Economic Stimulus Funds Went to Climategate Scientist | Hacker News Reader

Economic Stimulus Funds Went to Climategate Scientist

nationalcenter.org

8 pointsBearOfNH9 comments

Sort of ironic; a "conservative think-tank" pushes a political agenda in condemning a scientist who is suspected of pushing a political agenda.

It may be true that the funds shouldn't have gone to him.

This press release isn't really helping its cause with its incredibly biased and politically driven tone.

A simple timeline would be nice. If for instance, funds were given to the shady guy before it was known he was shady... it is not the same type of scandal as if it was the other way around.

Edit: I decided to look into this situataion. Here is the basic timeline:

0. Climate researcher becomes athority on "global warming", the science is assumed OK by most scientists. (This turns out to be false but this is not yet known)

1. June 2009: Grant awarded to climate researcher in good standing.

2. November 2009: Climategate hack occurs

3. December 2009: Climategate scandle breaks

4. January 2010: Somehow mass hysteria breaks out over #1 alleging the funds were awarded in spite of revelations from #2 and #3.

Seems to me there is a deliberate attempt to confuse the order of events. Or worse, accuse the people in charge of being active conspirators in the climategate thing.

This is pretty silly. Half a mil went to fund the research of a climate scientist who happens to be under investigation?

Grab the bill ("American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009") and start paging through for fun stuff.

NOAA gets $230 million. NIST gets $220 million.

And then we have

"DIGITAL-TO-ANALOG CONVERTER BOX PROGRAM For an amount for "Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Program", $650,000,000, for additional coupons and related activities under the program implemented under section 3005 of the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005"

That's right, more than half a billion dollars to make sure nobody misses any TV. And that's just page 15.

Yeah, but none of those are political hot buttons. Outrage!! Liberals!! Arrghhhhh!!!111

Federal funds are often disbursed to researchers. What is disturbing here is that Economic Stimulus funds were spent on a climate researcher who was already employed. There's no stimulation in this "stimulus".

FTA: "It's shocking that taxpayer money is being used to support a researcher who seemingly showed little regard to the basic tenets of science - a dispassionate search for the truth," said Tom Borelli.

I don't think you understand what "stimulus" means, or how it works. It's not and was never intended solely to go to unemployment benefits. Handing cash to an organization (say, a science lab) that it then spends (to, say, do flawed or fraudulent research) produces economic activity (say, buying computers) that benefits the economy as a whole. So at the end of the day there are fewer jobs lost in total.

There certainly isn't an "is the organization already solvent" test for stimulus cash; and to add one would be silly and self-defeating. Really, it doesn't matter where the money goes as long as it's spent. All spending is stimulatory. The biggest problem with the stimulus bill was actually finding "public good" projects (i.e. ones that don't look like pork) that can spend the money fast enough.

The biggest problem with the stimulus bill was actually finding "public good" projects (i.e. ones that don't look like pork) that can spend the money fast enough.

The biggest problem with the stimulus bill is that it passed.

Please don't try to make what are very complicated macroeconomic points (there are some valid arguments against Keynesian stimulus, but I'm all but certain you've never heard of them) with trite one-liners you probably heard on FOX News. It cheapens the site.

"Federal funds are often disbursed to researchers. What is disturbing here is that Economic Stimulus funds were spent on a climate researcher who was already employed. There's no stimulation in this "stimulus"."

Sure that guy was employed. But assuming his corner of academia works like the rest of academia there are a lot of other people who are now not unemployed. See researchers (Ph.D's) are more like project managers. They hire grad students, interns, staff, etc to do the actual work. The phds just just supervise, put their names on papers, etc.

Now, when this grant was awarded the researcher probably had a secure job. All the people I just mentioned however, were subject to cutbacks. Further depending on specifics, a job or two may have been created.

For a similar thing I know of first hand, we were awarded a grant out of stimulus money. I got to keep my job. Several grad students got to keep their appointments (and not require student loans). We may be hiring a staff member or two. The official PI (principle investigators) on the grant all have tenure. I don't know how you count "works", but a job saved is about the same as creating a different job instead by my reckoning.

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