4 ms·

You may want to spend less time reading anti-intellectual media and more time talking to people who actually do academic scientific research. There are many cha

by yodon 4y ago

You may want to spend less time reading anti-intellectual media and more time talking to people who actually do academic scientific research. There are many challenges in academic science, but it does a remarkably good job of not falling prey to the strawman risks you believe in. Corporate research is of course subject to the economic interests of the corporation. Academic research is not held back from publishing in the same way.

guhidalg 4y ago
Does it? I picked the first professor from MIT's CSAIL group (Hal Abelson), found their latest published paper (https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/irrodl/2022-v23-n1-irrodl06775/1086460ar/ https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/irrodl/2022-v23-n1-irrodl...) and found that they are funded by a Chinese governmental organization. Tell me how the research isn't being influenced by the needs and desires of the funder?
- yodon 4y ago
  MIT CSAIL is not hard up for funding, nor is Hal Abelson. They can choose who they want to take money from. Funding sources that restrain a researcher's ability to publish damage that researcher's ability to advance their own career. Many people here on HN have, for example, an irrational hatred and distrust of Microsoft. Microsoft Research, however is one of the biggest sources of computer science research funding in the world. If MSR funds you, they expect your work to result in publications and the primary factor in whether you get additional funding is whether your papers impact your field. Those characteristics make MSR funding highly desirable, precisely because it comes with no strings attached.
  - leephillips 4y ago
    “Many people here on HN have, for example, an irrational hatred and distrust of Microsoft”. Perhaps. Many people here on HN also have an entirely rational hatred and distrust of Microsoft. Some of those people are also capable of appreciating their support for research.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - 0des 4y ago
      > Many people here on HN also have an entirely rational hatred and distrust of Microsoft. Some of those people are also capable of appreciating their support for research. I am standing right here, you dont have to point.
- dekhn 4y ago
  Taiwan governmental organization (note, the coauthor who received the funding works in Taiwan). Details matter- Taiwan and China are two completely different entities.
  - guhidalg 4y ago
    I agree Taiwan and China are different entities, looking at the acknowledgement of the paper: "This study was supported in part by the Ministry of Science and Technology under contract numbers MOST 108-2511-H-003 -056 -MY3 and by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust". I read Hong Kong and assumed it was China.
chaps 4y ago
This is a laughably bad take, sorry. For example, the University of Chicago and its connected education institutions get a large portion of their funding by falling to the interests of the Chicago's mayor's office and the police department, which largely stems from rhetoric. They wouldn't be able to fund their projects if they didn't do that. Academic researchers can lose their funding if they, as individuals, publicly criticize certain organizations. In other words, "validate our political rhetoric with a smile, or lose your funding." It skews academic research, and these incentives exist practically everywhere.
- yodon 4y ago
  The University of Chicago is a private institution with a research budget of many billions of dollars per year. Given the extreme difficulty of believing the government of the city of Chicago provides even a tiny fraction of those billions of dollars in research funding, I'll have to ask you for citations or data to support those aspersions you're casting on the university and it's researchers. We live in a time when there are strong anti-intellectual threads and forces among some parts of the media. It's easy to cast aspersions against researchers. The fact that you've heard someone in the media say these things doesn't make the aspersions true.
  - chaps 4y ago
    The fact that you've heard someone in the media say these things doesn't make the aspersions true. Good one. I'm a journalist who's done extensive research on this exact subject in Chicago and have spent hundreds of hours spent looking through leaked documents, FOIA request documents, network graphs, etc etc. I'm not going to write a long post about the subject for you, but I can point you in the right direction if you're actually curious about diving into this. I hope you are, because you seem to be very resistant to even attempting to believe. A lot of it is hush-hush, mired in layers of obfuscation, but one of the better places to start is by looking into the funding of the University of Chicago's "Crime Lab" in connection with the Chicago Police Department's SDSC program. https://news.uchicago.edu/story/10-million-grant-will-support-crime-lab-collaboration-police-innovation https://news.uchicago.edu/story/10-million-grant-will-suppor... Leaked documents between the Chicago Mayor's office and executive staff at University of Chicago is a great resource as well. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20639065-re_-quiet-time-2-year-rct-results_26-07-2019pdf https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20639065-re_-quiet-t... https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20651206-re_-fundraising_21-09-2020_138pdf https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20651206-re_-fundrai... Do a search for "uchicago.org" here: https://www.documentcloud.org/app?q=%2Bproject%3Aemails-202859%20 https://www.documentcloud.org/app?q=%2Bproject%3Aemails-2028... And have a look at how often Chicago's worked directly with the Uchicago over the past 15 years: https://observablehq.com/d/22a60bb00bade634 https://observablehq.com/d/22a60bb00bade634 The funding organization that threatened to cut funding of a program after tweets were made can't be shared because they were deleted after they were bullied by their funders.

by yodon 4y ago

guhidalg 4y ago

Does it? I picked the first professor from MIT's CSAIL group (Hal Abelson), found their latest published paper (https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/irrodl/2022-v23-n1-irrodl06775/1086460ar/ https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/irrodl/2022-v23-n1-irrodl...) and found that they are funded by a Chinese governmental organization. Tell me how the research isn't being influenced by the needs and desires of the funder?

yodon 4y ago
MIT CSAIL is not hard up for funding, nor is Hal Abelson. They can choose who they want to take money from. Funding sources that restrain a researcher's ability to publish damage that researcher's ability to advance their own career. Many people here on HN have, for example, an irrational hatred and distrust of Microsoft. Microsoft Research, however is one of the biggest sources of computer science research funding in the world. If MSR funds you, they expect your work to result in publications and the primary factor in whether you get additional funding is whether your papers impact your field. Those characteristics make MSR funding highly desirable, precisely because it comes with no strings attached.
- leephillips 4y ago
  “Many people here on HN have, for example, an irrational hatred and distrust of Microsoft”. Perhaps. Many people here on HN also have an entirely rational hatred and distrust of Microsoft. Some of those people are also capable of appreciating their support for research.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - 0des 4y ago
    > Many people here on HN also have an entirely rational hatred and distrust of Microsoft. Some of those people are also capable of appreciating their support for research. I am standing right here, you dont have to point.
dekhn 4y ago
Taiwan governmental organization (note, the coauthor who received the funding works in Taiwan). Details matter- Taiwan and China are two completely different entities.
- guhidalg 4y ago
  I agree Taiwan and China are different entities, looking at the acknowledgement of the paper: "This study was supported in part by the Ministry of Science and Technology under contract numbers MOST 108-2511-H-003 -056 -MY3 and by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust". I read Hong Kong and assumed it was China.

chaps 4y ago

This is a laughably bad take, sorry. For example, the University of Chicago and its connected education institutions get a large portion of their funding by falling to the interests of the Chicago's mayor's office and the police department, which largely stems from rhetoric. They wouldn't be able to fund their projects if they didn't do that. Academic researchers can lose their funding if they, as individuals, publicly criticize certain organizations. In other words, "validate our political rhetoric with a smile, or lose your funding." It skews academic research, and these incentives exist practically everywhere.

yodon 4y ago
The University of Chicago is a private institution with a research budget of many billions of dollars per year. Given the extreme difficulty of believing the government of the city of Chicago provides even a tiny fraction of those billions of dollars in research funding, I'll have to ask you for citations or data to support those aspersions you're casting on the university and it's researchers. We live in a time when there are strong anti-intellectual threads and forces among some parts of the media. It's easy to cast aspersions against researchers. The fact that you've heard someone in the media say these things doesn't make the aspersions true.
- chaps 4y ago
  The fact that you've heard someone in the media say these things doesn't make the aspersions true. Good one. I'm a journalist who's done extensive research on this exact subject in Chicago and have spent hundreds of hours spent looking through leaked documents, FOIA request documents, network graphs, etc etc. I'm not going to write a long post about the subject for you, but I can point you in the right direction if you're actually curious about diving into this. I hope you are, because you seem to be very resistant to even attempting to believe. A lot of it is hush-hush, mired in layers of obfuscation, but one of the better places to start is by looking into the funding of the University of Chicago's "Crime Lab" in connection with the Chicago Police Department's SDSC program. https://news.uchicago.edu/story/10-million-grant-will-support-crime-lab-collaboration-police-innovation https://news.uchicago.edu/story/10-million-grant-will-suppor... Leaked documents between the Chicago Mayor's office and executive staff at University of Chicago is a great resource as well. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20639065-re_-quiet-time-2-year-rct-results_26-07-2019pdf https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20639065-re_-quiet-t... https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20651206-re_-fundraising_21-09-2020_138pdf https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20651206-re_-fundrai... Do a search for "uchicago.org" here: https://www.documentcloud.org/app?q=%2Bproject%3Aemails-202859%20 https://www.documentcloud.org/app?q=%2Bproject%3Aemails-2028... And have a look at how often Chicago's worked directly with the Uchicago over the past 15 years: https://observablehq.com/d/22a60bb00bade634 https://observablehq.com/d/22a60bb00bade634 The funding organization that threatened to cut funding of a program after tweets were made can't be shared because they were deleted after they were bullied by their funders.