(no title)
searine | 4 months ago
>1. Our top researchers are wasting their time and energy promoting projects for grants.
There are all kinds of scientists, some do the research, some do the writing, some do the grantsmanship. Getting money to fund an idea is not lesser than, it is often the hardest part. It takes understanding an communication skills to convince a panel of peer-experts that your ideas are good enough to give millions of dollars to.
> 2. Any attempt by the public to oversee or guide these grants is thwarted by smart people.
There is a tremendous amount of publicly available oversight at every step, including opportunity for public commentary.
Just because you personally don't know it exists, doesn't mean that it does not exist.
>3. If you try to learn more about where the money is going or what’s being counted as science people on HN will call it “anti-intellectual propoganda”.
Again. Its all public info. Its all publicly presented. If you ask, scientists will leap at the chance to tell you what they did and how they spent that money.
Please. PLEASE. I am begging you. Learn about a subject before forming an opinion about it.
monkeyelite|4 months ago
I actually lived it, so thanks for your understanding and consideration.
> Getting money to fund an idea is not lesser than, it is often the hardest part.
Difficulty is not value. Extremely talented people are doing arbitrary waste work!
And you’re right - promotors aren’t lesser. They are greater - more valued in academic job placement and promotion.
> There is a tremendous amount of publicly available oversight at every step,
Did you miss the prior comment? The existing oversight is ineffective. Researchers see it as a hoop to jump through.
> If you ask, scientists will leap at the chance to tell you what they did
Personal communication is not systematic public reporting.
Also professors tend to use a two job approach: stuff they like, and stuff that’s important for their career. Unless I attend a specialized conference I won’t hear about the latter, except in a form crafted for public reception. That’s the one that gets grants.
> Again. Its all public info. Its all publicly presented.
There is public info - but it’s a facade. It’s constructed with the goal of appeasing the public requirements.
> yes you are buying into (or actively promoting) anti-intellectualism.
Name calling.
searine|4 months ago
Grants are hard, not because of admin/paperwork, but because coming up with a novel idea is hard and convincing others to fund it is harder.
The people leading the grants are the ones creating and guiding the ideas. They set the agenda.
A tech CEO doesn't spend their days coding minor bug fixes, in the same way a PI doesn't spend their days doing lab work. They are leaders, who are occupied getting funding and setting the direction.
>Did you miss the comment we are replying to? The existing oversight is ineffective. It’s just a hoop for the professor to jump through.
It's not ineffective though, and an excess of PhDs is not a collapse, it is a boon.
>Personal communication is not systematic public reporting.
You have absolutely no clue how much public reporting is involved in grants. Just a complete ignorant comment right here.
>There is public info - but it’s a facade. It’s constructed with the goal of appeasing the public requirements.
Conspiracy bullshit. Take your meds.
>Also professors tend to use a two job approach: stuff they like, and stuff that’s important for their career.
Wrong. Every PI I know does the stuff they like, and they get it well funded, because they are the best in the world at what they do.
>I actually lived it, so thanks for your understanding and consideration.
You post about tech and programming and call yourself a "software engineer".
>yes you are buying into (or actively promoting) anti-intellectualism. >Name calling.
Good. You should feel ashamed for the way you are acting.
eli_gottlieb|4 months ago
All oversight is a hoop to jump through in a low-trust principal-agent system. Adding oversight bureaucracy partially helps in aligning the scientists to the public interests (after all, if they're working on something totally disconnected from funding goals, they won't get funded) but can never really increase public trust in the scientists or the grant-agency bureaucrats.