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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   33227 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 24, 2025

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Today I see news that the NSF research experiences for undergraduates, which trains undergraduates to conduct real research and which I personally credit with making me into a scientist, is being shuttered across much of the country.

Someone did a look into science grants being cancelled on the ssc sub and their conclusion was that DOGE or whoever basically just ctrl+f'd "diverse", "underrepresented", and "minority" and axed all matches. This would correspond with why REUs are being shuttered.

Utter speculates that fiscal constraints aren’t the only reason NSF has pulled back on its support for the REU program. “I think NSF was worried about not having enough money, for sure,” Utter says. “But attracting more students into STEM careers from groups underrepresented in science is also a big part of what the REU program is trying to do. And that would have made it a target” for President Donald Trump’s executive order last month banning government funding of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

If the NSF is funding programs for undergraduates with terms which effectively range from "favors women over men and non-Asian minorities over whites and Asians" to "no white or Asian men need apply", those programs are discriminatory, illegal under a plain reading of the law and (in the case of race) Constitution, and absolutely should be canceled. It is not some sort of error caused by too-wide searching; it is an intended and correct result.

From the NSF:

REU projects offer an opportunity to tap the nation's diverse student talent pool and broaden participation in science and engineering. NSF is particularly interested in increasing the numbers of women, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities in research. REU projects are strongly encouraged to involve students who are members of these groups. (Underrepresented minorities are Blacks and African Americans, Hispanics and Latinos, American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders.) When designing recruitment plans, REU projects also are encouraged to consider students who are veterans of the U.S. Armed Services and first-generation college students.

There's a more recent version of that that's less specific about who is being excluded, but still clear enough:

NSF Newer version

REU projects offer an opportunity to increase the participation of the full spectrum of the nation's diverse talent in STEM. Several million additional people — specifically, individuals from groups historically underrepresented in STEM fields — are needed for the U.S. science and engineering workforce to reflect the demographics of the U.S. population. (See the reports Vision 2030 [https://nsf.gov/nsb/publications/vision2030.pdf], The STEM Labor Force of Today [https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20212/], and Diversity and STEM: Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities [https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf23315/].) Reaching these "missing millions" is central to the nation's economic competitiveness and is a priority for NSF.

The question that seems to be being presented by people complaining about DOGE and related efforts is, "so you are saying we have been operating illegally all this time?" And the correct answer is a resounding yes. Between USAID being a joint terrorist funding operation and DNC money laundering operation and most grants going to places (not to mention federal agencies themselves) openly discriminating against white men, basically nothing the government did for the last 20 years was legal at all

that DOGE or whoever basically just ctrl+f'd "diverse", "underrepresented", and "minority" and axed all matches.

This feels particularly pernicious because, at least to me, it seems the vibe under the previous administration (and possibly it's predecessors) strongly encouraged sneaking in these terms for effectively opposite reasons to prevent summary rejection by federal funding agencies. There are probably a bunch of projects that, in saner times, would be mostly apolitical, but are going to get sacrificed in this tribal tug-of-war. I guess the folks sneaking diversity statements into particle accelerator funding proposals aren't completely blameless, but I do feel a bit bad for those just going along with the zeitgeist.

The greengrocer gets what he deserves for hanging that "workers of the world" poster.

Collaboration isn't a risk free choice. Even if it looks less costly than alternatives at the time.

The greengrocer gets what he deserves for hanging that "workers of the world" poster.

Does the entire town deserves to not have accessible groceries? The problem with cutting science altogether isn't that it's mean to the poor widdle scientists, for God's sake. It's that it harms the country.

So does wasting taxpayer money on promoting absurd ideological causes. Sometimes you need to cut healthy flesh to get at the tumor.

Then perhaps the poor widdle scientists should have thought of that before they tied doing science to helping woke political causes. I see no reason to be held hostage to that.

Conversely I find it more difficult to fault a sincere "true believer" for acting on their belief, than to excoriate the academic those who hollowed out thier professional principles for the sake of going along with the zeitgeist, for thier moral and intellectual bankruptcy.

Ironically however, this was the result of limited and over-competitive NSF funding causing a race to the bottom for existing funding dollars. Increasing the NSF budget allows the (highly relative) “luxury” of being principled. Clearly, the goals of reforming science and saving money are getting insanely conflated here. I argue that it’s better to do one or the other but not both at once, or you get exactly the current shitshow

Ironically however, this was the result of limited and over-competitive NSF funding causing a race to the bottom

It's not "irony", it's "justice".

The idea that principles (be they scientific or moral) are a relative luxury to be discarded or forgone with the moment they become politically inconvenient is cretinous rat-bastard thinking that should be punished.

These people chose to be political operatives first and academics second. Now they get to reap the rewards of that choice.

I highly disagree that adding a single sentence with vaguely DEI-sounding potential benefits to an NSF proposal abstract suddenly makes a researcher into a "political operative". As discussed up-chain, that seems to be the only sin of a large portion of the DOGE-cancelled stuff. I mean I agree that there's some moral failing involved, but you're literally calling this thinking typical of "cretinous rat bastards" and I'm just saying that minor compromises like this are eminently human. It's like being forced to use pronouns in your email signature at work or something. Like, sure, maybe it is compromising your principles. I'm Mormon, I get it, we went through some shit with Prop 8 and gay rights and such and I absolutely admire those moral stands. However, I'm not going to act like that kind of minor moral failing in a flawed system is actually such a huge betrayal that anyone who adds pronouns in their company profile deserves to lose their job... That's just vindictiveness, and of the small-minded variety.

In short, I believe strongly in forgiveness in a society where you have reddit threads telling people to cut off their family for the slightest thing in the liberal space, and calls for unrestricted lawfare on the right. I think it is something both parties need, especially on the granular and individual level. And many NSF grants are for a small handful of professors and grad students each, it's not like all of them are multi-million-dollar boondoggles. And even this moral stuff aside, it's still stupid self-sabotage on a simple practical/pragmatic level.

And i disagree that it doesn't.

Each and every one of these people wanted to be seen aligning themselves with the DEI crowd. DOGE is merely respecting thier wishes by placing them in the set of "people aligned with the DEI crowd" and treating them accordingly.

If you believe in forgiveness, allow them to resubmit thier proposal without the DEI language, and have thier work considered on its merits.

I highly disagree that adding a single sentence with vaguely DEI-sounding potential benefits to an NSF proposal abstract suddenly makes a researcher into a "political operative".

Then you are mistaken. Submitting a grant proposal to the effect of "I am going to use this grant to do science and also further the interests of the Democratic party" makes you a political operative. If you actually use some of the grant funds to do that (as I suspect has often been done, since scientists don't want to be caught committing fraud), even more so.

In short, I believe strongly in forgiveness

Forgiveness can only follow acknowledgement of error. I have seen none of that.

Submitting a grant proposal to the effect of "I am going to use this grant to do science and also further the interests of the Democratic party" makes you a political operative

I think you should reconsider your definition of "political operative".

The commerce department published a list of what the $2B in defunded "woke" grants was here. Grabbing a random one in the $1-2M range, we get this one which was funded for $1.6M.

The Neurobiology of Hypoxia Tolerance in the Naked Mole-Rat

This project will contribute to understanding tolerance of hypoxia (low oxygen levels) within the nervous system by studying the African naked mole-rat. This mammal lives in crowded, oxygen-starved burrows, and has evolved the ability to survive extended periods of oxygen deprivation without triggering brain cell death.

This project will test new target genes that may protect brain cells from cell death resulting from exposure to hypoxia, with potential applications in designing new treatments for humans that experience oxygen deprivation during traumatic events like a stroke or heart attack. By studying the genome of the naked mole-rat, the investigators previously discovered changes in the genes of this species that likely reduce cell death from oxygen deprivation.

The goal of the current project is to test each of those genes for its potential role in brain cell protection. The project will support two graduate students each year, who will help mentor a number of undergraduate student researchers recruited from existing programs targeting students from groups underrepresented in science. Information on the naked mole-rat will be shared via outreach to a local zoo and area high schools.

This project will investigate molecular, cellular, and physiological mechanisms in the brain that underly hypoxia tolerance and will contribute to understanding evolutionary adaptations to environmental challenges in general. The naked mole-rat will be developed as a model system for studying the molecular and genetic basis of hypoxia tolerance in the mammalian brain.

As far as I can tell, this grant was defunded because they said "We will hire two grad students. Those two grad students will teach undergraduate classes. Our university has some already-existing programs to recruit undergrads from underrepresented groups, and so maybe the classes the grad students teach will contain members of underrepresented groups."

That... does not sound like something a political operative would say. That sounds like a PI who wanted to do useful research and was told "you have to say how the program will help minorities" and so grudgingly included a line like "the program will help everyone, and minorities are a part of everyone".

Forgiveness can only follow acknowledgement of error. I have seen none of that.

What error would you like that researcher to acknowledge? Be concrete.

Just resubmit it without the "no white boys allowed in our science club" line. That's literally it. That's what people find objectionable. I don't know how else to possibly say this.

More comments

We're not going to do unlimited gay race science funding. I'm sorry. Just pour so much money into the program that everything is funded is not the a realistic vision of the future. Forget practically reasonable, it's not politically reasonable. This will always devolve into patron-client politics.

Did you misplace your comment? That's not what we're talking about at all and actively misrepresents everything I said with culture war buzz words. My claim is that in an over-competitive environment, attempts to "game the system" naturally rise. That's not indicative of a moral failing on behalf of the candidates (scientists) exactly, it's just a natural thing that happens in competitive environments with poorly set guardrails. It would be mistaken to take attempts to game the funding system at face value, no questions asked. While obviously moral virtue is higher when 'doing the right thing' in more difficult environments, I think we should be careful about how we ascribe moral fault to actors in a broken system. Surely scientists deserve some blame for juicing their proposals with DEI language, but to hang all the blame at their feet is bananas.

Roughly speaking, 1 in 4 NSF grants get funded, which means 3 essentially get denied. Scale-wise, I would say even an increase in the funding rate to something like 40% would have had a disproportionately large effect in decreasing attempts to pander to the left. Also, I think that probably over half of those grants are likely worth funding, no "gay race science funding" required.

Maybe I misunderstood your position. I thought you were saying the mismatch between the number of scientists requesting funding and the amount of funds available put the scientists in a position where they vulnerable to pressures to conform to the current zeitgeist and unable to be principled. And thus, the way to "save science" is to ensure that the funding is less competitive. That there are is more funding being chased by fewer projects. Thus they can be principled.

I am interpreting that to mean that science cannot be apolitical unless all (or the vast majority) of science is funded. If those are the terms, I would rather not fund it.

Yup, one proposal was for a telescope in Chile, and it had a throwaway sentence about how it could help get more Hispanic students interested. As if telescopes are built in Chile for outreach and not because it has a crazy dry high desert.

I actually think that’s sort of legit.

My colleague is Peruvian. He founded a whole system of training botanists in Peru to fill large gaps in Amazon forest research.

(In Peru, with Peruvian money, before you get mad at me. But initially because he was funded from Oxford and he does still compete for international grants).

A lot of countries around the world have very little support for science. People who want to do it, well, you go to the US or the UK for that kind of thing.

But scientific infrastructure which gets planted in these places can help train up local talent.

I’ve seen it in many countries. Panama has the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute which trained a lot of very skilled Panamanian and other latin country researchers, as well as those who do stuff like maintain museums and collections and so on.

You ever want to see someone profoundly skilled at what they do, go for a trek with a 60 year old botanist who works and lives around tropical forests and can identify thousands of trees from minute differences. Skill level is off the chart for that discipline.

And well, I’m biased, but I have the wishy washy belief that spreading the art and practice of scientific research around the world is a very legitimate benefit for humanity.

Maybe if there’s a nuclear holocaust some Chileans will keep the scientific flame alive, who knows.

And what that one sentence said was "I, the proposer of this project, hereby abandon any claim of being a neutral scientific fact finder, and align myself, and pledge fealty to, the political goals of the Democratic party. " Once you've abandoned your neutrality that way you can't legitimately complain of being treated as a political enemy.

Alternatively, as @jeroboam said in a follow-up to one of my prior comments, there were probably boomercons who just read it in BusinessWeek and actually believed that there was some untapped source of talent that was falling through some magical cracks or something. Over time, more and more people have wizened up, realizing that the magical gainz predicted simply have not occurred. It does take a little time for that realization to cascade (related?). Like, yes, congratulations to you, The_Nybbler, for realizing it earlier (as did I), but it's pretty insane to think that even the most milquetoast versions, at all time points in the cascade, were fealty pledges.

When the scimitar is to one's throat, the sincerity of the Shahada should be downweighted accordingly.

Forced oaths have value to the forcer; that's why they exist. They shouldn't, but they do. They especially have value when the person being forced has the quality of integrity; they will often prefer to follow the oath rather than surreptitiously subvert it. Thus such an oath should be downweighted, but not ignored entirely.

Which is to say that a Christian or a Jew is wise not to trust those who converted to Islam under the penalty of the sword, not without good reason to believe the conversion was false. They certainly should not trust the falseness of the conversion if the converted insist on performing salah even once their Islamic masters have been vanquished, and object to the removal of "PBUH" and "Inshallah" from their work documents.

On the other hand, as Antioch found out, the sword bearer would be wise not to trust his new converts too far either…

Keanu Reeves character, "Speed", trying to be edgy: "Shoot the hostage. ... Go for the good wound and he can't get to the plane with her."

The_Nybbler, actually understanding edgy: "Shoot the hostage. Once they've obeyed the terrorist they can't legitimately complain of being treated as an enemy."

From "The Rules of Engagement are the problem" by John T. Reed:

Blackhawk Down

In Somalia, bad guys who had the U.S. Army Rangers pinned down in the Blackhawk Down incident would hold a woman or child against their chest as they crossed the street to prevent the squeamish Americans from firing at them. The Somalis would blast away at the American with their guns as they thus crossed the street. Apparently, it worked. I would have told my men to shoot the SOBs through the civilians.

Would that cause the civilians to have a bad day? Sure. But it would be a great thing for the remaining civilians because the fighters would immediately stop using that tactic as soon as the Americans started killing the fighters by shooting them through the human shields.

Like ransom

It’s like ransom. Paying ransom is generally illegal because it encourages continuation of the kidnapping business. If the various governments would enforce their laws against paying ransom to the extent that ransoms stopped being paid at all, the kidnapping business would cease to exist for lack of incentive. Everyone who pays a ransom to get their loved one back is culpable for subsequent kidnappings of other people’s loved ones.

Paying ransom is a classic case of beggar thy neighbor--that is, a policy that benefits the person engaging in it, but which only can do so at the expense of other similarly-situated people. It is a classic example of taking care of number one and to hell with everyone else.

The U.S. and allied soldiers who refrain from shooting where civilian human shields are benefiting themselves by enabling themselves to claim they are great humanitarians who held their fire. But they do that at the expense of the rest of the American and allied military who will be in continued danger from the bad guys in question. Indeed, the bullet that kills the humanitarian soldier who held his fire, or his best friend, may be fired by the bad guy he let escape with his decision not to shoot where he knew or suspected bad guys were--because of the presence of civilians.

Similarly, refraining from shooting at an enemy soldier because he uses innocent (or maybe not) civilians as shields rewards and thereby encourages the use of human shields. It is immoral to encourage the use of innocent civilians as shields. Furthermore, refusing to refrain from shooting at those who use civilians as shields will immediately end the practice which will lead to fewer civilian and military casualties on all sides and an earlier victory in the war. Paradoxical thought it may seem, ignoring the possibility of civilian casualties by shooting at the enemy regardless of the presence of civilians will save civilian lives in the long run.

because the fighters would immediately stop using that tactic as soon as the Americans started killing the fighters by shooting them through the human shields

...

refraining from shooting at an enemy soldier because he uses innocent (or maybe not) civilians as shields rewards and thereby encourages the use of human shields

The absolute key question here is to what extent the applied effects change behavior. It is good that you have found an example where shooting particular hostages (those directly attached to an enemy fighter as a shield) provides game theoretic incentives to change behavior and get to a better outcome. Certainly, there are other situations where shooting hostages randomly is not likely to have a similar effect. So, the question we have to answer is what methods actually affect the game theory such that they are likely to affect change and accomplish our goals. I comment on that here.

It mildly bugs me that game theory 101 isn't a common senior year topic.

Far too many arguments miss the game-theoretical aspects of decisions which nominally have a particular effect in the short term, but which have a very different effect once other actors shift their strategies in response.

"I was just following orders"

The former Commisar a few weeks after the election.

...but didn't General de Gaulle say that all of France was part of the Resistance?

Is the hostage supposed to be pointing a gun at you in this analogy? People can be compelled into causing harm, but that doesn't negate the fact that they are, as a matter of fact, causing harm. Stopping them can be justified on those grounds alone.

Or are you going to argue that the scientists were just following orders?

The hostage doesn't have a gun, but by not resisting, the hostage is enabling a criminal with a gun to get away.

By not resisting, the scientists are (checks notes) noticing that scientific studies done in a Hispanic country might help more Hispanics want to become scientists.

The hostage still isn't coming off as the better of the two here.

Are these scientists the front-line Wehrmacht, or just civilians throwing a quick heil before going about their business? The German public needn't be prosecuted, just shown that the Nazis aren't in charge anymore.

They aren't being prosecuted; they are simply being told that their jobs manufacturing Hugo Boss uniforms and swastika flags for the government are done, and that they will have to find some other form of employment in the private sector. That seems like a reasonable consequence and a proportional punishment.

You can certainly argue about the severity of their actions (including arguing that it's so trivial no punishment is warranted), but they did take those actions and do bear moral responsibility for them.

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