Same here. NSF funded my grad research and I have the same feeling. Seeing this nation eat its seed corn to fund some bullshit tax cuts makes me sick. None of this is theoretical. Talked to a Stanford prof two week ago- her DOE grant is on hold. Talked to some UCSD profs- and they said they only admitted just over half the number of grad students as last year due to funding uncertainty. I fear my kids might have to go to another country to get advanced training, and that next generation of American tech entrepreneurs will be fewer or lost.
I could never get beyond "honorable mention" for the NSF GRFP. I found the diversity part of it most difficult to write. Like honestly my research had nothing to do with diversity and I'm not an underrepresented minority myself. But that was a major part of how the application was scored, so you had to come up with some bullshit and hope for the best.
And that was like 15 years ago, I hear things have only gotten more extreme since then. Well, at least until very recently...
Yeah that's what I would have done. Don't get me wrong, I am very anti MAGA!
Which is kind of crazy... I'm here on the Internet ranting about DEI, and the MAGA movement is still toxic enough to completely alienate me. MAGA is probably worse than DEI.
I would counter your anecdata with the 5 friends I have, all of whom are whiter than printer paper and 3 of whom are deeply conservative, who received GRFP. Your failure to get GRFP had nothing to do with the diversity statement.
Yeah anecdotes don't tell you much. You may have noticed I was also replying to an anecdote.
What tells you more is that the diversity statement exists and they say it's used as part of scoring. Therefore, unless the amount of score it counts for is infinitesimally small, some people win/lose based on the content of their diversity statement.
Was that me? Who knows. But unless the whole thing was just busy work for no reason, it was probably a bunch of people.
How many? Who knows. I'm sure you'd agree that it would be interesting if somebody published that data! Maybe the new NSF will be more transparent than the old one.
I think it's important to remember that, historically, science has been very racist and very sexist. It's not like the diversity statement came out of nowhere - the majority of our understanding of a lot of topics only comes from studying white men.
This is why AA men and women have significantly worse healthcare outcomes, or why women are more likely to die in a car crash.
Yes, maybe it's slightly inconvenient to write a diversity statement. But it's because of these types of initiatives that we're able to build more equitable research and improve outcomes for a variety of minority groups.
So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, suck it up. Or, at least, understand why they're asking for it instead of assuming it's some sort of strange, convoluted, personal attack on your character.
I will give you credit for having an explanation that at least makes more sense than "the diversity statement is just for fun and doesn't do anything", which is the explanation that I usually hear!
But yeah I am aware that the more reasonable DEI supporters say things similar to what you said. Just be aware that there are other people who are skeptical that the "improve outcomes for a variety of minority groups" part actually happens, and also think that DEI has various other negative consequences in addition to that.
I wouldn't really say I needed to "suck it up" since not winning the GRFP is a pretty minor thing - it's very hard to win, so a negative outcome was not really surprising and didn't really cost me anything more than a line on my resume. I was happy to even get honorable mention! My actual concern is when similar tactics are used for more meaningful things, and the second order effects of such policies. The GRFP was just the biggest example of it directly affecting me personally, since I didn't stick around in academia too long (for multiple reasons, not just DEI), so it makes a good enough anecdote I guess.
I feel this way as well. They're killing or gutting so many programs that help to develop the next generation. Not just NSF and NIH, but also Americorps, Job Corps, educational exchange programs like the Fullbright. I just saw they were making a 50% cut to the peace corps.
It feels like they want to destroy everything that's optimistic and forward-thinking.
Similarly. My grad research was funded by an NSF project grant and my advisor's NSF CAREER. My postdoc supervisor just won his CAREER before the election.
Because that is one of several goals. I heard a really interesting comment recently that concisely put what I find most dishonest about all this.
The opposite of DEI isn’t meritocracy it’s nepotism.
That is why you feel this way, the goal is to inhibit the success of those not part of the in group. The words bandied about about reverse racism and the like are just right wing propaganda.
Thousands of years ago there was a breakthrough discovery that shaped humanity forever: living in society.
Do we need to explain that one of the perks of society is pushing others forward with a tacit expectation that it will come back for everyone eventually?
Correct that OP did not imply those things, but a lot of people will read it that way. There are implications behind the implications, and I think that DiffEq is referencing the latter. I'm not taking a side in this fight.
So you're saying that if we ignore what he wrote, close our eyes, and make stuff up, then we can pretend his post says whatever we want? Sounds like you should work for US government.
> You are implying a few things here; that it is the responsibility of others to fund your success and that there were not, or will not be, alternative means of such funding.
Yes, the government funds research, the benefit of which accrues to all of society. There is no credible alternative to government funding for public research; the scales are not the same. Private funding of basic research (internal R&D budgets) accrues benefits to the funders directly.
Knock-on effects to cutting the government funding include a decimation of future research leadership by the US by making it unattractive to study and do basic research here. Other countries are taking advantage of this (like any private sector company would if one of its competitors makes such a drastic mistake).
> Lastly you are implying that your graduate research was something that advanced some combination of science, humanity, the country...or maybe that the current work you do is of such value that the government should have paid your way to your current status.
You're overly indexing on the benefits any specific researcher gets from research funding. Research is currently done by humans; if we want more research done, then the people doing that research will necessarily get some of the benefits.
Also, since you're commenting on a software-focused web forum -- you should be aware that the compensation for government-funded researchers is a fraction of what these folks could make in the private sector. Framing it as some greedy theft of resources from the public is foolish and disingenuous to readers who don't know about how science funding works in the US.
When you speak in abstracts and generic terms about the value of government funding research, you are saying nothing meaningful in terms of knowing whether the government should spend more or less on research. If the OP's specific research was into The Changing Mating Habits of the Delta Smelt Due to Habitat Destruction, then probably it was money that could far better spent paying tuition for, say, medical students or even just letting tax payers keep their money and spend it in a way that directly benefits their family, their community, and themselves. Otherwise you are just handwaving and demanding everyone assume that all research is good and should be publicly funded.
In terms of cutting NSF budget, they have issued grants for things that explicitly violate Title IX of the Civil Rights act.[1] You can't justify all NSF spending by cherry picking successful past spending. We can evaluate the benefits of proposed research and whether it aligns with the intentions and values of society at large. We don't have to spend because someone incanted the words "Because SCIENCE!" over a bubbling beaker.
> If the OP's specific research was into The Changing Mating Habits of the Delta Smelt Due to Habit Destruction, then probably it was money that could far better spent paying tuition for, say, medical students or even just letting tax payers keep their money and spend it in a way that directly benefits their family, their community, and themselves.
The problem is it's very hard to know ahead of time which research directions will yield fruit. If we knew how to only fund good research, then science funding would be very easy. Unfortunately, that's not the case -- oftentimes things that are sure bets fail, and things that are rejected as "not promising" result in a breakthrough. So we have to fund a lot of stuff, some of which is not obviously going to yield a great ROI.
On the one hand, yes, funding science the way we do results in a lot of "wasted" funding. There are tons of inefficiencies. On the other hand, the way we fund science has been wildly successful in terms of the benefits we have reaped. Look around you, you can see them everywhere in every sector.
The danger is we pull back funding to things that are "sure bets" and they turn out to be duds while we miss out on other less sure opportunities. That would be a loss for everyone involved.
I did not stop reading right there, but I may as well have. Invoking this particular area of research has become a popular conservative trope, because casual news readers do not get the point of studying a tiny fish in general or its love life in particular, even though it's a useful indicator species for the overall health of the riparian ecosystem.
You seem you like an intelligent person. Why are you leaning on tropes that exploit and glorify ignorance and anti-intellectualism?
Is it your position, then, that the government should not fund research? What entity is prepared to take its place? Can you name a country with a successful research community that does not rely in part on government funding?
