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It's really contradictory that the party of less regulation are introducing more friction and bureaucracy in scientific research process. But then it's also the

It's really contradictory that the party of less regulation are introducing more friction and bureaucracy in scientific research process. But then it's also the party of anti-science so I can see why.

paulryanrogers 2y ago
They are also the anti-government party, so sabotage is another motivating factor.
tmountain 2y ago
It's only less regulation when it involves allowing big companies to do whatever they want. Rules for thee but not for me.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
beeforpork 2y ago
It is counter-contradictor measures. It is against nay-sayer people who research and find out stuff. Being smart will cost you, because it's not the goal. Less research, and lower levels of education equals more people to fall for simplistic solutions and promisses. The definition of truth is being redefined, and open-minded research and education is in the way of that. And it is always the same pattern.
mike_hearn 2y ago
It's not a contradiction: wanting a small state implies both wanting a low burden of regulation on the private sector specifically, and also wanting a great deal of care to be taken with how money is spent by the government. It isn't a general argument for allowing arbitrary levels of public sector fraud or waste, and it feels bad faith to conflate these two things as if one implies the other. Nobody in the history of politics has argued on principle for a state that has high taxes yet doesn't enforce any rules on how the money is spent. In this case, the administration believes a lot of the work the NSF funds isn't actually scientific. In that they are correct. The replication crisis has been rolling for 15 years now with no real improvements, largely because the people who distribute the money don't care if it gets used for things that are genuinely scientific or if it gets used for things that merely have the surface level appearance of being scientific. The NSF funds vast amounts of pseudo-science that can be trivially identified and people have been talking about these problems for years with no resolution. Apparently, they need some friction and bureaucracy as otherwise they won't do their jobs correctly. In a free market government intervention isn't required to solve this problem because free actors will just stop funding pseudo-scientific work after a while, but the NSF isn't running a free market, and so the problem just never gets solved. This article focuses on social science but talks a bit about the general problems at the NSF at the end, and although it was written in 2020 thus at the start of the Biden administration the proposals the author makes for fixes are basically what's happening right now: https://fantasticanachronism.com/2020/09/11/whats-wrong-with-social-science-and-how-to-fix-it/ https://fantasticanachronism.com/2020/09/11/whats-wrong-with... Nobody actually benefits from the present state of affairs, but you can't ask isolated individuals to sacrifice their careers for the "greater good": the only viable solutions are top-down, which means either the granting agencies or Congress (or, as Scott Alexander has suggested, a Science Czar). You need a power that sits above the system and has its own incentives in order: this approach has already had success with requirements for pre-registration and publication of clinical trials. Right now I believe the most valuable activity in metascience is not replication or open science initiatives but political lobbying ... An NSF/NIH inquisition that makes sure the published studies match the pre-registration (there's so much """"""""""QRP"""""""""" in this area you wouldn't believe). The SEC has the power to ban people from the financial industry—let's extend that model to academia.21 ... It is difficult to convey just how low the standards are. The marginal researcher is a hack and the marginal paper should not exist. There's a general lack of seriousness hanging over everything—if an undergrad cites a retracted paper in an essay, whatever; but if this is your life's work, surely you ought to treat the matter with some care and respect. Why is the Replication Markets project funded by the Department of Defense? If you look at the NSF's 2019 Performance Highlights, you'll find items such as "Foster a culture of inclusion through change management efforts" (Status: "Achieved") and "Inform applicants whether their proposals have been declined or recommended for funding in a timely manner" (Status: "Not Achieved"). Pusillanimous reports repeat tired clichés about "training", "transparency", and a "culture of openness" while downplaying the scale of the problem and ignoring the incentives. No serious actions have followed from their recommendations. It's not that they're trying and failing—they appear to be completely oblivious. We're talking about an organization with an 8 billion dollar budget that is responsible for a huge part of social science funding, and they can't manage to inform people that their grant was declined! These are the people we must depend on to fix everything.
- fn-mote 2y ago
  From the article: >> For academic scientists, the list of banned activities could include efforts to increase diversity in the scientific workforce, collaborations with foreign scientists, and research on more environmentally friendly technologies. These are not the "vast amounts of pseudo-science" that your comment refers to. I have nothing against the ideas suggested in the 2020 blog post that you cite... it's just that is not what is happening because of the executive order. The executive orders do not address bad science. So overall, I agree with most ideas in your comment but I do not think it is relevant to the current situation. The administration is not trying to fix bad science.
  - esalman 2y ago
    +1. I'd even say they are promoting bad science by putting up people like RFJ Jr for cabinet positions.
- esalman 2y ago
  Riddle me this, what has the Republican party done to alleviate replication crisis in scientific research?
  - mike_hearn 2y ago
    How about this move that we're discussing? Getting rid of openly ideological research grants will help the replication rate quite a bit, as that stuff is riddled with basic replication problems, much worse than the median paper. It's just too easy to take some grant money then publish something pseudo-scientific which sounds good to left wing ears, knowing that nobody will double check because they want it to be true. As an example, a lot of research into "misinformation" is like that. It's not replicable out of the gate because the papers don't describe their procedure for deciding whether a claim is true or false. They just present random lists of things that conservatives tend to believe, assert that none of them are true / they're conspiracy theories, then do a survey and use the results to conclude that conservatives are dumb / Russian bots. That's it, that's the entire field. There's no methodology, no theories, nothing to be refined or refuted. There are thousands of papers like this, it's astonishing to witness. I've been writing for years on the topic of bad science, and the fact that universities/granting bodies claim to care about science whilst simultaneously funding and celebrating this stuff is why their reputation has gone down the drain. The consequences were absolutely predictable. Nobody can claim they didn't see it coming. Right now, there's just a grant freeze combined with a review to find the really nakedly partisan DEI stuff. That's nothing. Much more intense stuff is well within the Overton Window of possibilities by this point, like ramped up prosecutions or large scale defunding.
rsynnott 2y ago
Less regulation for _companies_, more regulation for _people_.
- baggachipz 2y ago
  I was told that corporations are people, my friend.
  - ludwik 2y ago
    They are considered people only when it comes to rights, but not when it comes to restrictions and consequences.
easytiger 2y ago
It really shouldn't be easy for ideologues to spend other peoples money. There are entire parallel structures in government, academia and now in business not contributing one iota of effort towards whatever the directed goal of their organisations are principally for. https://new.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/dcl-social-behavioral-science-bias-prejudice-discrimination-bpd/nsf24-052 https://new.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/dcl-social-behavio...
ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
this is pretzel logic.

paulryanrogers 2y ago

They are also the anti-government party, so sabotage is another motivating factor.

tmountain 2y ago

It's only less regulation when it involves allowing big companies to do whatever they want. Rules for thee but not for me.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

beeforpork 2y ago

It is counter-contradictor measures. It is against nay-sayer people who research and find out stuff. Being smart will cost you, because it's not the goal. Less research, and lower levels of education equals more people to fall for simplistic solutions and promisses. The definition of truth is being redefined, and open-minded research and education is in the way of that. And it is always the same pattern.

mike_hearn 2y ago

It's not a contradiction: wanting a small state implies both wanting a low burden of regulation on the private sector specifically, and also wanting a great deal of care to be taken with how money is spent by the government. It isn't a general argument for allowing arbitrary levels of public sector fraud or waste, and it feels bad faith to conflate these two things as if one implies the other. Nobody in the history of politics has argued on principle for a state that has high taxes yet doesn't enforce any rules on how the money is spent. In this case, the administration believes a lot of the work the NSF funds isn't actually scientific. In that they are correct. The replication crisis has been rolling for 15 years now with no real improvements, largely because the people who distribute the money don't care if it gets used for things that are genuinely scientific or if it gets used for things that merely have the surface level appearance of being scientific. The NSF funds vast amounts of pseudo-science that can be trivially identified and people have been talking about these problems for years with no resolution. Apparently, they need some friction and bureaucracy as otherwise they won't do their jobs correctly. In a free market government intervention isn't required to solve this problem because free actors will just stop funding pseudo-scientific work after a while, but the NSF isn't running a free market, and so the problem just never gets solved. This article focuses on social science but talks a bit about the general problems at the NSF at the end, and although it was written in 2020 thus at the start of the Biden administration the proposals the author makes for fixes are basically what's happening right now: https://fantasticanachronism.com/2020/09/11/whats-wrong-with-social-science-and-how-to-fix-it/ https://fantasticanachronism.com/2020/09/11/whats-wrong-with... Nobody actually benefits from the present state of affairs, but you can't ask isolated individuals to sacrifice their careers for the "greater good": the only viable solutions are top-down, which means either the granting agencies or Congress (or, as Scott Alexander has suggested, a Science Czar). You need a power that sits above the system and has its own incentives in order: this approach has already had success with requirements for pre-registration and publication of clinical trials. Right now I believe the most valuable activity in metascience is not replication or open science initiatives but political lobbying ... An NSF/NIH inquisition that makes sure the published studies match the pre-registration (there's so much """"""""""QRP"""""""""" in this area you wouldn't believe). The SEC has the power to ban people from the financial industry—let's extend that model to academia.21 ... It is difficult to convey just how low the standards are. The marginal researcher is a hack and the marginal paper should not exist. There's a general lack of seriousness hanging over everything—if an undergrad cites a retracted paper in an essay, whatever; but if this is your life's work, surely you ought to treat the matter with some care and respect. Why is the Replication Markets project funded by the Department of Defense? If you look at the NSF's 2019 Performance Highlights, you'll find items such as "Foster a culture of inclusion through change management efforts" (Status: "Achieved") and "Inform applicants whether their proposals have been declined or recommended for funding in a timely manner" (Status: "Not Achieved"). Pusillanimous reports repeat tired clichés about "training", "transparency", and a "culture of openness" while downplaying the scale of the problem and ignoring the incentives. No serious actions have followed from their recommendations. It's not that they're trying and failing—they appear to be completely oblivious. We're talking about an organization with an 8 billion dollar budget that is responsible for a huge part of social science funding, and they can't manage to inform people that their grant was declined! These are the people we must depend on to fix everything.

fn-mote 2y ago
From the article: >> For academic scientists, the list of banned activities could include efforts to increase diversity in the scientific workforce, collaborations with foreign scientists, and research on more environmentally friendly technologies. These are not the "vast amounts of pseudo-science" that your comment refers to. I have nothing against the ideas suggested in the 2020 blog post that you cite... it's just that is not what is happening because of the executive order. The executive orders do not address bad science. So overall, I agree with most ideas in your comment but I do not think it is relevant to the current situation. The administration is not trying to fix bad science.
- esalman 2y ago
  +1. I'd even say they are promoting bad science by putting up people like RFJ Jr for cabinet positions.
esalman 2y ago
Riddle me this, what has the Republican party done to alleviate replication crisis in scientific research?
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  How about this move that we're discussing? Getting rid of openly ideological research grants will help the replication rate quite a bit, as that stuff is riddled with basic replication problems, much worse than the median paper. It's just too easy to take some grant money then publish something pseudo-scientific which sounds good to left wing ears, knowing that nobody will double check because they want it to be true. As an example, a lot of research into "misinformation" is like that. It's not replicable out of the gate because the papers don't describe their procedure for deciding whether a claim is true or false. They just present random lists of things that conservatives tend to believe, assert that none of them are true / they're conspiracy theories, then do a survey and use the results to conclude that conservatives are dumb / Russian bots. That's it, that's the entire field. There's no methodology, no theories, nothing to be refined or refuted. There are thousands of papers like this, it's astonishing to witness. I've been writing for years on the topic of bad science, and the fact that universities/granting bodies claim to care about science whilst simultaneously funding and celebrating this stuff is why their reputation has gone down the drain. The consequences were absolutely predictable. Nobody can claim they didn't see it coming. Right now, there's just a grant freeze combined with a review to find the really nakedly partisan DEI stuff. That's nothing. Much more intense stuff is well within the Overton Window of possibilities by this point, like ramped up prosecutions or large scale defunding.

rsynnott 2y ago

Less regulation for _companies_, more regulation for _people_.

baggachipz 2y ago
I was told that corporations are people, my friend.
- ludwik 2y ago
  They are considered people only when it comes to rights, but not when it comes to restrictions and consequences.

easytiger 2y ago

It really shouldn't be easy for ideologues to spend other peoples money. There are entire parallel structures in government, academia and now in business not contributing one iota of effort towards whatever the directed goal of their organisations are principally for. https://new.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/dcl-social-behavioral-science-bias-prejudice-discrimination-bpd/nsf24-052 https://new.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/dcl-social-behavio...

ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago

this is pretzel logic.