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The other thing they've done is make it possible to cancel any grant at any time if it goes against the politics of the current executive administration. Scien

The other thing they've done is make it possible to cancel any grant at any time if it goes against the politics of the current executive administration. Science has flourished in the US precisely because it could proceed without whimsical political picking and choosing, entire areas of science have flourished that would never have happened otherwise. That's not to say that politics is completely out of science, Congress has done things like ban any research money for gun safety, for example. But that had to make it through Congress, a vote across party lines, instead of just being the political whim of some bureaucrat that can cancel whatever they want whenever they want. For every issue you read about here on HN, there are about 10 other policy changes designed to destroy the US's scientific infrastructure. It doesn't get much attention because of all the other chaos going on, and scientists tend to be pretty quiet and try to stay apolitical, but it is truly a full-on crisis in the scientific research community right now. You won't see immediate effects, but in 10-20 years when China zooms ahead of the US on all research fronts and the US is left out of key technology and science directions, we will feel it then.

toomuchtodo 4mo ago
https://www.project2025.observer/ https://www.project2025.observer/
btown 4mo ago
And the non-cancellable nature of grants is not just a nice-to-have, it's absolutely critical for research with upfront capital costs (buying equipment, building labs, etc.) The very _fact_ that this is a policy is disrupting research, even if specific grants haven't been cancelled. Some universities are stepping in to backstop, but it's a powerful chilling effect.
- epistasis 4mo ago
  Some of the specific grants that have been cancelled are shocking in the negative effect they will have on the ecosystem. Cutting off Sean Eddy, a giant in DNA analysis, just baffles the mind: https://www.npr.org/2026/05/11/nx-s1-5807995/some-researchers-say-restored-federal-funding-is-too-little-too-late https://www.npr.org/2026/05/11/nx-s1-5807995/some-researcher... There's not even any political angle to pursue here, it is just lighting knowledge on fire with no grander purpose.
  - pvaldes 4mo ago
    Understandable, as DNA analysis takes all the fun from raping people without consequences, making it much more inconvenient to hide. Criminals from the entire planet hate DNA analysis with passion. War criminals and sex criminals specially.
  - vkou 4mo ago
    > There's not even any political angle to pursue here, it is just lighting knowledge on fire with no grander purpose. Fucking with people who are capable of reading and writing is the political angle. Pol Pot took this sort of logic a few steps further in Cambodia a few decades ago. MAGA, meanwhile, is only 'considering' suspending things like habeas corpus.
- Loquebantur 4mo ago
  People here are missing that they're not dismantling random things. There is a system to it, the objective of which is far more sinister than mere ideology. The sensors in question here are crucial to monitor the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). They don't want that monitored because it is currently breaking down. Not some arbitrary far away time, now. The science of this gets astroturfed into some nonsense "we don't really know". We do. But conveniently, now the data to show this to the incredulous won't exist.
  - smackeyacky 4mo ago
    When did evidence ever change the minds of the incredulous? The whole debate has become so polluted by the forces who want no action on climate change we can’t even use the original description any more.
panny 4mo ago
[flagged]
- enragedcacti 4mo ago
  Call me crazy, but I think climate scientists can enumerate major carbon sources and sinks. Unfortunately your comment is so vague that I can't tell if you're referring to a specific thing some person said or if you're just imagining a guy to be mad at.
  - panny 4mo ago
    >I think climate scientists can enumerate major carbon sources and sinks Science has no idea where 2-3 gigatons of carbon go every year. That's a BIG number. And it is a big deal. And it has been missing for decades now. All the time you were calling someone a science denier, you've been completely unaware that you can't even account for all the major carbon sources/sinks. https://www2.nau.edu/~gaud/bio326/class/ecosyst/whrcmissc.htm https://www2.nau.edu/~gaud/bio326/class/ecosyst/whrcmissc.ht... https://bioticregulation.substack.com/p/new-global-carbon-data-revives-the https://bioticregulation.substack.com/p/new-global-carbon-da...
    - jandrewrogers 4mo ago
      > Science has no idea where 2-3 gigatons of carbon go every year. That's a BIG number. That's a big number and a small percentage. The latter is what matters.
      - panny 4mo ago
        It's the same order of magnitude as all cars on the road. Not such a big deal huh? Let me ask you this. Do you own a car? I don't. I take the train. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1185535/transport-carbon-dioxide-emissions-breakdown/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1185535/transport-carbon... Look at that, I'm the 1%. What are you doing personally about the climate? I bet you own an air conditioner too. I bet you don't carry 20-30 pounds of groceries a mile every two to three days, do you? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48543350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48543350 I bet you don't have a four year degree on the subject either, do you? When was the last time you purchased gasoline? For me it was over a year ago when I had to rent a car for one day. Go ahead, call me a science denier. I know you want to. You can just absolve yourself of all your carbon footprint by being self righteous about it, can't you?
saalweachter 4mo ago
A professor I worked for in college was a big fan of how the US funding was fragmented, with some coming from the NSF, some from NIH, Energy Ag, each branch of the military... if one department had a loon in charge, the others would keep things running smoothly.
- epistasis 4mo ago
  Yeah, that was one massive benefit of the fragmentation of scientific funding, just like how in the private sector there's a great diversity of funders, of employers, etc. etc. etc. All that's now been reduced to a single kill switch at the very top, and they're trying to change all the non-political positions into political appointees so that they have control not only with a veto at the top, but control of every single decision along the entire way, without any of that pesky scientific merit getting in the way.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
Duwensatzaj 4mo ago
>Science has flourished in the US precisely because it could proceed without whimsical political picking and choosing Please don't take this as a defense of the Trump administration pulling these ocean sensors, but the previous administration also had political demands on grants. One of the better articles about this I've found is "Politicizing science funding undermines public trust in science, academic freedom, and the unbiased generation of knowledge" - https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/research-metrics-and-analytics/articles/10.3389/frma.2024.1418065/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/research-metrics-and-an... This ended up getting grants cancelled because they'd throw in a line so the DEI checkbox would get checked, and then Cruz went through with a hacksaw and cancelled the grant for it, as Scott Alexander found - https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/only-about-40-of-the-cruz-woke-science https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/only-about-40-of-the-cruz-w...
- dragant 4mo ago
  This is a good point but its apple vs oranges. This administration is literally politicizing and destroying science funding.
  - Duwensatzaj 4mo ago
    Agreed on the second part, it's pretty terrible. Just absolutely wasteful, and the proposed centralization of research funding is the wrong direction. Disagree on the first. It wasn't as crude, but the politicization was absolutely there.

toomuchtodo 4mo ago

https://www.project2025.observer/ https://www.project2025.observer/

btown 4mo ago

And the non-cancellable nature of grants is not just a nice-to-have, it's absolutely critical for research with upfront capital costs (buying equipment, building labs, etc.) The very _fact_ that this is a policy is disrupting research, even if specific grants haven't been cancelled. Some universities are stepping in to backstop, but it's a powerful chilling effect.

epistasis 4mo ago
Some of the specific grants that have been cancelled are shocking in the negative effect they will have on the ecosystem. Cutting off Sean Eddy, a giant in DNA analysis, just baffles the mind: https://www.npr.org/2026/05/11/nx-s1-5807995/some-researchers-say-restored-federal-funding-is-too-little-too-late https://www.npr.org/2026/05/11/nx-s1-5807995/some-researcher... There's not even any political angle to pursue here, it is just lighting knowledge on fire with no grander purpose.
- pvaldes 4mo ago
  Understandable, as DNA analysis takes all the fun from raping people without consequences, making it much more inconvenient to hide. Criminals from the entire planet hate DNA analysis with passion. War criminals and sex criminals specially.
- vkou 4mo ago
  > There's not even any political angle to pursue here, it is just lighting knowledge on fire with no grander purpose. Fucking with people who are capable of reading and writing is the political angle. Pol Pot took this sort of logic a few steps further in Cambodia a few decades ago. MAGA, meanwhile, is only 'considering' suspending things like habeas corpus.
Loquebantur 4mo ago
People here are missing that they're not dismantling random things. There is a system to it, the objective of which is far more sinister than mere ideology. The sensors in question here are crucial to monitor the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). They don't want that monitored because it is currently breaking down. Not some arbitrary far away time, now. The science of this gets astroturfed into some nonsense "we don't really know". We do. But conveniently, now the data to show this to the incredulous won't exist.
- smackeyacky 4mo ago
  When did evidence ever change the minds of the incredulous? The whole debate has become so polluted by the forces who want no action on climate change we can’t even use the original description any more.

panny 4mo ago

[flagged]

enragedcacti 4mo ago
Call me crazy, but I think climate scientists can enumerate major carbon sources and sinks. Unfortunately your comment is so vague that I can't tell if you're referring to a specific thing some person said or if you're just imagining a guy to be mad at.
- panny 4mo ago
  >I think climate scientists can enumerate major carbon sources and sinks Science has no idea where 2-3 gigatons of carbon go every year. That's a BIG number. And it is a big deal. And it has been missing for decades now. All the time you were calling someone a science denier, you've been completely unaware that you can't even account for all the major carbon sources/sinks. https://www2.nau.edu/~gaud/bio326/class/ecosyst/whrcmissc.htm https://www2.nau.edu/~gaud/bio326/class/ecosyst/whrcmissc.ht... https://bioticregulation.substack.com/p/new-global-carbon-data-revives-the https://bioticregulation.substack.com/p/new-global-carbon-da...
  - jandrewrogers 4mo ago
    > Science has no idea where 2-3 gigatons of carbon go every year. That's a BIG number. That's a big number and a small percentage. The latter is what matters.
    - panny 4mo ago
      It's the same order of magnitude as all cars on the road. Not such a big deal huh? Let me ask you this. Do you own a car? I don't. I take the train. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1185535/transport-carbon-dioxide-emissions-breakdown/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1185535/transport-carbon... Look at that, I'm the 1%. What are you doing personally about the climate? I bet you own an air conditioner too. I bet you don't carry 20-30 pounds of groceries a mile every two to three days, do you? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48543350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48543350 I bet you don't have a four year degree on the subject either, do you? When was the last time you purchased gasoline? For me it was over a year ago when I had to rent a car for one day. Go ahead, call me a science denier. I know you want to. You can just absolve yourself of all your carbon footprint by being self righteous about it, can't you?

saalweachter 4mo ago

A professor I worked for in college was a big fan of how the US funding was fragmented, with some coming from the NSF, some from NIH, Energy Ag, each branch of the military... if one department had a loon in charge, the others would keep things running smoothly.

epistasis 4mo ago
Yeah, that was one massive benefit of the fragmentation of scientific funding, just like how in the private sector there's a great diversity of funders, of employers, etc. etc. etc. All that's now been reduced to a single kill switch at the very top, and they're trying to change all the non-political positions into political appointees so that they have control not only with a veto at the top, but control of every single decision along the entire way, without any of that pesky scientific merit getting in the way.
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]

Duwensatzaj 4mo ago

>Science has flourished in the US precisely because it could proceed without whimsical political picking and choosing Please don't take this as a defense of the Trump administration pulling these ocean sensors, but the previous administration also had political demands on grants. One of the better articles about this I've found is "Politicizing science funding undermines public trust in science, academic freedom, and the unbiased generation of knowledge" - https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/research-metrics-and-analytics/articles/10.3389/frma.2024.1418065/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/research-metrics-and-an... This ended up getting grants cancelled because they'd throw in a line so the DEI checkbox would get checked, and then Cruz went through with a hacksaw and cancelled the grant for it, as Scott Alexander found - https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/only-about-40-of-the-cruz-woke-science https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/only-about-40-of-the-cruz-w...

dragant 4mo ago
This is a good point but its apple vs oranges. This administration is literally politicizing and destroying science funding.
- Duwensatzaj 4mo ago
  Agreed on the second part, it's pretty terrible. Just absolutely wasteful, and the proposed centralization of research funding is the wrong direction. Disagree on the first. It wasn't as crude, but the politicization was absolutely there.