The US Assault on Science: National Academies Letter

They recognized what was coming and knelt rather than having their balls busted.

Also, they're already wealthy, they have what matters in the foreseeable future.

This is unequivocally not an endorsement of their choices.

That all sounds romantic, but molecular biology labs, spinning confocal microscopes, clean rooms, super computers, particle accelerators, etc are all hard to come by "underground".

The low hanging fruit has been picked. You can no longer "do science" by mixing random household chemicals. Now you need pure sources, you need machines that cost tens of thousands of dollars, you need significant sample sizes and big data, you need computer clusters.

It was a lot easier to mix bleach and

"What matter where, if I be still the same,

And what I should be, all but less than he

Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least

We shall be free: th’Almighty hath not built

Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:

Here we may reign secure, and in my choice

To reign is worth ambition, though in hell;

Better to reign in hell than serve in heav’n."

- Paradise Lost, Book 1, by John Milton

Some of us engineers were paying attention in English class.

I think it's because science, knowledge, and truth are the great equalizers. In the limit, they put everyone on an equal playing field, which would also eliminate the advantage of wealth.

One of the things I learned from those leaked messages the other day is that the people pushing these ideas publicly actually seem to believe them, because even when they're around other people who might be in on the "con" they're still loudly pushing the same ideas. So yeah, I definitely believe the leaders that are on-board with this are just really stupid. It doesn't take a ton of intelligence to make a ton of money. You just have to be persistent and you have to get good opportunities, which are largely luck of the draw.

Power. That's what you do if you want power.

Edit: For those in doubt, a parallel:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward

> The Great Leap Forward stemmed from multiple factors, including "the purge of intellectuals, the surge of less-educated radicals

Isn't it ideological? I see no mystery. Presumably it's because climate scientists sway opinion against fossil fuel, and humanities academics promote leftist concerns. It's not an intentional attack on future cancer treatment.

"Poor man wanna be rich Rich man wanna be king And a king ain't satisfied 'Til he rules everything"

- 'Badlands', Bruce Springsteen

The obvious answer is they can support anything they care about directly. The relationship a selfish multi-billionaire has with the government is ideally that said government takes a huge amount of money from them, then spends it much less efficiently than they would on things Mr. billions doesn't think are the highest priority targets to fund.

To be clear:

* The signatories are the elected members of the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

* Being elected to one of these marks you as among the most distinguished and influential scientists in your field. This is a high honor and many outstanding scientists will go their whole careers never being considered for election to NAS, NAE, etc.

Can you give an example of fraud that has been found by doge? If so it is to be commended, but I suspect they are just labelling stuff approved by congress and previous administrations fraud whenever they don't like it.

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Well, it does mention Musk, so I guess we have to flag it.

Hard to believe that this is your good-faith take on the substance of the letter.

That's a very, shall we say "interesting", interpretation of the following paragraphs:

> The quest for truth—the mission of science?requires that scientists freely explore new questions and report their findings honestly, independent of special interests. The administration is engaging in censorship, destroying this independence. It is using executive orders and financial threats to manipulate which studies are funded or published, how results are reported, and which data and research findings the public can access. The administration is blocking research on topics it finds objectionable, such as climate change, or that yields results it does not like, on topics ranging from vaccine safety to economic trends.

> A climate of fear has descended on the research community. Researchers, afraid of losing their funding or job security, are removing their names from publications, abandoning studies, and rewriting grant proposals and papers to remove scientifically accurate terms (such as “climate change” ) that agencies are flagging as objectionable. Although some in the scientific community have protested vocally, most researchers, universities, research institutions, and professional organizations have kept silent to avoid antagonizing the administration and jeopardizing their funding

Instead of defunding, fund somebody else to replicate the claim. We should start rewarding researchers for disproving or confirming another person's work at the same level as we would the original researcher. I would go as far as to say that a confirming researcher should get top billing along with the initial researcher.