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I have a buddy that went on an archaeology dig in Israel. He saw first hand that artifacts that contradicted what the leader of the dig was trying to prove wer

by DougN7 10y ago

I have a buddy that went on an archaeology dig in Israel. He saw first hand that artifacts that contradicted what the leader of the dig was trying to prove were destroyed. Scientists are people. But we base so verymuch on their work that integrity needs to be the highest priority. Maybe we need a science UBI for grants??

epistasis 10y ago
I would hope that intentional destruction of artifacts would result in jail time and also the offender never being allowed near artifacts again in their lifetime. Hopefully as recording tools become more prevalent, such crimes become easy to expose. It's one thing to dump alcohol in an experiment that costs $10k and can be replicated. It's another order of magnitude to destroy something that can't be recovered. People some times talk about alternatives to grants that are like UBI, but the mechanics seem odd and hard to get right since you need some sort of filter, unlike UBI. I think a better way may be to find more career staff scientists and fewer "trainees." The idea being that PIs can no longer just use up the formational years of dozens of smart people and then foist them onto a job market with no prospects, and that PIs would have to hire career scientists that get paid enough to, say, raise a child or put a small percentage away for retirement. The disadvantage being that a 2-3 year fundinf cycle can still be fairly destructive if somebody has to find a new lab potentially that quickly. So longer term commitments of smaller amounts of money may also may make sense... There's no easy solution but fortunately the NIH and NSF seem more interested in changing these thing than they did 10 years ago.
- Retric 10y ago
  The most obvious solution is to in increase the grad school stipend. If grad students made more then you avoid those 'wasted years'. Yes, this means we would have fewer post grads, but that seems like a reasonable trade off.
lostlogin 10y ago
Archeology has been weaponised there and it's now part of the settlers side of the conflict. https://www.google.co.nz/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israeli-settlers-are-using-archaeological-digs-as-cover-to-take-palestinian-land-british-government-10127250.html%3Famp?client=safari https://www.google.co.nz/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/worl... http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/11/israeli-land-claims-archaeology-ideology-2013111113012956687.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/11/israeli-la...
- YZF 10y ago
  The Al-Jazeera article is reasonably balanced for Arab media though I would advise people reading it to understand that it does present the Palestinian viewpoint. Listen to both sides and make up your own mind. Some background on Silwan/Shiloach: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silwan By the way, putting aside the conflict, if you get a chance to go visit the tunnel ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siloam_tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siloam_tunnel ) I highly recommend it. It's an amazing feat of engineering going back thousands of years.
YZF 10y ago
I find it extremely hard to believe archeological artifacts would be destroyed in a dig in Israel. Israel has very strict laws regulating archeological digs. You can go to jail for 3 years for destroying archeological artifacts. Get your buddy to file a complaint?

by DougN7 10y ago

epistasis 10y ago

I would hope that intentional destruction of artifacts would result in jail time and also the offender never being allowed near artifacts again in their lifetime. Hopefully as recording tools become more prevalent, such crimes become easy to expose. It's one thing to dump alcohol in an experiment that costs $10k and can be replicated. It's another order of magnitude to destroy something that can't be recovered. People some times talk about alternatives to grants that are like UBI, but the mechanics seem odd and hard to get right since you need some sort of filter, unlike UBI. I think a better way may be to find more career staff scientists and fewer "trainees." The idea being that PIs can no longer just use up the formational years of dozens of smart people and then foist them onto a job market with no prospects, and that PIs would have to hire career scientists that get paid enough to, say, raise a child or put a small percentage away for retirement. The disadvantage being that a 2-3 year fundinf cycle can still be fairly destructive if somebody has to find a new lab potentially that quickly. So longer term commitments of smaller amounts of money may also may make sense... There's no easy solution but fortunately the NIH and NSF seem more interested in changing these thing than they did 10 years ago.

Retric 10y ago
The most obvious solution is to in increase the grad school stipend. If grad students made more then you avoid those 'wasted years'. Yes, this means we would have fewer post grads, but that seems like a reasonable trade off.

lostlogin 10y ago

Archeology has been weaponised there and it's now part of the settlers side of the conflict. https://www.google.co.nz/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israeli-settlers-are-using-archaeological-digs-as-cover-to-take-palestinian-land-british-government-10127250.html%3Famp?client=safari https://www.google.co.nz/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/worl... http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/11/israeli-land-claims-archaeology-ideology-2013111113012956687.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/11/israeli-la...

YZF 10y ago
The Al-Jazeera article is reasonably balanced for Arab media though I would advise people reading it to understand that it does present the Palestinian viewpoint. Listen to both sides and make up your own mind. Some background on Silwan/Shiloach: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silwan By the way, putting aside the conflict, if you get a chance to go visit the tunnel ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siloam_tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siloam_tunnel ) I highly recommend it. It's an amazing feat of engineering going back thousands of years.

YZF 10y ago

I find it extremely hard to believe archeological artifacts would be destroyed in a dig in Israel. Israel has very strict laws regulating archeological digs. You can go to jail for 3 years for destroying archeological artifacts. Get your buddy to file a complaint?