Wow. This had been in the pipeline for a while, but I never got around to blogging about it. (First they came for…)
A couple of weeks before the deadline for new grant proposals in political science were due, the NSF has canceled the program, at least for this grant cycle. No explicit reason was given, but everyone knows why it happened. Back in March, Congress passed the Coburn Amendment to the Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013, which limits political science funding to research that “promotes national security or the economic interests of the United States.” That’s almost impossible standard to demonstrate, of course, so the NSF just canceled all of the funding, rather than invite endless Congressional hearings about this or that grant proposal. Annual NSF expenditures on political science amount to about $10 million, which is nothing on the scale of government budgets but an awful lot to the actual researchers.
(I don’t want to be needlessly partisan by suggesting that all Republicans in Congress are either dangerous demagogues or complete chowderheads. But Tom Coburn, R-OK, is a shining example of both.)
This is a disaster, and bodes very ill for the future. I certainly wouldn’t want to defend my own research as promoting national security or the US economy. Because, frankly, it doesn’t. Even Coburn isn’t going after physics (yet), but it’s not an unrealistic dystopian scenario to imagine that a criterion like that could be applied across the board to all federal support for science. Conservatives are already up in arms about biologists studying duck penises. (It’s pretty clear that someone working for the GOP has a Google alert that searches for the word “penis.”)
Meanwhile, the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, has just come out arguing against all public funding for science, full stop. I’m sure the free market will happily step in there and help us out with particle physics and cosmology.
I didn’t like John’s comment above. But I clicked “like” because I think people have got to face up to this attitude. Sadly it’s still hidden due to a low comment rating.
John: the problem isn’t with physics, or fundamental physics. It’s a people problem, wherein “science advances one funeral at a time”. Funding doesn’t need to be cut, the way it’s dished out needs to change, so that people can’t stand in the way of scientific progress. See this blog entry:
https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2013/07/29/talking-back-to-your-elders/
@John: @John Duffield has got a point. the problem ends up being people stoping science by giving physicists bazooka joe money, as I like to call it. You cant do s#*& with 25 cents just like physicists can do anything progressive with money thats given from funding, and that’s another point. Its blatant arrogance. Its like saying “Youre smart…build your fancy machine with a dollar and belly button lint.” Generally: Stoping science funding isnt going to do anything execpt turn back the clock in terms of all the progress scientists have made recently. And that’s a big thing. Frustration is understandable when you have people like Sean trying to find dark matter, but all these wonderful discoveries take a crap load of money to even invest time into finding. Stoping funding means no more science news for you, by the way. You end up just f@*&ing yourself if you care.
“I didn’t like John’s comment above. But I clicked “like” because I think people have got to face up to this attitude. Sadly it’s still hidden due to a low comment rating.”
@John Duffield: That’s an understandable stance and I agree with you for the simple reason that this is an attitude alot of people have that helps cut funding. Not enough people think it matters because physicists havent found anything mind-blowing or concrete yet. It helps disseminate the idea that we shouldn’t care even if we do. It happens to me sometimes. But no republican can stop me!
When the funding is gone you can all come and write software at about 30K per year
or teach Calculus and Algebra to undergrads at colleges.
See you there.
Pingback: Hard Scientists Should Care About the NSF’s PoliSci Woes | nontrivial problems
Pingback: Let’s Stop Using the Word “Scientism” | Sean Carroll