[andsoitis]

> Many of the most valuable scientific organizations in the world, including NOAA, NASA, the NSF, the CDC, the EPA, and the FDA,

I don’t dismiss the premise of the article and I think it is a shame how these organizations are being impacted, but I don’t know that these are the best exemplars of cutting edge science being shut down that will lead to America’s downfall from its scientific perch.

[rainsford]

Why do you believe those aren't good examples of cutting edge science funding? I get the stereotype that government organizations of all types are just stodgy bureaucrats stuck a few decades in the past, but the reality at least in the US in the year 2025 is that truly cutting edge science is not obviously being funded at any significant scale anywhere but government.

The world of privately funded research organizations like Bell Labs is long gone, with companies being barely able to look past the next quarter never mind being willing to invest in long term research that may not pay off for a few decades, if it pays off at all. And by definition most cutting edge science has that kind of financial time horizon. If there was an obvious, short term path to directly benefiting those conducting it, it's probably not very cutting edge at all and closer to engineering than actual scientific research. Not that there is anything wrong with that, we need engineering investment too. But it's not a replacement for science research.

I think a lot of people who scoff at the idea of government being on the cutting edge of science research don't understand how that research is being conducted. Sure, some of it is done by actual government employees, but especially for organizations like the NSF, the bulk of the research is being done by organizations and individuals outside of government who are simply given a check to look into things that might not immediately pay off or which have major societal benefit but no real path to commercial payoff.

[dotnet00]

To be fair, there are still many well funded private research labs, they just focus on "sexy" easy-to-market science like quantum computing, photonics, deep learning, robotics etc.

[whatshisface]

That's engineering. Science involves laws and facts about the natural world that are not yet known.

[dotnet00]

There's a lot of overlap between science and engineering, a lot of the things being affected by the cuts would be engineering by your definition.

E.g. designing scientific instruments. The fundamental physics and chemistry can be well understood, and yet you need a strong overlap of scientists and engineers to produce and run something that actually collects useful data, especially at the cutting edge, where new things actively need to be discovered and built to achieve the desired capability. Another growing one is using AI to drive scientific discovery (e.g. sifting through the terabytes of data being generated everyday and identifying things of potential interest), it isn't strictly an engineering problem, as the entire point is that you don't fully know what you are/are not looking for.

There's a reason most of the things I mentioned also hire plenty of physicists.

[whatshisface]

Scientific research groups hire engineers to engineer, and industry teams hire scientists to serve as specialized engineers, but there is next to no scientific research in the industrial sector.

[bakuninsbart]

That is so narrow a definition of scientific research it excludes many major contributions to our base of knowledge. The primary difference between engineering and science is the intention - Scientists want to understand how things work by using the scientific method, engineers want to make stuff that works, but this still often includes iterating over designs by using empirical data.

If a team of engineers find a cool new algorithm to make computer vision easier, we learnt something new about the world in the process. On the flip-side, you actually have plenty of research in fields you would consider science, eg. physics, that do not use the scientific method at all, but instead deduce possibilities based on mathematical modelling.

[andsoitis]

> Why do you believe those aren't good examples of cutting edge science funding?

They are, but the article asserts, without evidence, that the US, like Nazi Germany, has passed a threshold where it is going to lose its preeminence in scientific research.

[searine]

> but I don’t know that these are the best exemplars of cutting edge science

Then you simply aren't familiar with their work. These (plus NIH, DOE, DOD etc.) are the engines of a large portion of the world's science.

The engine is starved and it is going to destroy American industry.

[baby_souffle]

> Then you simply aren't familiar with their work. These (and NIH) are the engines of a large portion of the world's science.

The problem is that not all cutting edge science is "sexy". NOAA and NASA are doing some _really_ cool stuff with weather monitoring / climate predicting. Sexy? Arguably no. Unless the weather app on your phone is sexy.

Important? I'd argue that it's critical that we keep getting better at it.

[apical_dendrite]

And some important work is even less sexy than that. People like Ted Cruz love to mock work on animal models, because if you don't know anything about the field it sounds ridiculous ("look at these idiots wasting money putting shrimp on a treadmill"). But finding a simpler animal model has been one of the most successful ways to understand biological systems, and we've found all sorts of useful things by looking at how animals solve problems.

[andsoitis]

> are the engines of a large portion of the world's science.

the article is meant to educate and inform, so inform the reader, who might know that fact, of it and some evidence to characterize the dynamic.

when you preach to the choir, you miss a chance to widen the circle of empathy.

[anitil]

They're also the data collection point for much down stream research which is cutting edge

[stonogo]

Then I have trouble believing you understand how cutting-edge research happens, because these organizations are the ones who fund it. The missing piece here is DOE Office of Science, but they're coming for that too.

[throwawaymaths]

you ever worked with DOE office of science or anyone at the national renewable energy labs? not the brightest lightbulbs out there.

[stonogo]

But that's where the funding is (was). The user facilities attract researchers from all over the world, and make sure that research happens in America. Instrument development happens in partnership with the labs for the same reason. If you want research to happen in America, this is how you get that. If you want a dick-measuring contest, I guess funding these agencies isn't important.

[mcphage]

> not the brightest lightbulbs out there

That’s true—all the brightest bulbs are working at FAANG companies building advertising delivery services, or at Fintech companies figuring out how to gamble faster.

[betaby]

Unironically true.

[mcphage]

Oh, I know it's true—but it means that complaining "the brightest lightbulbs" aren't working for the government science organizations is stupid, because all the "brightest lightbulbs" are doing is making life worse for everyone else, so who the fuck cares about them?

[apical_dendrite]

I'm not sure why NIH is left off this list, since it's probably the most important scientific organization in the world. Between them NIH and NSF fund a huge proportion of the cutting edge science that is done in the US, either directly or by funding the training and early career work of researchers.

They fund a lot of the foundational work that doesn't get a lot of resources from the private sector. 99% of new drugs approved between 2010 and 2019 relied on NIH funding.

[analog31]

It was probably an omission. Fill it in, and it makes sense. I believe the NIH is larger than the NSF. In addition to funding research, these agencies also fund education, both directly and indirectly.

[Loughla]

Correct. One of the guys in my cohort in post graduate work was funded by a grant from the NIH.

[analog31]

And in my case, the NSF.

[giantrobot]

> but I don’t know that these are the best exemplars of cutting edge science being shut down that will lead to America’s downfall from its scientific perch

Most of these agencies do some foundational science but maybe more importantly they collect lots of boring data. Boring data they give out to researchers for free. They also hand out grants which might not be lottery tickets but they pay for boring stuff.

The current administration believes that if you stop measuring any problem it ceases to be a problem. No one can push back on their flood of bullshit about everything if there's no data to point to. Authoritarians despise objective reality and empirical measurement and will always strive to make it easier to push their bullshit narratives.

[throwawaymaths]

NIST and NOAA collect boring data, the rest not really so much.

[dahart]

What are better exemplars?

[ideashower]

Isn't it true though that they, altogether, fund America's exemplars of cutting edge science? Like, isn't that the point?

[dennis_jeeves2]

>I don’t know that these are the best exemplars of cutting edge science being shut down that will lead to America’s downfall from its scientific perch.

True, most are just bloated bureaucracies serving their own self interests

[klysm]

Seriously? The NSF?