This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
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.
Forgiveness can only follow acknowledgement of error. I have seen none of that.
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.
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".
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.
Which line of that grant application says "no white boys allowed in our science club"? Be specific.
Do you have a link to the text of that grant application, rather than just the objective description?
Because there's a fair complaint about claims made without evidence, but when randomly selected high-profile examples with public evidence available come about, looking deeper into the matter -- and often not having to scratch the surface that hard! -- shows a lot of stuff getting hollowed out and skinsuited.
((And, yes, there's also the bit where UoI does the greengrocer bit:
But that /could/ have been left off the grant application, and the whistleblower complaints not true. Still, if you have access, I'd be willing to make a bet at some moderate odds.))
I don't know if the grant application is public but here's the NSF page on the award, which has more details including the abstract and resulting publications.
Resulting publications look like real science with plausible important implications for medicine, not ideologically captured garbage:
This is exactly the sort of foundational research I want my tax dollars funding - low immediate commercial value but potentially massive positive externalities.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
What is the benefit of doing it that way, rather than simply saying "we are declaring your people of colour will get preferential treatment void and will punish you if you try to implement them; otherwise, carry on"? That way, proposals where the diversity statement was hot air with no influence whatsoever on how the science was being carried out can go on with their work.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link