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They're pushing a 55% budget cut. There is absolutely no universe in which you can justify that with rhetoric around "DEI" science. This is going to cut very,

They're pushing a 55% budget cut. There is absolutely no universe in which you can justify that with rhetoric around "DEI" science. This is going to cut very, very deep into basic STEM / biomedical research. They're cancelling mRNA research, they're flagging research that uses words like "trauma" or studies how medications impact men and women differently. There's no sensible agenda behind all of this, it's just backlash and destruction done haphazardly. This is no different from the Department of Defense deleting the Tuskegee Airmen from the website because "DEI", except far far more consequential.

xhkkffbf 1y ago
[flagged]
- pinko 1y ago
  Nonsense. NSF awards are all public. If you could actually give enough examples of these "extremely large" awards to constitute 55% of the NSF budget you would have.
  - lokhura 1y ago
    Here you go https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/4BD2D522-2092-4246-91A5-58EEF99750BC https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/4BD2D522-2092... It's not 55%, it's more like 25% of the budget.
    - pinko 1y ago
      So after the first simple question, we're already at less than half the original claimed figure of 55% (a bad sign for its credibility, if you're a Bayesian!). But more importantly, I'm familiar with the linked document, and it's garbage. It was thrown together practically overnight to justify a political decision that had already been made, and in its incompetent haste, flagged proposals that had phrases like "diversity of sources" that had nothing to do with DEI and included them in the totals. Not a credible source.
      - lokhura 1y ago
        I'm not the one that made the original claim. The 25% is the government's figure. Whether some of it was classified incorrectly is up for debate. I haven't personally double checked every claim, but it is not hard to believe that money is being siphoned via those grants into DEI programs, and it is the government's position to not fund these programs anymore.
        pinko 1y ago
        Even the word "siphoned" is loaded with bias. Is research aimed at understanding why kids choose to participate in high-school science classes or not, and whether certain teaching approaches lead to better outcomes for boys vs girls, not legitimate NSF research? We can't make improvements to science education without that kind of data. That's not siphoning anything away from science -- it is science. Completely aside from the incompetent misidentification of which proposals have anything to do with race, gender, or sexuality (hint: it's a lot less than 25%), the staggeringly stupid premise that all of them are inherently politically-motivated is part of the problem here.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
        phonon 1y ago
        They literally categorized research as DEI ("Status") if it had the keywords "HISTORICALLY", "EXCLUSIVE", "INSTITUTIONAL", "STATUS", "BARRIER" and on and on...these are not serious people.
- MyOutfitIsVague 1y ago
  You don't have to "imagine" anything. Here's the 2025 budget request: https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00_NSF_FY25_CJ_Entire%20Rollup_web.pdf?VersionId=cbkdqD_UMweHEIsZwPjtVgcQRwMccgvu https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00_NSF_FY25_CJ_Entir... I'd be interested in discovering what the breakdown is, DEI vs non-DEI, but I wouldn't be surprised if this move was to censor climate change research, since this administration doesn't consider climate change to be real.
jjtheblunt 1y ago
could the 55% budget cut be a bureaucracy reduction, not a dei issue?
- notahacker 1y ago
  They're not spending 55% of their budget on unnecessary administration. Though ironically, having their ideological crusaders check every science paper that mentions the word "bias"[1] to check that it doesn't also mention minorities they wish to normalise bias against will probably increase the administrative overhead... [1]I think it's probably fair to assume that whoever concluded the word "bias" indicated a likelihood the paper was "woke" struggled with high school statistics and has never read an academic paper of any sort...
  - jjtheblunt 1y ago
    agreed: 55% seems high if a bureaucracy reduction, and agreed about paper checkers being overhead themselves.

xhkkffbf 1y ago

[flagged]

pinko 1y ago
Nonsense. NSF awards are all public. If you could actually give enough examples of these "extremely large" awards to constitute 55% of the NSF budget you would have.
- lokhura 1y ago
  Here you go https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/4BD2D522-2092-4246-91A5-58EEF99750BC https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/4BD2D522-2092... It's not 55%, it's more like 25% of the budget.
  - pinko 1y ago
    So after the first simple question, we're already at less than half the original claimed figure of 55% (a bad sign for its credibility, if you're a Bayesian!). But more importantly, I'm familiar with the linked document, and it's garbage. It was thrown together practically overnight to justify a political decision that had already been made, and in its incompetent haste, flagged proposals that had phrases like "diversity of sources" that had nothing to do with DEI and included them in the totals. Not a credible source.
    - lokhura 1y ago
      I'm not the one that made the original claim. The 25% is the government's figure. Whether some of it was classified incorrectly is up for debate. I haven't personally double checked every claim, but it is not hard to believe that money is being siphoned via those grants into DEI programs, and it is the government's position to not fund these programs anymore.
      - pinko 1y ago
        Even the word "siphoned" is loaded with bias. Is research aimed at understanding why kids choose to participate in high-school science classes or not, and whether certain teaching approaches lead to better outcomes for boys vs girls, not legitimate NSF research? We can't make improvements to science education without that kind of data. That's not siphoning anything away from science -- it is science. Completely aside from the incompetent misidentification of which proposals have anything to do with race, gender, or sexuality (hint: it's a lot less than 25%), the staggeringly stupid premise that all of them are inherently politically-motivated is part of the problem here.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - phonon 1y ago
        They literally categorized research as DEI ("Status") if it had the keywords "HISTORICALLY", "EXCLUSIVE", "INSTITUTIONAL", "STATUS", "BARRIER" and on and on...these are not serious people.
MyOutfitIsVague 1y ago
You don't have to "imagine" anything. Here's the 2025 budget request: https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00_NSF_FY25_CJ_Entire%20Rollup_web.pdf?VersionId=cbkdqD_UMweHEIsZwPjtVgcQRwMccgvu https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00_NSF_FY25_CJ_Entir... I'd be interested in discovering what the breakdown is, DEI vs non-DEI, but I wouldn't be surprised if this move was to censor climate change research, since this administration doesn't consider climate change to be real.

jjtheblunt 1y ago

could the 55% budget cut be a bureaucracy reduction, not a dei issue?

notahacker 1y ago
They're not spending 55% of their budget on unnecessary administration. Though ironically, having their ideological crusaders check every science paper that mentions the word "bias"[1] to check that it doesn't also mention minorities they wish to normalise bias against will probably increase the administrative overhead... [1]I think it's probably fair to assume that whoever concluded the word "bias" indicated a likelihood the paper was "woke" struggled with high school statistics and has never read an academic paper of any sort...
- jjtheblunt 1y ago
  agreed: 55% seems high if a bureaucracy reduction, and agreed about paper checkers being overhead themselves.