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The Academic Pipeline Stall: Why Industry Must Stand for Academia

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146 points MaysonL | 2 comments | 12 May 25 02:34 UTC | HN request time: 0.482s | source
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gotoeleven ◴[12 May 25 04:01 UTC] No.43959536[source]▶
I didn't look at every one on the list of these 1000 NSF grants that were cancelled:

https://airtable.com/appGKlSVeXniQZkFC/shrFxbl1YTqb3AyOO?jnt...

but I think if you skim the titles you can sense a theme.

Here's the very first one: "Cambio: A Professional Development Approach for Building Latinx-focused Cultural Competence in Informal Science Education Institutions" for a whopping 2.8 million dollars.

This is not basic research, this is not important research, this is left wing politics parasitically attached to scientific institutions.

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viraptor ◴[12 May 25 04:40 UTC] No.43959698[source]▶
> this is not important research

Why do you think so? Have you read the details? Do you think that collaboration on creating science museums and similar experiences that target kids from specific areas/culture are not important? Or you think that $2.8M (which is basically a few months of funds for the team of 7 in this project) does not convert into higher economic growth down the line from more STEM engagement? Or some other reason?

So far the downvotes were quick, but elaborations on the topic not so much...

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1. gotoeleven ◴[12 May 25 04:54 UTC] No.43959767[source]▶
Well I think a very strong heuristic is that anyone who uses the term latinx is a race grifter. But that aside, the important point is that these cuts appear to be in stuff that is at least arguably not very scientifically important. I don't see any cuts to studying magnetism or cancer or distant galaxies. Tellingly, the article doesn't say "Oh no Trump is cutting our latinx cultural competency grants!" it is pretending that basic science is being cut and hoping you don't notice. So the article is dishonest and dumb.
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2. viraptor ◴[12 May 25 07:16 UTC] No.43960394[source]▶
If you don't see those cuts, you're not looking for them. Third one I checked was a biology meeting with "Cell Fate and Development" as one of the streams. That's basically... cancer research.

There's lots of "resources and collaboration" entries as well which are a part of people meeting and talking about what they do. Don't expect the title to spell out "Cancer" on any of them.