Is more science better than less science?

Is science like buying lotto tickets?

Another week of left wing science journals griping about budget cuts. I keep reading the same quotes. “Science under attack”. “Losing a generation of scientists.” Can we get some original hyperbole? NSF fellowships are being cut, as are grants with a focus on diversity, etc. Universities are holding meetings on how to #resist.

It's funny to me that the same people who happily consented to closing schools for poor kids for years, absolutely indifferent to their suffering, saying nothing, while simultaneously sending their kids to private school, have finally found an issue worth #resist ing: their government subsidized jobs.

Yet unspoken throughout all this is a series of assumptions:

1. All scientific work being done is scientifically credible

2. If 10 scientists can find 1 cure, 100 scientists will find 10 cures (science is like a lottery and each ticket has equal odds)

3. Diversity research helps poor, black and hispanic kids

4. The best use of taxpayer money are these grants. They are more valuable than other uses like improving nutrition in kids schools, etc.

5. It is totally ok to preferentially fund grants loaded with DEI buzzwords. It is totally wrong to preferentially cancel grants with DEI buzzwords

6. It is totalitarian for a new government to pressure universities to do what it wants.

I think the challenge is nearly all these assumptions are wrong. Let's take them in turn.

All scientific work being done is scientifically credible.

The majority of science is neither true nor useful. Much of this work— particularly on hot issues like DEI- is prima facie biased. They won't publish results that don't fit the narrative (see recent gender identity study NYTimes). The methods are flawed. And much of even apolitical basic science is entirely irreproducible. The product of a system with massive incentives to make tall claims and nearly no incentives to verify them. The research being cut is some of the lowest quality science. Worse, universities don't even attempt to verify their own labs. Labs rarely reproduce their own findings. It's a sea of bullshit and most are happy to look the other way.

If 10 scientists can find 1 cure, 100 scientists will find 10 cures (science is like a lottery and each ticket has equal odds)

We know nearly nothing about he relationship between scientists and discoveries. Many of the real discoveries are forced moves in design space, as the philosopher Dan Dennett would say. Meaning that within a short period of time, multiple groups will reach the same conclusion. E.g. crispr-cas9, sequencing the human genome, sequencing 1000 pts with AML and looking for recurring mutations. Very likely science is a lottery where in the beginning of funding, each ticket has greater odds of winning, and then with excess funding, tickets have diminished odds. We don't even know. Moreover, we train far too many phD students. They are used as indentured servants. Dulce et. decorum est. pro patia mori.

Diversity research helps poor, black and hispanic kids

To my knowledge there is no credible evidence that funding upper class and upper middle class academics to study diversity has helped poor black kids writ large. It has however given a lot of academics something to be smugly morally righteous about. It's like giving Generals more money to study the rations of soldiers and then watching the Generals get private drivers and chefs and the soldiers eat the same canned sardines.

The best use of taxpayer money are these grants. They are more valuable than other uses like improving nutrition in kids schools, etc.

Again, it is almost certainly not the case. Imagine a pipe has blown in my basement and it is filling with water. I could hire a plumber to fix it or an academic to study the problem. Obviously, remote, via zoom.

It is totally ok to preferentially fund grants loaded with DEI buzzwords. It is totally wrong to preferentially cancel grants with DEI buzzwords

This one I love. The Biden administration went so overboard with DEI. For a while everyone was told to find a way to tie their work to diversity. And, like sheep, most complied. And no one protested. Then we had an election and the shoe is on the other foot. Canceling a grant given and never funding one in the first place are treated very differently psychologically but practically they are similar.

It is totalitarian for a new government to pressure universities to do what it wants.

It is not. It's the consequence of elections. And if they did not take these actions: what would happen? Universities would slide further into mandatory DEI statements and training and pledges. Protesting would become the new most popular major. Faculty who voice different opinions would not just be pulled from teaching duties and stripped of teaching positions (as we saw during the pandemic), they would be forced to wear a sign “misinformation spreader, per MSNBC”. The only check and balance on universities is the public. And they are owed that right because as we see: Universities are a welfare program, so addicted to federal funds. The center point of the public and woke University is so far apart that a reset is needed. Even if it is painful to some, and, even if, it sometime misses.

Just like the pandemic, the media is totally wrong about what is going on today. They are in the “make sure you wipe down your packages” and “let's turn to Apoorva for school facts” stage of their coverage.