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Re: Politicized science
Posted: March 18th, 2025, 8:06 am
by Cuchulainn
That's not a nice scenario..
Re: Politicized science
Posted: March 20th, 2025, 2:53 pm
by Alan
Re: Politicized science
Posted: March 20th, 2025, 5:40 pm
by Alan
How this works:
1. US is polarized roughly 50-50% into Republicans and Progressives
2. Republicans reject modern science
3. Hence, any US science funding goes to the other 50% (Progressives)
4. Hence, it can be easily cast as "progressive slush fund".
If Republicans rejected personal hygiene, promoting soap would be considered "woke".
That's good. So, we have learned that only progressives can carry out science. It certainly explains the insistence on DEI political statements in academia before any hiring decisions, including STEM departments. What an easy way to weed out the science denialists.
If you are ever getting a difficult surgery, I suppose you will check the political affiliation of your surgeon before-hand also. Medicine and surgery always seemed kind of "sciencey" to me -- but, hey, that's me.
Re: Politicized science
Posted: March 20th, 2025, 5:52 pm
by bearish
I think we discussed elsewhere whether medicine is science, and kind of rejected it? It is certainly true that the current republican regime rejects modern science (not to mention economics!), including the guy left in charge of a large chunk of its historical funding. He seems to be more interested in carrying out an experiment to see whether all poultry in the country (and/or world) will die from unchecked bird flu before it mutates and jumps to humans.
Re: Politicized science
Posted: March 20th, 2025, 5:53 pm
by bearish
The garbage definitely has the upper hand at the moment
Re: Politicized science
Posted: March 20th, 2025, 5:56 pm
by Alan
Well, I am not a fan of RFK, Jr, so won't die on that hill ...
Related, I don't get conservative paranoia about Covid vaxes.
But, as for dismantling the Green New Deal cramdown (mandatory EV's, no gas appliances, etc) -- I'm all in for that one.
Re: Politicized science
Posted: March 20th, 2025, 9:15 pm
by bearish
There are definitely subtleties that can be discussed among reasonable people, but given that we’re probably in the last months (or weeks) of democracy in this country, they feel like deck chairs.
Re: Politicized science
Posted: March 21st, 2025, 2:37 am
by Alan
Speaking of mandatory political statements in academic hiring (well, I was anyway),
this just in from the LA Times (Mar 20, 2025):
As Trump attacks DEI, UC bans ‘diversity statements’ in faculty hiring
Re: Politicized science
Posted: March 22nd, 2025, 10:42 am
by Marsden
Um ... Why wouldn't an educational institution want a statement about efforts to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion among its instructors -- for fuck's sake -- in a society as rife with historic prejudices as North Mexico's -- ?
What a terrible mistake we made when we stopped killing Johnny Reb at the end of our Civil War.