Science Goes Woke
By: Daniel Tenreiro (National Review)
Funding agencies, organizations, and institutions are imposing their politically 'woke' biases onto the scientific community. The competition for grant funding works much like natural selection: those with a competitive edge in grant funding become dominant. The conduct of science is reshaped through natural selection to align with the political biases of the grant sponsors.
As the scientific disciplines become more corrupted by political bias in the grant cycle then science will only provide answers and explanations that grant sponsors want the public to hear.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A new report from the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology (CSPI) confirms a trend that has been obvious to anyone paying attention: Science has gone woke. The study analyzes the abstracts of National Science Foundation grants since 1990, finding the following:
The frequency of documents containing highly politicized terms has been increasing consistently over the last three decades. As of 2020, 30.4% of all grants had one of the following politicized terms: “equity,” “diversity,” “inclusion,” “gender,” “marginalize,” “underrepresented,” or “disparity.” This is up from 2.9% in 1990. The most politicized field is Education & Human Resources (53.8% in 2020, up from 4.3% in 1990). The least are Mathematical & Physical Sciences (22.6%, up from 0.9%) and Computer & Information Science & Engineering (24.9%, up from 1.5%), although even they are significantly more politicized than any field was in 1990.
Below is a chart of the findings. Check out the spike in “Latinx.”
Perhaps it’s unsurprising that grant writers pledge fealty to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). A recent American Enterprise Institute study finds that one in five job postings at U.S. universities requires a DEI statement from applicants. If you want to teach astrophysics, be prepared to expound on your involvement “in activities to advance or promote a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment or institution.”
Our research-funding apparatus has long been broken. As I wrote last year:
A 2007 study found that researchers spend 42 percent of their time writing grant proposals and ensuring compliance with the conditions of the grants they receive. Stringent regulations on everything from affirmative action to animal welfare place a needless burden on scientists, reducing their productivity. Since any given proposal has a 20 percent chance of being approved, researchers devote 170 days to proposal-writing for every grant they’re awarded.
As if academics were not wasting enough time on paperwork, now they face the added burden of proving their progressive bona fides in order to win grants.
Over the past two years, we’ve learned of a number of prominent American scientists secretly taking money from the Chinese government. That is borderline treasonous, but given the state of the National Science Foundation, can you blame them?
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Science is evolving into politics.
Science is following the money; and has been for a long time. Which was never about science to begin with.
Before all it had to do was cater the outcome of their findings to the benefactors; whether it be a corporation or the government. Corporations haven't changed; but the government under Democrat control has become more "woke" and extreme. Now if they don't have a prominent transgender African American/Latino in a high position on their research team they can be shut out of grants.
Scientific funding is controlled by society. Nothing new here.
Science is a body of knowledge, a discipline and a process. Yeah, Nerm, public and private funding sources have great influence over what science can accomplish by virtue of holding the purse strings.
As usual, you take the negative factors outside of science and use them to demean science. Why you do this is beyond me.
I don't get it either.
No, that is incorrect. Scientific funding is not crowd sourced. The funding is controlled by agencies, organizations, and institutions. Those agencies, organizations, and institutions may be non-partisan but are rarely apolitical.
What happens if that body of knowledge becomes biased? As you point, the generation of scientific knowledge is strongly influenced by funding sources. And successful grant proposals are reviewed by criteria other than just merit.
The grant process is very similar to natural selection. The funding environment requires adaptation to criteria other than merit. The curriculum vitae of the grant applicant has as much (and increasing) influence as the merit of the proposed research. Social criteria are increasingly influencing the success of grant proposals. That increasing influence will introduce biases into the body of scientific knowlege.
Because I care about how the funding process is corrupting the objectivity of science.
Nerm I said nothing about crowd sourcing. Note in my next sentence I speak of public and private funding — an indisputable fact of reality. Read what I write and address me accordingly. I am truly sick of your games.
Then you have a cult. Are you really suggesting that the body of knowledge that we call science which explains the workings of the cosmos down to quantum dynamics is biased? That these theories of science that are routinely challenged are biased? That the mathematical formulations used to engineer technologies and myriad products are somehow tainted yet still work?
You indict science itself when you should be indicting corrupt funding sources. It is always the same gig with you. You find factors in reality (e.g. corrupting influence of money) that impact science and then attribute all the negatives of those factors onto science itself. It is bizarre.
You said science funding is controlled by society. That's false, incorrect, and wrong. You made the false statement so don't try to blame me.
Yes, the body of scientific knowledge is gradually becoming biased. Funding is favoring research proposals that meet social criteria which will bias the body of scientific knowledge according to those social criteria.
Yet the grant applicants that incorporate those social criteria into proposals to become more competitive aren't contributing to the problem? The grant applicants are indicating their bias in the proposals and the funding agencies, organizations, and institutions are rewarding that bias.
The funding process is similar to natural selection that favors biased scientists. How can that not bias the body of scientific knowledge?
It is controlled by society! Society is an all encompassing word that includes all people of a domain and thus all sources of funding and that necessarily includes public and private funding. My next sentence went on to specifically state that. Your tactic of redefining words is obnoxious. Your ignoring my second sentence to intentionally redefine the meaning of society to 'crowd-sourcing' in my first sentence is blatant intellectual dishonesty.
What is the point in engaging in these obvious pathetic tactics? If you were to cheat at Chess would you find that to be an accomplishment?
Maybe because he has no valid argument or rebuttal to make?
Playing dictionary games doesn't alter the fact that your statement that science funding is controlled by society is false, incorrect, and wrong. Science funding is controlled by agencies, organizations, and institutions that independently fund grants according to their own independent criteria.
The NIH, NASA, and Bill Gates independently establish the criteria to select and fund grant proposals. Society at large may influence those criteria through a political process. But that political influence would only reinforce the political bias of independently established criteria for funding grants.
What do you think "public and private funding sources" means? What is the point of you always playing these stupid games? Do you like meta in your articles? Do you want these stupid side-bars rather than focus on the topic? What, other than being gratuitously obnoxious, is your objective?
Read and comprehend the obvious:
Why are the terms equity, diversity, inclusion, gender, marginalize, underrepresented, and disparity relevant to funding physical sciences, mathematics, or computer science?
The use of these terms in funding social science research is understandable since they can be considered measures of social conditions. The inclusion of these terms in funding biological sciences may also be understandable since such a large portion of funding is devoted to medical research.
The question is whether or not political influence using these terms has imposed criteria on the funding of science research? And is that political influence now being imposed on non-social sciences? Is political influence biasing the funding of all scientific research?
That means independent sources of funding who independently determine research priorities and independently establish criteria for funding research. Each independent agency, organization, and institution funds research according to their independent biases.
Those independent agencies, organizations, and institutions are not accountable to the public. The public cannot litigate biased science which suggests the funding providers are separated from society.
Political and other influences have ALWAYS biased the funding of scientific research. NASA's funding levels, for example, are clearly a function of politics. University research is a function of grants which are often ultimately influenced by politics. Politics influences most everything nowadays. Scientists, in general, rarely get to work on what they want unless they find a source of funds that enables them to do so. Typically a scientist is not independently wealthy and able to freely explore whatever s/he wishes.
You continue to conflate science itself with factors of the environment in which science exists.
It means PUBLIC (most commonly government) sources and PRIVATE (most commonly large corporations) sources. And of course they are largely independent. Nothing new here Nerm. You offer zero new information and present it as insight.
Water is wet, the sky is blue, science in general requires funding and the funding comes from various independent / semi-dependent public and private sources. That is, science is funded by society (many, varied sources) and not strictly by a single source.
Government funding is accountable to the public. But no, the public itself does not get to directly vote on every specific use of public funds for science. But you should know that based on the fact that we are a Republic with indirect democracy. Again, what new revelation do you think you are offering?
What is your point?
So research can involve or focus on specific groups. Nothing new there. Again, your point?
Of course politics influences science, especially where funds and direction of research goes. That's also nothing new. It seems your complaint should be with politics, not science.
The point is that those biases determine the research that is performed. The biased selection of research also biases the generation of scientific knowledge.
You are attempting to claim that science is not influenced by the environment in which science exists? Grant funding establishes the environment and the performance of science evolves to adapt to that funding environment. Science, like many other aspects of society, is controlled by those who have the money.
The biases in science are not deliberate; the biases arise from an evolutionary process akin to natural selection. The environmental biases found in nature directly determines the natural selection of organisms adapted to that environment. The biases in the funding environment for research directly determines the type of scientific research that is performed through adaptation to that funding environment.
The biases are established outside of science and science adapts to those biases. The science, itself, becomes biased because the funding environment is biased. That's how natural selection works.
No shit Nerm. If there is no funding for scientific research on Jupiter there will be no such research.
No, I stated that it IS influenced by its environment. Do you not even read responses in REPLY to your comments on your own seed?
You know what Nerm, I am done dealing with your crap. You want to troll your own seed so have at it with someone else who still has patience with you.
What do you think the seed article is highlighting?
And I've stated that the influence on science by its environment is biasing science overall. The scientific method and peer review cannot correct biases in selection and funding of grant proposals. The biases are imposed on science by the funding environment and research proposals adapt to that funding environment. Research proposals incorporate the bias into the type of research being pursued to compete for funding.
As an example, the bias in funding energy research does not favor research to improve or advance nuclear energy. And that bias has been influenced by political considerations rather than by the merits and potential benefit of the research on nuclear energy.
Right now the environment of science funding is being influenced and biased by social measures. Those social measures have value but are displacing the merits and potential benefit of scientific research within the funding environment.
It's one thing to claim about politics influencing science, especially in terms of direction and focus of research. But it's quite another to claim politics is causing bias in scientific findings. Sure bias can happen. Scientists are human after all. But the scientific method and scientific process helps minimize that. Not to mention biases are not well received by the scientific community. Like I said, your gripe is with politics, not the science itself. But then, you always seem to take some issue with science.
The bias has been introduced before there are any findings. A liberal or conservative think tank will produce liberal or conservative findings. The methods used to generate the findings will conform to standard protocols and practices but those methods cannot overcome the bias introduced before any findings are generated.
But we've seen how political attitudes (particularly liberal attitudes) have corrupted economics, law, and education. Political manipulation and interference has been transforming economics, law, and education into political endeavors. Why would science be exempted from the corrupting influence of politics?
Look at how economics has been so corrupted by politics that economics no longer functions properly. Liberal attitudes have manipulated and interfered with economics to such an extent that it has become almost impossible to remove the political influence from economics. The neo-liberal attitudes toward free markets, trade, globalization, and taxation have transformed economics into politics.
If we do not address the politicization of science then it will become inevitable that science will be transformed into politics just as economics has been transformed into politics.
Where do you come up with this BS Nerm?
How can there be a bias before any research is done, much less published?
It's not entirely. Politics may influence where science goes or what it researches. But the scientific process helps to bias within research.
Careful, your own bias is showing.
Fear mongering. It's not the politicization of science that's the issue. It's how politics tries to direct and present science. The science itself is generally sound. Peoples general stupidity or irrational hostility regarding science doesn't help matters any either.
There's woke and then there's wokier post-neo-woke, Tenreiro is of the later bunch.