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by drpossum 592 days ago
Do you have an example where funding was given out with zero accountability? I've worked at a number of universities and national laboratories for particle research and they all had multiple layers of accountability. At the top of any public funding structure is congress and the president and bigger initiatives will even be line items in public agency budgets. At the bottom are the required regular reports (I had biannually) to grant monitors and often independent review panels and committees (for one big project I had to do that annually on top of reports). In the middle are people who make it their jobs to find ways to save money, get money to the most promising projects, and communicating up to elected/presidentially appointed officials and down to researchers to keep this together. Both DOE and NSF funding are structured this way and represent virtually all federal channels to get money for particle physics, both experiment and theory.

What's the funding you're referring to with zero accountability?
2 comments
f1shy 592 days ago
The question, I think, is “how many alternative theories were dismissed by no funding?” IF there was other people asking for funding for other topics or theories were dismissed because “strings are cool” then I expect some explanation. And boy there were other theories and projects asking for funding!
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drpossum 592 days ago
Do not read "the system is perfect" or even "good" from my post. I'm focusing only on the claim from the post above that there is "zero accountability". The people accountable are everyone in the chain I described and the whole thing hinges on people that ultimately answer to elections.
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exe34 592 days ago
> how many alternative theories were dismissed by no funding

it's an interesting question - you should be able to request this information from the funding bodies!

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drpossum 592 days ago
Do you think you can't? It's all covered under FOIA. Bureaucratic stuff like this is in fact FOIA's wheelhouse.
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exe34 592 days ago
No I was suggesting that he should ask for it, instead of assuming there weren't good reasons for the choices that were made.
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moralestapia 592 days ago
>Do you have an example where funding was given out with zero accountability?

Yes, this article and the whole crisis it references.

Will people be removed from their position? Prosecuted, even? No.

That's what zero accountability means.

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