Professional scientists and researchers are famous for spontaneously popping out of the aether like quantum foam, completely disconnected from any causality or prior state of being.
Comment on RIP America
koper@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
But seemingly most of these numbers are students?
DefinitelyNotAPhone@hexbear.net 3 weeks ago
Lussy@hexbear.net 3 weeks ago
Scientist are merely born this way
Belly_Beanis@hexbear.net 3 weeks ago
Reactionaries genuinely believe this. They think IQ isn’t a total meme, that it’s the greatest indicator of a person’s intellect. And of course, that some groups have higher IQ than others because of genetic superiority (IQ tests totally aren’t rigged/biased). They use this to explain why Europeans “built civilization” while everyone else are all stupid savages (instead of Europeans having resources others did not that allowed them to kill everyone).
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
And…?
koper@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
The tweet gave me the impression that these people lose their jobs. But it turns out that’s not entirely true, because it also counts undergrad and preK students who participate in a program one way or another. That’s still bad, but not as bad as the tweet suggests.
flora_explora@beehaw.org 3 weeks ago
It’s maybe comparable to a bee hive or ant nest losing it’s workers. Each single one of them isn’t important at all. But if nearly all of them are gone, the hive/nest will do much worse or even collapse.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
you do realize graduate and undergrad students do research in labs as part of thier degree, or lab experience right. they are indeed researchers, just not labeled as such by employers to pay them a wage or any benefits. and also they do most of the lab work as well, the postdocs/PI are the ones drumming up the IDEA, and implementing some of the experiments. if you go to any research paper from a science journal you can sometime see graduate and undergraduate researcher as part of the affliate"acknowlegement of the paper.
koper@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
As I understand these NSF-funded research projects are only part of the entire curriculum. So it would be a misrepresentation to say that the US is “getting rid of” these students. They will still study and get a degree, they’ll just have a harder time finding an appropriate research project. That’s still bad, but not the same as what is claimed by the tweet.
fossilesque@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
Who do you think does a lot of the legwork in the lab and becomes the next generation of scientists?
fartographer@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
When a mommy scientist and daddy scientist love each other a lot, they pray to Caffeine and Nicotine, the gods of late-night trivial tasks…
BlazeDaley@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Graduate students provide enormous value for their cost in funding. I’d like to better understand how k-12 students contribute here. Those students make up 88.7k of the reduction. How much do these students contribute and at what cost?
I’m in no way against inspiring the next generation. My question is aimed at correctly interpreting this table. The NSF is a worthwhile expense, but let’s understand the data we have.
fossilesque@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
I don’t even know where to start here. The report is literally linked.
PreK-12 Teachers include teachers at elementary, middle, and secondary schools. These individuals actively participate in intensive professional development experiences in the sciences and mathematics.
PreK-12 Students are those attending elementary, middle, and secondary schools. They are supported through program components that directly engage students in science and mathematics experiences.
This is the foundation building of a national science program and every dollar you spend on this comes back tenfold over time. This is also class warfare, further defending education for the marginalised populations. This also fucks climate education and so, so, so many other things. The value of public outreach, especially for the youth is not only a well studied topic, but also inherently an issue of national security.
BlazeDaley@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’m not disagreeing. The report isn’t clear. This is written by fuck wits that are asking Congress for a budget cut.
The actual impact to the pipeline may be far larger.
Kornblumenratte@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
defending education or defunding it?
reallykindasorta@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
The chart is on a page discussing this:
Image
My workplace is NSF funded and supports a number of activities designed to increase interest in the discipline among young kids or improve teaching techniques for k-12 teachers. Similarly, we run an REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) program to give undergraduate students exposure to hands on research (and hopefully encourage them to stay in the discipline for graduate school).
A majority of our funding still goes to PhDs doing fundamental research, but the pipeline that feeds academic research begins with children, and research funding priorities aren’t blind to that.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
they do, sadly they are recognized well, unless your in a independant lab(not part of the degree)