Posted this before & will post it again, but if you're the type of jackwad who voted for Trump/against Harris, for any reason, whether you think he's the Savior incarnate, JK rowling told you to because women's boxing, you listened to Joe Rogan/the Paul Bros, you wanted to send a message to Biden about Gaza, or you're the very special type of "burn it all down" snowflakes This **** is all on you - you suck
I'm sorry but you can't connect the two events in any way. This is a desperate reach -- likely from a deeply partisan person looking for attention.
You don't know anything. There isn't a branch of science, a scientist, or a drug that was made in this world that didn't have some gov't investment along the way from some country. The advancement of basic research has always been in the public domain. Why? Why? Because there is no ROI in it. Only a fool would invest in basic research to get a return. Your myopic focus on killing all things gov't has made you blind.
I heard a good podcast today about James Allison, nobel prize winning cancer researcher at MD Anderson - basically he is the OG of immunotherapy for cancer treatments that have lead to numerous breakthroughs. I looked him up in wikipedia and noted this: He was inspired by his eighth-grade math teacher to pursue a career in science, spending a summer in a National Science Foundation–funded summer science-training program at the University of Texas, Austin, and completing high-school biology by correspondence course at Alice High School.[12][13] That's just one bit, his whole career has been government fudned to some degree. Just shows how insane cutting off all NIH and NSF funding is, like ltierally if you want to destroy America and are anti-science, anti-biology, it's a thing you would do. Every single major scientific breakthrough in the US (and probably the world as well) has been reliant on government subsidization - name anything. Pharmaceuticals, LIGO, CERN, the internet, etc - i know these people are crazy and dumb, but it's extra crazy to me that these idiots who cosplay as "men of science" are canceling all of this "Because of woke" Just batshit insane. Can't say it enough.
the NIH "First" program is an example of something I suspect the Trump administration is trying to rein in: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ni...7?st=4WWVho&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink The NIH Sacrifices Scientific Rigor for DEI Its First program pushes institutions to hire medical researchers based on their ideological commitment. By John Sailer March 12, 2024 at 1:41 pm ET Thanks to a grant from the National Institutes of Health, Cornell University is able to support several professors in fields including genetics, computational biology and neurobiology. In its funding proposal, the university emphasizes a strange metric for evaluating hard scientists: Each applicant’s “statement on contribution to diversity” was to “receive significant weight in the evaluation.” It might seem counterintuitive to prioritize “diversity statements” while hiring neurobiologists—but not at the NIH. The agency for several years has pushed this practice across the country through its Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation program—First for short—which funds diversity-focused faculty hiring in the biomedical sciences. Through dozens of public-records requests, I have acquired thousands of pages of documents related to the program—grant proposals, emails, hiring rubrics and more. The information reveals how the NIH enforces an ideological agenda, prompting universities and medical schools to vet potential biomedical scientists for wrongthink regarding diversity. The First program requires all grant recipients to use “diversity statements” for their newly funded hires. Northwestern University suggests it will adapt a diversity-statement rubric created by the University of California, Berkeley. It isn’t alone. A year ago I acquired the rubrics used by the NIH First programs at the University of South Carolina and the University of New Mexico, which I discussed in these pages. Both used Berkeley’s rubric almost verbatim. That rubric penalizes job candidates for espousing colorblind equality and gives low scores to those who say they intend to “treat everyone the same.” It likewise docks candidates who express skepticism about the practice of dividing students and faculty into racially segregated “affinity groups.” These responses aren’t merely administrative; the requirements carry serious weight throughout the NIH First programs, often valued on par with conventional measures of academic excellence. The University of Alabama at Birmingham and Tuskegee University jointly received an NIH grant in 2021 to hire researchers studying cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The institutions noted in their proposal that “the statement of diversity will be heavily weighted during the selection process.” Other programs have sought to redefine excellence with an ideological gloss. As a part of its First program, San Diego State University required search committee members to attend an “equity-minded hiring” seminar. A handout for the program discusses redefining the concept of “merit” by incorporating such “equity-minded” indicators as an education in social justice and “experience acting as an equity advocate.” Another handout, an applicant screening tool, prompts hiring committees to assess whether scientists are “critically conscious,” that is, whether they have “the ability to speak with complexity” on DEI. The records underscore that scientists simply can’t get hired in the program without an outstanding DEI score. Northwestern’s grant progress report describes an evaluation rubric that equally weighs a “commitment to diversity” and research potential—a remarkable value judgment for a program focused on cancer, cardiovascular health and neuroscience. The priority is especially troubling given what DEI programs typically entail. The University of South Carolina promises to integrate critical race theory into its program’s design and to emulate activist public-health scholars in their “efforts to bring critical race theory to the forefront of society.” Others, like Drexel University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center, fully embrace the language of left-wing identity politics. “Our culture and climate,” Northwestern’s proposal confesses, “was founded on values and ideas of White, Eurocentric males and perpetuated by structures that enable continued marginalization of URG”—underrepresented group—“faculty.” The program promises to create “Safe Space Ambassadors” to host discussions on topics like “navigating intersectional workplace oppressions.” Lawmakers have begun to push back against DEI in general and diversity statements in particular. The University of North Carolina Board of Governors has effectively banned the use of such statements, as have legislators in Texas, Florida and Utah. Even liberal professors have argued that diversity statements amount to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. Yet with the NIH’s help, the policy persists in red and blue states. The University of New Mexico’s program, which focuses on neuroscience and data science, devotes a third of the points on its applicant screening rubric to criteria such as “DEI Knowledge” and “DEI Track Record.” Florida State University’s program, which has hired faculty in psychology and nursing, devotes 28% of its rubric to DEI. The latter example raises questions about compliance with anti-DEI laws. In June 2023, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation banning both diversity statements and DEI offices at state universities. That month the University of Texas at Dallas and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center received NIH First grants after declaring in their joint proposal: “Our goal is to become the public face of DEI for the Dallas metro area, and as a model for the nation.” The agency’s program wields influence even beyond the institutions it funds. Tufts University’s Provost Caroline Genco spearheaded an application for the NIH First program in 2021. Tufts evidently didn’t get the funding but has nevertheless announced a universitywide DEI-themed cluster hire, led in part by Ms. Genco. Ohio State University, the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School and the University of Cincinnati likewise applied for the program, didn’t receive funding, but pursued DEI-focused cohort hires anyway. The NIH First program matters because it supports biomedical researchers and thus biomedical science. In medical research, lives depend on putting excellence first. The NIH distorts that value, subordinating it to political ideology and endangering those it’s supposed to serve. Mr. Sailer is a senior fellow at the National Association of Scholars. Appeared in the March 13, 2024, print edition as 'The NIH Sacrifices Scientific Rigor for DEI'.
Aren't a lot of these "DEI" decisions based on analytical data that shows things like black women not being taken seriously with pain and discomfort when a non black woman is treating them? I think there actually is literal scientific rigorous studies on this.
I'm mixed on this. The author can claim the pursuit of excellence is being sacrificed, but its well documented that there are biases with health practitioners when it comes to black patients, such dismissing pain complaints with the blanket assumption that blacks generally have a higher threshold for pain when compared to other groups. This goes further into experimental drugs that might have different complications from white or even asian patients due to sampling bias of existing excellent experts. Otoh, I don't want overreach like trans cases where people just pretend the studies are well reasearched in breadth and depth and claim it's The Science because they themselves don't understand how it fits nicely with prevailing models. In a perfect world, we'd have more minority experts that reinforce and educate the common pool of knowledge so that studies doctors use on the ground are relevant and current for all types of patients. I'm more dismissive of dei now because we did give it a shot at the highest levels,but the people in charge did not feel accountable to show results or reasonable measures that indicated a higher benefit than the status quo. Marxist derived drivel is not what people want for results. Glorified racial cherry picking of First half cherokee half wakandan physiotherapist doesn't make american lives better as opposed to more physiotherapists people highly rate and are satisfied with. Pateints wont care about Best Place to Work with highest Work Life Balance if they have to wait half a year for a thirty minute consult that leads to another appointment in 2 months, These Thought Leaders just took some glorified consulting studies that more diversity made companies better and assumed more is better. That's pseudoscientific drivel and has no place in proper governance or academic circles.
I think diversity as a goal is to be applauded. I think what's problematic is (a) a program like "First" that needlessly complicates what NIH's primary mission is, and (b) requires things like "diversity statements," which are problematic in principle and subject to widespread abuse in practice.
I used to think that, but is that really true? What I think is best is diversity as a result of a color-blind, merit-based approach. If you define diversity as a goal, as well-intentioned as that may be, you open the door for prioritizing diversity over merit. That's exactly what has been happening. It ends up being divisive, racist and destructive, despite the good intention it initially started from.
There's an implicit assumption that racial diversity increases diversity of opinions, but those practices you mention are self selective in principle. It sounds nice to throw out the good ol boys club, unless the means employed happen to create another exclusive club by design. It seems like for academia, groupthink while brandishing job/career security are critical scructural problems to address. Is that accurate in your opinion?
I think diversity initiatives done well can unearth candidates that might otherwise go unnoticed or unrecruited. The problem in my experience is that managers who hire elevate "diversity" into a primary hiring criterion, usually under a mistaken impression that that is the institution's desired objective. yes, this is true. This is why dismantling "DEI" per se is probably a good thing, but it will need to be replaced with something better--something that cannot be screwed up so easily. yes
I think disadvantaged groups of the population should be supported more the younger the persons are who are being supported. The older people become, the more they should be judged based on merit. Concretely, I think that means a lot of scholarships and waived tuition for childcare and elementary school children, and perhaps also quotas, etc. And then gradually transition that to merit. Trying to create equality of opportunity, not of outcome. If you are a fully-grown adult and you rely on the color of your skin or your sexual orientation to gain an advantage over others professionally, then I don't think that's right.
I don't know that it is diversity of "opinions" that gets emphasized (in practice), because otherwise institutions would encourage viewpoint diversity. Which they never do, in my experience. I just think diversifying a workforce is very difficult to do correctly; and by correctly I mostly mean legally. yes. I also believe that higher education/academia has largely shot itself in the foot over the past 20-30 years, and ultimately deserves the scrutiny it is now receiving. I just wish there weren't so many politicians trying to make a name for themselves by beating up on academia. It would be much better if there were a more planned, sober scrutiny of what has gone wrong--in addition to what has gone right.
this relates to something I stated in another thread. Equality of opportunity is the ACTUAL goal of affirmative action--a laudable goal. Affirmative action got twisted (again, by well-meaning institutional actors) into something discriminatory and illegal.
