#sciencefunding

This is me in front of #JodrellBank's #LovellTelescope back in 2018. As far as I'm concerned the best thing we have ever managed to do as a species is to cooperate to do remarkably clever things none of us could manage alone, in the service of understanding more about the universe we find ourselves in. The fact we seem to be turning away from that as a culture and deciding the highest, most noble goal we could be persuing as a species is money making is heartbreaking. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y6r9rdxygo #ResearchFunding #ScienceFunding #UKRI

DAMN! I have never seen anything like this written in the journal Science. But I also have never seen an administration like President Palpatine's #ScienceFunding https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/assault-science-funding-continues

"The Trump administration hates academic science funding, full stop. They hate where that money goes, and they hate who it goes to. They want to keep all that money for themselves, to hand out to favored cronies who can help them get elected and to steer yet more money and more power back into their hands. That’s it. That’s the story. They are naturally not putting it in those words, but instead talking about “gold standard science” and the “reproducibility crisis” and funding “bold inquiry” for “transformational breakthroughs”. This is all bullshit, and it’s important to realize that. Shameless hand-waving bullshit, delivered in a how-dare-you-think-otherwise manner is the defining style of the entire Trump administration. You can see it in every appointee, in every part of the executive branch, and in the pronouncements of all of Trump’s supporters. I realize that this is a simple heuristic to apply, and a very unambiguous and unflattering one, but I find it to be all too useful and all too accurate. Give it a try." https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/assault-science-funding-continues #USA #Trump #MAGA #Science #ScienceFunding

'Now, this is all great news. But it all depends on funding, on donations and on goodwill. All this is running out. The work we (Genomics Aotearoa) did with kākāpō is now not possible, because the government has said that our funding should go to science that makes money. Saving remarkable species is off the table.' #kākāpō #Aotearoa #NZPol #Conservation #ScienceFunding #Science #Genomics https://peterkdearden.substack.com/p/on-kakapo