> I wonder whether somebody from the opposing side can provide a reasonable logical explanation for the Musk/Trump actions.
i am not on trump's side (i hate trump; i am neutral on musk except these past few weeks i think he's said -- but not yet really done -- things that are a bit beyond the pale, even for him) but i think this will be positive for American science.
as i posted in sibling comment:
> to steelman the issue:
what if there was overinvestment in science? as in we chased money after talent that didnt exist, or was mismatched to the difficulty of the available and fundable open questions.
two things: you'd expect a lot of fraud and misallocated science to have been recently uncovered (Reproducibility crisis, amyloid hypothesis scandals e.g.).
after the cuts, you would expect the quantity of science to go down, but the quality to go up.
i guess technically this isn't a logocal explanation since i dont think trump is doing this in good faith but i think the US might be better off in the end.
im not arguing intent, I'm arguing effect. the effect depends on how bad the rot is. the existing system is so bad it seems incapable of self-policing (tessier-lavigne was exposed by an undergraduate journalism major, not a fellow scientist). maybe it's time to start over, any 'partial' solution will have a hell of a time figuring out who to cut and who to keep.
i am not on trump's side (i hate trump; i am neutral on musk except these past few weeks i think he's said -- but not yet really done -- things that are a bit beyond the pale, even for him) but i think this will be positive for American science.
as i posted in sibling comment:
> to steelman the issue: what if there was overinvestment in science? as in we chased money after talent that didnt exist, or was mismatched to the difficulty of the available and fundable open questions.
two things: you'd expect a lot of fraud and misallocated science to have been recently uncovered (Reproducibility crisis, amyloid hypothesis scandals e.g.).
after the cuts, you would expect the quantity of science to go down, but the quality to go up.
i guess technically this isn't a logocal explanation since i dont think trump is doing this in good faith but i think the US might be better off in the end.