.

Contrary to what you said, there is actually quite a bit of private philanthropic funding for research, it's just that it's not evenly distributed. The vast majority of it seems to go to medical research, in particular cancer and Alzheimer's. That's obviously a good thing, but my point here is that we can't necessarily depend on private philanthropy to distribute funds optimally.

https://www.cato.org/blog/governments-should-not-fund-resear...

I'm generally a fan of Cato and a libertarian approach to economics, but I'm still not convinced that we should be spending zero public money on basic research. I would like to see a decent amount going into mathematics and theoretical physics for example, and I doubt those fields would stay afloat on donations.

kashunstva2• 2 months ago

Given the apparent low levels of scientific literacy among the U.S. public, I can’t imagine their ability to discern priorities or worthwhile lines of investigation would be any more useful than a coin toss. Or worse.

Tostino2• 2 months ago

Screw that mentality. I already paid more than enough in my tax dollars.

scoofy• 2 months ago

It is as though you’ve never heard of game theory, much less the concept of a coordination or free rider problem.

This comment reflects a level of ignorance that would make Dunning & Kruger facepalm.

The idea that you compare a democratically elected government’s taxes… to that of an unelected tyrant show a complete lack of perspective.

rramadass• 2 months ago

The Current Crisis: What's Happening to Science in America - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48313687

luckydata• 2 months ago

I'm so tired of this guy

Cpoll• 2 months ago

any grant program would need to be “aligned with administration policies and priorities.”

From a naive perspective, this sounds a lot like the breeding ground for Lysenkoism (Stalin-approved). In that example, aligning science to the party line led to a couple of famines. I say naive because there were other factors at play (e.g. it was forbidden to criticize Lysenko's theories).

expedition32• 2 months ago

Imagine being in the eye of the hurricane. Every day your country is slipping into a fucking shit show but you have to delude yourself that everything will be fine because the alternative is becoming "tank man".

It is all fascinating to me.

culi2• 2 months ago

In the full video, tank man proceeded to climb onto the tank and have a conversation with the operator of the tank.

I highly doubt you could do that in the US without being shot.

ourmandave• 2 months ago

Translation: The administration needs the power to pivot based on whatever narrative we're pushing at the moment.

Example: "They're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats."

Cancel Haitian grants. And also round them up in deportation holding facilities.

convolvatron3• 2 months ago

how this this reconcile with the general conservative glee over the defeat of the Chevron defence? wasn't the rationale there that bureaucrats shouldn't be deciding on policy without consulting congress? Roberts even made a little speech about how whipsawing policy back and forth every 4 years wasn't helping anyone.

DangitBobby4• 2 months ago

I've never known Republicans to be much concerned with the appearance of Hypocrisy.

whatthesmack• 2 months ago

It's refreshing to see there actually be positive movement on accountability from the bureaucracy of the US federal government. I work very hard for almost four months every year to earn the money to pay taxes (whether I want to do that or not) that seem to disappear into the ether. I'd love to have some visibility into what is working, not working, and what is being redirected to some arbitrary bureaucrat's particular intrigues.

Having incentive to produce useful outcomes seems like it would be something folks would be in support of, but it appears many here think this is the end of the world just because it's Trump doing it. At least there's consistency in that regard. Le sigh.

dalyons• 2 months ago

What about this administration so far makes you think they are remotely interested in actual accountability?

softwaredoug4• 2 months ago

To steel man this move

You could argue peer review has become a mechanism to encourage incrementalism. That it doesn’t reward big leaps. And the public isn’t getting ROI on science funding compared to 50 years ago.

Peer review is a closed system of expertise that doesn’t let you challenge the core tenants - some might say theology - of the field. It’s basically a cartel for keeping a field of study alive, regardless of its value. True innovation happens when people collaborate outside their fields.

Steelman aside, there probably are better ways to solve this problem systematically than just let a politically appointee have final say. If we were serious about this problem, smart people thinking about scientific policy probably have some great ideas that are not being listened to.

guax2• 2 months ago

Peer review is a closed system of expertise that doesn’t let you challenge the core tenants

Strong claims require strong evidence. The tenants some people want to challenge are climate change, gender identity, renewable energy, vaccinations, etc.

So its a hard bargain, I believe science benefits from being a bit stubborn.

Auracle2• 2 months ago

Alzheimer’s research would probably be the easiest one to point to.

And I’d argue all fields could use more dissenting opinions and new options. I don’t know if this would be the path to that but keep in mind there have been many things historically where someone needed to take a leap of faith to go against the current dogma.

mold_aid2• 2 months ago

You could argue peer review has become a mechanism to encourage incrementalism. That it doesn’t reward big leaps. And the public isn’t getting ROI on science funding compared to 50 years ago.

Are you arguing that or not

Also: tenets

some might say theology - of the field

Some might, I'm sure! Are you saying that?

softwaredoug4• 2 months ago

No I am steelmanning. Making the best version of the other argument.

https://www.lesswrong.com/w/steelmanning

Personally, I am sympathetic to the idea that science has stagnated. But I do not think this is the solution.

This is a case of correctly diagnosing the problem - but not actually having a real solution

gigatexal• 2 months ago

IF YOU ARE A SMART PERSON LOOKING TO DO SCIENCE AND OR RESEARCH: DO NOT COME TO THE USA.

They want to turn this place into a the real life version of idiocracy? So be it. The lay voter needs to see what voting badly does. They need to see consequences. The cure for cancer could be there in this research. WHO knows what could become of real mRNA research. But no. We just want to believe the world is 6k years old and some donor is gonna tell some begging scientists they get their funding or not.

ascotan• 2 months ago

this proposal is an extension of the WH crackdown on what it sees as misuse of USG funds for things that are deemed not in the best interests of the USG.

Among other things this proposal attempts to prevent:

1. prevention of DEI related grants

2. prevention of grants promoting anti-american ideologies

3. prevention of gain-of-function research (think covid-19)

4. prevention of ai-powered social media censorship research

5. prevention of FEMA dollars going to help undocumented immigrants

6. prevention of foreign aid dollars being spent in africa on gender ideology

It would but restrictions directly into the grant awards give strong tools to the USG to suspend the grant and prevent the money being dispersed via a subrecipient.

Auracle2• 2 months ago

Am I wrong for thinking “good” for a lot of those points? Many are either harmful (I still haven’t heard what we actually expect to gain from gain-of-function research that makes up for the potential cost) to absolute wastes of taxpayer dollars.

DangitBobby4• 2 months ago

You can agree with the stated goals and still disagree with the policy mechanism to achieve them. Indeed, much of the current administration's strategy appears to be to sane-wash the destruction of our scientific institutions while trotting out it's "goals" to non-critical observers. Of course, the true goals are what the policy actually accomplishes, which is to hollow out the capacity for competent dissent.

shdh• 2 months ago

Are your stem cells pre August 9, 2001?

derelicta2• 2 months ago

I, for one, rejoice at the upcoming American century of humiliation.

emsign• 2 months ago

90 years ago we Germans called it Gleichschaltung.

fuckinpuppers• 2 months ago

Cancelling a grant at any time goes against the point.

How can anyone realistically plan resources, staff, whatever, if they have no idea it’ll be funded for a month or 20 years? They really want to destroy American ingenuity, science, all of it.

Just a bunch of white nationalist drones existing to keep the engine going is what they want.

freddealmeida• 2 months ago

Governemnt money should be approved by elected politicians or the President's electives. Until now the approach has led to abuse in many ways. Especially gatekeeping by professors on new ideas. Cold fusion comes to mind. Probably put behind by 40 years. I do not mind this new strategy by the President at all.

WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

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