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- Hacker News
- Once is gone, is gone.
Scientists (and common people) should strike back and fund a political party in the next week of being fired. Or two, or five. If all your voting options lead to your death, create new options.
That, and only that, would send the correct message. A message than the current dinosaur politicians will hear. Every scientist fired and interviewed should casually mention the idea of thinking about creating a new party as the only way to solve this crisis.
by pvaldes - After the Covid-19 epidemic, a party of The Science™ might not be as popular as some people would like to believe.by Whoppertime
- We're seeing a generational loss of young talent that will be hard to reverse. PhD grads who would normally stay in the US after graduation are returning to their home countries. My American post-doc friends have had funding for cancer research, Alzheimer's research, Parkinson's disease; some have left the US, others are making plans to do so.
And for what? Any money we "saved" by killing our research pipeline has already wasted in a pointless, self-destructive war.
by jmcgough - Presumably for the transition of biotech from the US to somewhere else. I don't know what kind of favor buys you the sabotage of an industry, but it must've been a good one.
- Not a US citizen. From the outside it looks like the US administration simply does not care about advancing science and technology or care for their citizens or their future very much. It looks like it cares about furthering wealth and influence of the head of the in-group by means of fear mongering, scape goating and dismantling structures that threaten this agenda. And if there is a penny to save and a misinformation campaign to further then it makes sense why you would want to take out the voices of treason. But maybe I just misunderstand the whole situation.by Escapado
- Your comment has an implication bigger than your point. Returning to their home countries… are there not American PHD at American university? Has the ratio of native to international shifted over the years?
I’m being somewhat sarcastic, given I see an overwhelming representation of internationals in the American grad/phd programs I’m familiar with. But I honestly don’t have insight across every department. I’d be interested what people have to say about this across STEM throughout the country. Anyone have a rough idea on the trend lines?
by talon8635 - Derek Lowe sees darker motives in the program of cuts to Federal research grants in NIH and NFS. I don't know how to fix some of the problems with how and to whom grants are awarded, but throwing the baby out with the bathwater, deliberately, looks like the very bad kind of malice. (I think this article may have been referenced on HN.) https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/assault-science-fu...
- If I had been told a foreign adversary had broadly infiltrated our government at the highest levels, I would have a hard time differentiating between that and what is currently happening.by sixothree
- It's hard to overstate how chaotic and mismanaged NIH has been in the past two years. Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice, so it's hard to impute motives here.
A lot of labs are being defunded for no good reason, losing researchers, losing the thread, and putting entire directions of useful research on ice, likely forever.
There are some clear indications of where it is pure malice and not mere incompetence though. Sean Eddy is a foundational figure in my field of research, like a Hubble:
https://www.npr.org/2026/05/21/nx-s1-5828768/science-funding...
by epistasis - Why would you ever give the Trump administration the benefit of the doubt after the past 10y? They’ve been more than clear about the fact they want to destroy federal and scientific institutions (other than ICE of course)by dgellow
- Sufficiently advanced incompetence is malice.by sixothree
- > At 60, Eddy had planned to continue working through the next decade with his team. "For someone of my career stage, this is probably not recoverable," he says.
Why doesn't he continue his research inside big pharma?
by jjtheblunt - I'm going to call it malice. Either way the people running the government now are the avowed enemies of functioning institutions. No need to give these freaks the benefit of the doubt.
(See Russ Vought's comments about putting all government workers in trauma just for one and he's head of OMB.)
by nielsbot - Please understand that the goal of these policies is to weaken scientific research in the US. The people who push this stuff acknowledge openly that they oppose science, experts, and accurate information. This isn't a misunderstanding or a fumble.
- They should be incentivizing researchers who have histories of publishing research that has been independently replicated. Way too much fraud going on that’s seeping into the real world.by afpx
- Please understand that so many high IQ tech and science people support this, they voted and decided.by kingleopold
- ... who are unfortunately backed by a large part of the US population who have elected them on exactly that promise, for various reasons. From fear of vaccines to having various other nations freeride on US research.
That so many people think like this is the underlying problem.
by spwa4 - They're deliberately weakening the U.S. Treason.by tty456
- Can anyone explain the reasoning behind it? I can understand (not saying I approve) targeted opposition to specific scientific claims to favor commercial interests (climate change denial to favor oil & gas, etc), but wouldn't a general anti-science movement make the country less competitive in the long run and directly hurt industries like pharma/etc?by Nextgrid
- Please, for your own sake and that of your ideals, don't fall into a Disney adult mentality of "these are bad guys who are clearly against Truth and Good^tm!" just because righteousness feels good. This falls under underestimating your enemy and never serves the people embracing said feeling.
- My job depends on NIH continuing to function, but it is not immediately clear that this particular decision follows other worrying trends discussed here previously. Removing K-awards for clinical trials (but not regular, cheaper study formats) might simply be a recognition that clinical trials are too expensive for the K-format and conducting underpowered clinical trials does not help anyone much.