Tag: government

Science has a short-term memory problem

Posted on by Lone Candle

“In the US, basic science research, studying how the world works for the sake of expanding knowledge, is mostly funded by the federal government. The NIH funds the vast majority of biomedical research, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) funds other sciences, like astrophysics, geology, and genetics. The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) also funds some biomedical research, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funds technology development for the military, some of which finds uses in the civilian world, like the internet.
The grant application system worked well a few decades ago, when over half of submitted grants were funded. But today, we have more scientists — especially young ones — and less money, once inflation is taken into account. Getting a grant is harder than ever, scientists I spoke with said. What ends up happening is that principal investigators are forced to spend more of their time writing grant applications — which often take dozens of hours each — than actually doing the science they were trained for. Because funding is so competitive, applicants increasingly have to twist their research proposals to align with whoever will give them money. A lab interested in studying how cells communicate with each other, for example, may spin it as a study of cancer, heart disease, or depression to convince the NIH that its project is worth funding.

Federal agencies generally fund specific projects, and require scientists to provide regular progress updates. Some of the best science happens when experiments lead researchers in unexpected directions, but grantees generally need to stick with the specific aims listed in their application or risk having their funding taken away — even if the first few days of an experiment suggest things won’t go as planned.

This system leaves principal investigators constantly scrambling to plug holes in their patchwork of funding. In her first year as a tenure-track professor, Jennifer Garrison, now a reproductive longevity researcher at the Buck Institute, applied for 45 grants to get her lab off the ground. “I’m so highly trained and specialized,” she told me. “The fact that I spend the majority of my time on administrative paperwork is ridiculous.””

…

“The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has a funding model worth replicating. It is driven by a “people, not projects” philosophy, granting scientists many years worth of money, without tying them down to specific projects. Grantees continue working at their home institution, but they — along with their postdocs — become employees of HHMI, which pays their salary and benefits.

HHMI reportedly provides enough funding to operate a small- to medium-sized lab without requiring any extra grants. The idea is that if investigators are simply given enough money to do their jobs, they can redirect all their wasted grant application time toward actually doing science. It’s no coincidence that over 30 HHMI-funded scientists have won Nobel Prizes in the past 50 years.”

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/370681/science-research-grants-scientific-progress-academia-slow-funding

Democrats Unburdened by What They Have Done to Chicago

Posted on by Lone Candle

“As a direct result of one-party misrule (there are zero Republicans on the 50-seat City Council), Chicago’s tax base is decreasing, not increasing. The population has declined for nine consecutive years, is shrinking by an annual rate of 1 percent, and is at its lowest point in more than a century.
Illinois, where Democrats control the governorship and a two-thirds majority of the legislature, lost “an estimated $3.6 billion in income tax revenue in 2022 alone, a year the net loss of 87,000 residents subtracted $9.8 billion in adjusted gross income,” syndicated columnist and Illinois native George Will observed last week. “In the past six years, $47.5 billion [adjusted gross income] has left….Illinois leads the nation in net losses of households making 200,000 or more.”

None of these or other grisly Windy City stats—including the murders and the pension liabilities—are obscure. As Illinois Policy Institute Vice President Austin Berg put it Saturday night at a live taping of the Fifth Column podcast, “I believe Chicago is the greatest American city, and the worst-governed American city.””

https://reason.com/2024/08/19/democrats-unburdened-by-what-they-have-done-to-chicago/

Bangladesh’s prime minister just fled the country in a helicopter. Why?

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Hasina’s exit on an India-bound military helicopter came after crowds broke a curfew and stormed the prime minister’s residence in the capital Dhaka, following weeks of bloody protest.
The movement that ultimately toppled her started with students frustrated at their lack of job prospects and snowballed to include ordinary Bangladeshis facing increasingly tough economic conditions. But the jubilant scenes in the capital Dhaka come at great cost; around 300 people have been killed since the protests started in June, and the country’s future remains uncertain as a military-backed caretaker government steps in.

After a decade and a half in power, Hasina’s legacy is complicated. On the one hand, her government built modern infrastructure and improved development opportunities, especially for the poor. But she also increasingly cracked down on the press, as well as the opposition, and as time went on, many forms of dissent.

Army General Waker-uz-Zaman announced Monday that the military had taken control of the government; parliament is being dissolved, and the government is formulating a plan for fresh elections.

“The country is going through a revolutionary period,” Zaman said in a national television address. “We request you to have faith in the army of the country. Please don’t go back to the path of violence and please return to nonviolent and peaceful ways.”

Though a people-power movement has won a victory in driving Hasina out, the young democracy is entering a period of major uncertainty; indeed, what happens next for Bangladesh is anyone’s guess.”

https://www.vox.com/world-politics/365259/bangladesh-sheikh-hasina-awami-protests-bnp

With new national security legislation, China shows it will never loosen its grip on Hong Kong

Posted on by Lone Candle

“the government of Hong Kong published the latest of a series of increasingly draconian national security laws. This one will target espionage, treason, and foreign political interference, and those found guilty of violating some of its tenets could be sentenced to life imprisonment.
This might sound niche or even well-intentioned; doesn’t the US have its own fears about foreign political interference in its elections? But this isn’t really about national security. It is, as Human Rights Watch put it, “Beijing’s latest effort to transform Hong Kong from a free society to an oppressed one where people live in fear.”

That effort has been underway at varying speeds since Hong Kong was returned to Beijing’s control in 1997. It is now all but complete.

Despite complaints from foreign governments, from what remains of Hong Kong civil society, and even from the city’s increasingly beleaguered international business community, Hong Kong’s now opposition-less legislature will almost assuredly fast-track it into law.

For Hong Kong’s 7.4 million citizens, the multi-year fight to maintain some semblance of self-government and political rights is all but over.”

https://www.vox.com/2024/3/13/24098918/china-hong-kong-national-security-law-article-23

Record Low Turnout in Iran as Voters Lose Faith in Elections

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Iranians went to the polls…—or didn’t—for the first time since a women-led uprising against religious rule rocked the nation. Authorities reported a record-low turnout of 27 percent, even after they extended voting for an additional two hours, amidst widespread disillusionment and calls for an election boycott.
The country had suffered months of unrest following the death of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for not complying with the country’s mandatory hijab rule in September 2022. Although the streets have calmed down, it was the most significant challenge to the Islamic Republic yet.”

…

“Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has had a mix of democratic and theocratic institutions. Election turnout has rarely fallen below 50 percent and has sometimes reached as high as 70 percent. Iranian “leaders crave constantly high turnout as evidence of the people’s love of the revolution, but…loathe the results that high turnout always brings,” in the words of political scientist Shervin Malekzadeh.

Over the past few years, the government has dropped the pretense of caring. During protests in November 2019, authorities launched a crackdown that killed hundreds of people, then banned thousands of candidates from the February 2020 parliamentary election. A record low 42 percent of voters turned out that year, a result that the Iranian government blamed on coronavirus and “negative propaganda.”

Even Hassan Rouhani, who was President of Iran during the November 2019 crackdown, has been banned from running for office. He joins a long list of elected Iranian leaders who have outlived their usefulness to the system, including former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was in office during the 2009 protest wave and crackdown.

Ahmadinejad and Rouhani have both refashioned themselves as dissidents.”

https://reason.com/2024/03/01/record-low-turnout-in-iran-as-voters-lose-faith-in-elections/