[johnp314]

Science is partisan, at least the 'science' being addressed in this article, because the funding for this science comes from a finite source and there are competing demands placed on this finite source. As any competent scientist knows, taking something from a finite source leaves less in the source. There are differing ideas and beliefs, some partisan (including those of the esteemed Mr. Colbert), on how best to divide up this finite source.

[Rebuff5007]

Science being partisan right now has nothing to do with funding. It has to do with the disdain that the people currently in power have to live in a shared reality with the rest of the poulation.

Theres a monumental leap from saying "lets not invest in climate change because thats not a good use of tax dollars" to "lets not invest in climate change because its a hoax."

[_DeadFred_]

Science is becoming partisan not just because of funding, but because too many people have stopped trying to persuade the people who need persuading. Instead we get statements like, "It has to do with the disdain that the people currently in power have to live in a shared reality with the rest of the population."

If your starting talking point is that half the country is irrational or detached from reality you've already abandoned the work of building consensus. We can keep doing the "Jon Stewart" thing and scoring points by calling the other side idiots, or we can grow up, act like adults, and do the much harder work of convincing people.

[wredcoll]

> If your starting talking point is that half the country is irrational or detached from reality you've already abandoned the work of building consensus. We can keep doing the "Jon Stewart" thing and scoring points by calling the other side idiots, or we can grow up, act like adults, and do the much harder work of convincing people.

THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SCIENCE.

The science is doing research and writing reports about what they've found. Which is getting defunded and denied and destroyed.

Is it now partisan to say "I'm in favor of doing research into how earth's climate is changing and what if anything is causing it"??

[_DeadFred_]

You are 100% correct. The (horrible) abandoning of funding for these needed science projects is not science, but politics. My entire point. We need to try and bring these people back to reality not using science but persuasion/being politically intelligent in our speech with them, not dumb destructive (but feels good for a minute) Jon Stewart style belittling.

[hackyhacky]

Do you honestly believe the Trump administration will set aside their anti-vaccine vengeance tour and anti-woke activism because someone talks to them persuasively??

You can't use logic to get someone out of a position they didn't logic themselves into.

[Rebuff5007]

I never said half the country is irrational. I specifically called out that people in power do not care to live in a shared reality with the rest of us. They lie directly [1][2], or dismantle the institutions that would be able to push back on their lies [2][3]. Countless examples of this in the last few years.

I do think a non-trivial portion of the population has opinions that have unfortunately diverged from what a board of climate scientists or epidemiologist would say is the appropriate state of affairs, and yes this is a problem we all need to figure out how to correct.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/06/california-s... [2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0z9nmzvdlo [3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg3xrrzdr0o [4] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/climate/ocean-observatori...

[innagadadavida]

Any “investment” here directly translates to more human activity that will make climate change worse not better. It is hypocritical to have these climate conferences and fly there burning jet fuel. The need of the hour is to drastically reduce the GDP - we need to rewind the clock 50years. But this will never happen because folks will lose jobs and scientists will lose their funding.

[Draiken]

Definitely. We should ignore it and it'll go away by not going into these damn climate conferences. There are so many of them!

[giladvdn]

Exactly. One side prefers being miserly on science while spending lavishly on needless wars.

[rzwitserloot]

In normal times, what you say is obviously true.

But specifically at this moment in time what you've written is total hogwash. Currently the US is spending money as if it's, specifically, an infinite resource.

Hence, this kaibosh on science funding can only be explained because the powers that be want it dead and gone.

Do with that info what you will. The various flavours of conspiracy-theory-leaning ideas on wanting to 'scare the scientist community away from commenting on political affairs' seem like the most likely explanation to me despite how petty and crazy that sounds.

If you are a scientist, get out.

Either out of science, or away from US-centric research systems.

[inigyou]

Currently, in the US, money is an infinite resource. One need only look at the world's latest one point five trillionaire.

Where is the money coming from to support that valuation? And why is it being spent to maintain that valuation?

Part of it is accounting tricks (sell 5% of a company for $20, and you're worth $400 with only $20 changing hands) but there's also genuinely a massive unexplained amount of money in existence in the US financial system, that should have caused massive inflation by now but somehow hasn't. Maybe it's only a matter of time, or maybe due to class segregation, it's stable like this and will never come down the ladder to affect grocery prices?

[throwaway173738]

Valuations are often an absurd fantasy. The notion is that Musk could find a buyer who would be willing to pay that based on the value of each share he owns. It’s not real money. He can borrow against it but not too much, and he will have to find a way of paying the lender back without selling stock. The money is not real.

If he dumped all of his shares the value of them would essentially go away, like with any commodity.

[inigyou]

He gets to exercise power based on his valuation, and in that sense, it is real. He is now known as the world's richest person and first one point five trillionaire, even if he doesn't have one point five trillion dollar bills in his closet. He gets people to suck up to him for fractions of it - "do X for me and I'll give you shares worth a million"

[fn-mote]

> Currently, in the US, money is an infinite resource. […]

Try harder to engage in dialog. Basic economic theory contradicts your claim. You need a much stronger logical argument to have any credibility.

[Windchaser]

No, no, they're definitely correct. There's no hard limit on the amount of money created. Excess money creation just results in inflation.

More to the point: Congress is being profligate in other spending, and miserly w.r.t. science, so it does indeed look like the science cuts are not motivated by fiscal responsibility.

Your quip about "basic economic theory" doesn't really address the point they're making.

[mothballed]

the US can trivially and renewably acquire infinite money (in USD). It is an infinite resource.

Wealth on the other hand....

[inigyou]

Um, "basic economic theory" would include the processes that create money and the limits on them, which can be disabled, and what happens if the limits are disabled

[hackyhacky]

> there are competing demands placed on this finite source

The US national debt has gone up by 2 trillion under the current administration. They are spending money they don't have at a faster rate than any time in history.

Whatever else you can say about the cuts to science, you can't say they're due to "competing demands." They're not cutting in order to fund better research, they're cutting (in the most counterproductive way) to send a message to scientists that politically inconvenient research is not welcome.

[ModernMech]

Trump's 17 months in office saw $17T increase in debt, 30% of the entire US debt, representing about 220 years of what had accumulated prior to ever electing him.