The Continuing Crisis, Part IX: Inside the NIH Now
science.org
science.org
To that end, I believe that this is the time to invest in the US biotechnology ecosystem so that we remain competitive with China. The ongoing crisis at the NIH is antithetical to this goal, as Derek Lowe's blog posts describe.
[1] https://centuryofbio.com/p/commoditization [2] https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/the-drug-industry-is-havin...
I also reject the notion that progress is a zero-sum game, that we have to "compete" at all, that there needs to be a winner and a loser here. We could just as well work with others to improve the lives of us and our communities. Why isn't the notion "cooperate with China to uplift all"? Perhaps releasing your models under a MIT license is actually the right move here that is in everyone's best interest, perhaps the US should be following their lead?
Is it a slippery slope argument with apocalypse war at the end of it? Or something else?
Science underpins technology, people.
If you want to see the US rapidly lose its place in the tech world over the next decade, this is a great way to go about it.
The problem is what can be done? The usual arrangement of letter writing or donating and voting is just more of the same cycle.
I'm not by any means in favor of what's going on, but some steam has to be let out of the system. And the real problem is trust in our institutions. What can be done about that?
I have my causes to which I devote great time and personal effort, but if I stopped my life for every minor disaster I would spend my life shaking my fist at my computer.
I quite like my life and I don’t intend to spend it getting rage baited by never-ending news cycles.
Give me an action to take, not an emotion to feel.
What this means to you personally and other tech workers is that many of the well-paying tech jobs will be going elsewhere.
Like, it can ALWAYS be worse.
That's not what is currently happening. It's not a minor disaster. It's something we'll take generations to recover from, if ever.
We can't do much, individually. Find people in your community working on stuff you care about and get out there and pitch in. Get involved. Make sure your local school district isn't banning books or being cruel to trans kids. Make sure you have good city councilors.
A friend of mine made this in the area where I live: https://deschutesgrassroots.com/
That is incredibly charitable. Kudos, I guess, but not at all in line with what I’ve seen.
It's an issue of tradeoffs, and the tradeoffs were never clearly articulated even to me the most staunch supporter of foreign aid. We've just accepted it and all such programs because we can see, because we trust, that the analysis was done and is valid.
Government does not currently have that level of trust with half the country, and worse has active distrust.
We the liberal elite grew up with institutions making these kinds of decisions and we trust it to a certain extent.
There's a trust gap. Even the staunchest republican I know will gladly volunteer to help their local community for the most part. That's their priority.
It's hard to understand your adversary when you have so much contempt for them.
Then you can’t win an information war, when it’s free speech, and counter speech is too complicated.
On the other hand - you sure as hell can convert the blitz into trench warfare, and gum up the war machine.
Instead the whole country funds programs that half of them don't trust, regardless of who is in charge.
It's a really interesting phenomenon. And I'm kind of surprised the community allows it.
Not discussing and/or allowing bots to overrun any such discussion and drown out dissent has never in the history of man left to immediately better times in STEM.
It's sure hard to ignore. IDK, maybe some enterprising person should start a "hackers for democracy" web site where we can share ideas or something.
This is already happening. I'm finding myself visiting the site less and less and enjoying my time here less and less because every single thread is getting hijacked by people who just want to talk politics.
That I largely agree with the general mood is exactly the problem: I don't need HN to work me up into even greater despair, I come here to engage my mind on useful things and talk about complex ideas with interesting people. But the interesting people are increasingly retreating from the nonstop anger cycle that's been feeding this site's engagement this year.
We can't talk about science anymore because all the people working on it are worried about their jobs and lives instead of... well... doing science.
I appreciate wanting to come on HN and read about all the cool science-related articles without being troubled by politics too much. That stuff is weighty. It's nice to to just chill out and learn about cool things.
But we can't have those nice things anymore. Because faculty meetings are now spent talking about which words researchers have to avoid in our proposals because we don't want to be rejected by the government censors.
We used to talk about the cool things we would do for our students and our research plans. But now we are more worried about if we're even going to have jobs in 12 months. We are worried about our already-allocated funds being pulled.
We aren't talking about science anymore, because we have to talk about how to avoid being the next "transgender mice". We are dodging death threats if we trend on social media. We are losing our jobs. We are being detained at airports and denied entry to the US for holding anti Trump views. We are being deported from the country.
So I think your read on the situation is off; the interesting people are not retreating from nonstop anger cycles, they are under attack and not engaging in their typical behavior you find interesting. Instead of disengaging entirely, they need your support, so they can get back to doing cool things you find interesting.
HN is dying, and it's not dying to Trump. It's dying to the undirected rage that has infused every subthread, and that is something that's within our control even if Trump and his actions aren't. It's not useful, it's just an emotional drain that serves to further exhaust those who are best positioned to help and further polarize an already dangerously polarized world.
When you see the corruption allowing, greedy tax obsessed Republican, when you see their true face, it's the greatest rallying call for a blowout midterms.
Just cut the tall grass to see the critters in the field.
Something has shifted dramatically in the discourse the last two months, and HN isn't working the way it used to.
I think one thing that has shifted dramatically in the last two months is that it's become clear many people who had a more moderated outlook on the current administration have turned out to be flat wrong about who these people are and what their intended course of action is. A "mask drop" moment. That's going to cause people to disengage, stick their hands, and even become irrationally angry.
Nonetheless I find this is still a place where you can talk to people on the "other side" in a rational way.
Too late, unless DOGE is stopped now and Trump is impeached, the US will lose its lead in tech and health (pharma) and many other industries. Pure and simple. Already the smartest of the smart are leaving the US for Europe and probably China.
If this is allowed to continue, in 6 months to a year, the US will be isolated and a third rate economy. All it will have is a first class war machine, which will not bode well for the world.
And that won't last for much longer after losing those other sectors, either, as military dominance is a function of economic and technological superiority.
This whole topic has been done to death on HN, and this post doesn't contribute much that hasn't already been discussed extensively. Science underpins technology, but we've had 2-3 DOGE-related topics pinned to the front page at a time nonstop since the inauguration and the subject is bleeding incessantly into every other submission on the site.
Rest assured you'll have another 500+ comment rage fest in the near future, probably this week. This one just doesn't have enough going to feed the rage spiral—it's pretty blase compared to the dosage we've worked ourselves up to.
It’s not just defunding childhood cancer research, but also dismantling the very idea of agency in the broader society. Science and basic research are worth pursuing. And the cost is a pittance.
https://worrydream.com/2017-12-30-alan/
“As I pointed out in a previous email, Engelbart couldn't get funding from the very people who made fortunes from his inventions.
“It strikes me that many of the tech billionaires have already gotten their "upside" many times over from people like Engelbart and other researchers who were supported by ARPA, Parc, ONR, etc. Why would they insist on more upside, and that their money should be an "investment"? That isn't how the great inventions and fundamental technologies were created that eventually gave rise to the wealth that they tapped into after the fact.
“It would be really worth the while of people who do want to make money -- they think in terms of millions and billions -- to understand how the trillions -- those 3 and 4 extra zeros came about that they have tapped into. And to support that process.”
Saying “we have to fund science” is a sentiment which is synonymous with saying “we have to fund good research projects that help society”.
Which important efforts are we losing? Or which are essential to keep?
If a research topic is obviously valuable, the industry is probably already working on it. Academic research mostly deals with topics where the benefits are too unpredictable or too far in the future to make sense for the industry. But many of those topics eventually become valuable – you just don't know in advance which ones.
> you just don't know in advance which ones.
at the limit, this sounds like “you can’t question what’s good science because it’s unknowable, but it’s also a moral imperative to fund” which leads back to my original question. If that’s true, which projects and fields get to forgoe scrutiny in hopes of paying off?
Shouldn’t we be asking a similar question? Which research projects are going to deliver insight and value for the public?
That doesn’t mean every project needs to be perfect from the start, but it does mean a lot of what’s called science now is not included.
Writing a grant application typically takes weeks of full time work, split between the prospective PI, their collaborators and trainees, and administrators. When the funding agency receives the application, there is administrative vetting to ensure that the application meets all formal requirements. Then there is vetting by internal and external experts, who evaluate the application for both scientific merit and whatever other values politicians happen to prioritize at the moment. If it looks like that the grant will be awarded (typical success rates are 20-25%), there is further administrative vetting to ensure compliance with various regulations. And this entire process typically takes anything from a year to a year and a half.
If anything, the process is inefficient, because there is too much vetting. Especially considering how small the individual grants are.
Yes, we’ve always done that - and quite extensively. I would recommend learning more about this process: it’s run by people who care deeply about scientific progress - nobody gets into it for the low pay - and if there seems to be a simple improvement, the odds are high that someone made it in the previous century.
I have a number of friends and family members who are academics and they spend a lot of time on each grant explaining how their research will advance our scientific understanding and linking it to other benefits (e.g. low-level neuroscience isn’t going to lead to new medical treatments directly but it provides the foundational knowledge which those treatments are based on).
Echoing the peer comment, if you were to pick any flaw it’s that we probably spend too much money on betting relative to the savings. There’s a lot of good research which doesn’t get funded, so it’s not hard to fill your budget every year with qualified proposals.
> they spend a lot of time on each grant explaining how their research will advance our scientific understanding and linking it to other benefits
Do those come true? Or is this just an exercise in diligence.
> I would recommend learning more about this process
You’re right. I should learn more. I really want to understand.
Then there’s this weirdly pervasive (on the political right) attack on researchers that supposes they’re all just out for funding, damn the actual science. Is that a reflection of your values, projected on people you don’t know? Is it in actual, widespread evidence? Are you just begging the question for fun?
These are basically nonsensical objections that, I’m guessing, have no basis in reality as no evidence is given. There are a whole lot of listed studies available - it seems like it would be easy to find examples of things that shouldn’t be funded.
No. I’m saying just because things had unforeseen value in the past does not mean we should not scrutinize which projects we fund.
In other words, having bad prospects for utility or success is not a virtue.
The limit of that argument is that anything and everything deserves funding because it might be useful even if its prospects look terrible.
> These are basically nonsensical objections
What’s nonsensical is to say funding science means good things happen, not funding science means bad things happen. What’s science? I don’t know. Everything from particle physics, to elementary school surveys.
I think, in aggregate, it’s trivially true that funding science results in good things happening. I think if there are specific studies that appear valueless, they could be assessed for future potential outcomes, wherein “we don’t know” is a viable and not unvaluable answer.
I don’t think anyone disagrees that there’s value in oversight, they , and I, just disagree that not knowing, right now, the future outcomes isn’t really indicative of anything and is not a comment on the presence or absence of that future value.
It’s trivially true in that you’ve defined science to mean “good and valuable research”.
Let’s make that more concrete. What qualifies as science and what’s not with funding. Is doing a survey about whether having the color red in a classroom helps student performance, science?
I think plenty of things are being done wrong.
Now, as to the topics being funded, the broad strokes are set by Congress, which is why much of the funding goes to medical research since pretty much everyone likes the idea of better treatments for things like cancer or Alzheimer’s disease. If there was an entire field they considered unnecessary, the legal process would be working with Congress to either remove it entirely or put in restrictions. They aren’t doing that, of course, because that would force people to actually go on the record voting for something specific and that usually exposes that “junk science” claims are deceptive.
R01
Why would anyone just destroy scientific research in their own country?
What do they hope to gain from this?
> The Great Leap Forward stemmed from multiple factors, including "the purge of intellectuals, the surge of less-educated radicals, the need to find new ways to generate domestic capital, rising enthusiasm about the potential results mass mobilization might produce
I thought that only happened in socially backward, ideology-riddled, far-off places like Cambodia or China. Not advanced Western democracies.
And "far off" in the sense that American culture is intentionally isolationist and separatist, and Americans tend to be aggressively ignorant about the rest of the world.
Most Western democracies are more safe and have a higher standard of living and score better on the Human Freedom Index and other metrics than the US, and have "advanced" features like socialized healthcare and education, which the US does not, so one could argue the US isn't even advanced as Western democracies go. Having one's system of laws based on the vague and archaic prose of a Constitution written for an 18th century pre-industrial agrarian slaveowning society isn't very advanced as far as modern constitutional law is concerned.
Weird that all the metrics keep telling everyone their life is better, but people don’t feel that way. You can’t summarize the human experience of freedom in an index.
One might almost infer in this post-truth age of ours that vibes alone aren't sufficient to form an objective model of reality.
If you disagree with the data, present data to the contrary. If you're just insisting that we believe your vibes over others, that would just make for boring conversation.
How many freedom units in the index am I experiencing right now? Will getting more units make me happier?
You can measure data without that data having a meaningful bearing on the topic you care about.
The grand summary of America 2025. I don't think anyone has said it better than that in all of media. They gymnastics people run to avoid that simple truth just reveals their rotten core.
What matters as "freedom" will wildly vary from a US domestic point of view vs an international or EU point of view. "People don't feel that way" is I think on point, regardless of the state of the country.
In particular as those really uncomfortable with the situation give up and move away.
More safe I'll grant you.
As for higher standard of living, US salaries and purchasing power are higher than almost anywhere else, so I would need to see some citations to be persuaded.
How is the Human Freedom Index computed? Is Freedom of Speech included?
For instance, Americans have plentiful access to cheap televisions, but an ambulance ride costs thousands of dollars, even with good insurance. This leads to a situation where people have the purchasing power to own multiple TVs, but at the same time forego lifesaving medical treatment because the cost of access is too high.
Is that a high standard of living, by your standards?
The biggest categories of higher costs vs the rest of the world is education and health care. I’m sure someone has done the analysis of calculating purchasing power including those categories.
All societies have "socially backward" and "ideology-riddled" aspects to them. American society has long struggled with racism, xenophobia, sexism, and anti-intellectualism, just to name a few of these ills. For example, the Eisenhower years that many people consider America's peak were also years where African Americans still had to endure Jim Crow, though to be fair this era was also the beginning of the Civil Rights movement, were many people fought to secure civil rights for all Americans regardless of ethnicity. McCarthyism and J. Edgar Hoover's abuse of authority were also happening under these times. Nixon had his infamous "enemies list." Police brutality and the violent suppression of non-violent protests have been an ongoing problem. Speaking as an American, our nation has been far from exemplary when it comes to not destroying political "enemies," from whistleblowers to protestors to entire ethnic groups.
Granted, the federal government has been able for much of its history to avoid fully caving to the desires of the "socially backward" and "ideology-riddled." Unfortunately, demagoguery is sometimes an effective strategy, and to be frank, our oligarchs and our politicians in general have done a poor job since the 1970s of building an environment where everyday Americans have an opportunity to improve their material lives. The past 30 years in particular have been a bonanza for asset holders, successful entrepreneurs, and other well-connected people, but it seems that life has become harder for the average low-income and middle-class American, especially as the prices of health care, higher education, and housing have gone up far faster than many Americans' ability to pay for these things. This has left behind many people, and many people feel like the "American dream" is dying or even dead. Unfortunately this hopelessness is a breeding ground for "socially backward" and "ideology-riddled" thoughts to take root, and the resulting field has become ripe for demagogues to pick.
We are now dealing with the results of this. Democracies are not immune to this; similar political movements in France and Germany have been picking up steam in recent years.
I don't know how we could reverse the tide in America right now, but I hope and pray that this does not spread to places like Canada, France, Germany, and other stable democracies. I think the key lies in having leadership, not just governmental but also in business and in other social institutions, be more caring about the societies they are established in. It's much harder for demagoguery to be effective when people feel secure and hopeful about their lot in life.
And yes, "that could never happen here" as one of the reasons why it could happen here is plausible. There's a complacency that means the grifters get away with more.
I'm aghast that the Germans are walking this road. Of all of us, they should understand this process better. Though, again, maybe there's that complacency that "it could not happen here again".
Destroying the political enemy has always been more important that anything else. Straight jailing "communists", jailing opposing minorities (crafting legal frameworks to do it or straight asking the army is to me the same), cutting funds from whole industries to help one's base and crush the other parties funds, taking money from enemy states to win domestic elections etc.
It's a matter of what you get flack for and what flies below the radar.
Developing countries have more visible incidents because their economy is more fragile and any political swing will have huge life and death ramifications. In contrast the US can afford waging trade wars without floods of people out in the streets.
In MAGA land, educational institutions are coded as woke and DEI infested.
The other big goal is probably financial: they really want to give rich people tax cuts, and there’s no way to do that without cutting social programs like Medicaid which even their voters want left untouched. They appear to be continuing to claim that there is so much waste and fraud that they’ll be able to pay for it by cutting that, and hoping that people will be distracted until it’s too late. Based on the 2017 version, I’m expecting some kind of time-delay where the tax cuts kick in immediately but cuts aren’t forced until after some very “optimistic” growth predictions fail to materialize.
2. It’s also about power and control. “He who pays the piper calls the tune,” and Trump and his administration are reveling in their abilities to withhold federal dollars (paid for with the tax monies from all American taxpayers, Trump- and non-Trump voter alike) from targeted agencies and institutions unless they meet whatever diktats they demand.
It’s a scary time for science in America now. Science is already dealing with the “publish-or-perish” culture of academia, the fact that academics are pressured to raise recurrent streams of grant money in order to earn tenure, and the fact that industrial labs are increasingly driven by short-term business pursuits instead of longer-term, more speculative projects. These disruptive freezes of NIH and NSF funds, as well as the targeted attacks on universities such as Columbia and UPenn over culture war matters, are reckless and destructive. If this does not stop soon, this could set back American science and research for decades.
This specific article is part of a series, this part is about the National Institutes of Health where the cuts are so deep that:
People inside the Division of Intramural Research (the in-house research groups) have been told in so many words that "the vast majority of our legitimate DIR ordering needs are not currently able to be fulfilled".
So they're having to triage and try to get spending done that directly impacts human and animal safety and ongoing clinical research.
> the political cancer eating them alive.
This sounds hyperbolic, perhaps sourced from a Fox News or Tucker Carlson take on DEI in the sciences.
Destroying the educational system allows these people to consolidate and maintain power.
The other thing, IMO, is that it’s admitting we have no longer have any aspiration to technical innovation. If the tech oligarchs actually depended on hiring “the best and brightest,” they’ve be fighting this tooth and nail. Instead, they’re perfectly happy to destroy the education pipeline because they no longer need to make good products. They’ve attained monopoly status: all they need are lobbyists and a good legal team, the quality of their product is irrelevant. (The only spot where they still seem to be competing is “AI”).