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I agree with the article that any global policies have to be very well-founded since they involve very large sums of money, but these research grants? It's pock

I agree with the article that any global policies have to be very well-founded since they involve very large sums of money, but these research grants? It's pocket change. My guess is that at the bottom of this there's actual data that shows worrying trends that the involved scientists think are important to continue doing research on, and that some of them fudged it, exaggerated a bit, and polished it a bit to make it easier to "sell" it to the politicians in charge of handing out the grant money. But that there's some sort of malicious conspiracy to fool then entire world that everything is going to hell? For what's practically pocket change that pays the salaries of a large group of scientists? No, that makes no sense. And what have they spent the research money on? Hookers and blow? Of course not, it's been spent on climate research and taking us closer to understanding what's happening and what, if anything, we can do about it. Spin-off effects of this is that money has been going into research projects for cleaner energy, more efficient energy use, alternatives to fossil fuel, and all these things are undeniably good. The media hype, that I could live without, and the Copenhagen Climate Conference is becoming I don't know what, but I hope that cooler heads prevail and that actual non-fudged data and science is used there, because there is of course a lot of that, just because the leak showed one instance of bad data, it doesn't mean that the entire thing is bad.

lionhearted 17y ago
> ...think are important to continue doing research on, and that some of them fudged it, exaggerated a bit, and polished it a bit to make it easier to "sell" it to the politicians in charge of handing out the grant money. This is precisely the kind of thinking that got the United States into the War in Iraq.
- Tichy 17y ago
  Isn't that how all politics are conducted? It would be non-trivial to come up with a better system, too.
yummyfajitas 17y ago
It might be pocket change to Google or J.P. Morgan. In the academic world, those are career making amounts. And big grants do give financial rewards to the PI. Say I get a $10 million grant; my university will take about $5 million off the top in "overhead" (to be spent on overpaid administrators, student stress counselors, the latino student center, and maybe even education). I turn to them and say "give me a 50% pay raise or I leave". The university then compares the cost of a 50% pay raise to half my grant, and gives me a 75% raise.
- dhyasama 17y ago
  Saying science grant money goes to latino student centers jumps out as odd. Where has this happened?
  - yummyfajitas 17y ago
    As I explained in my post, universities take about half of any grant given to them as "overhead". Sometimes it goes down, but rarely below 25%. The overhead is taken from the grant and put into the general fund of the university. The general fund of the university is used to pay for things like football coaches, the LGBT.* Formal Ball or rock concerts (note: these are all real examples). In theory, the overhead only pays for facilities and administrative services necessary to use the grant (e.g., rent and electricity for a lab). In practice, the overhead taken is vastly more than what such services actually cost.

lionhearted 17y ago

> ...think are important to continue doing research on, and that some of them fudged it, exaggerated a bit, and polished it a bit to make it easier to "sell" it to the politicians in charge of handing out the grant money. This is precisely the kind of thinking that got the United States into the War in Iraq.

Tichy 17y ago
Isn't that how all politics are conducted? It would be non-trivial to come up with a better system, too.

yummyfajitas 17y ago

It might be pocket change to Google or J.P. Morgan. In the academic world, those are career making amounts. And big grants do give financial rewards to the PI. Say I get a $10 million grant; my university will take about $5 million off the top in "overhead" (to be spent on overpaid administrators, student stress counselors, the latino student center, and maybe even education). I turn to them and say "give me a 50% pay raise or I leave". The university then compares the cost of a 50% pay raise to half my grant, and gives me a 75% raise.

dhyasama 17y ago
Saying science grant money goes to latino student centers jumps out as odd. Where has this happened?
- yummyfajitas 17y ago
  As I explained in my post, universities take about half of any grant given to them as "overhead". Sometimes it goes down, but rarely below 25%. The overhead is taken from the grant and put into the general fund of the university. The general fund of the university is used to pay for things like football coaches, the LGBT.* Formal Ball or rock concerts (note: these are all real examples). In theory, the overhead only pays for facilities and administrative services necessary to use the grant (e.g., rent and electricity for a lab). In practice, the overhead taken is vastly more than what such services actually cost.