I just read this article at Science's blog, describing how Lamar Smith, chair of the House science committee, basically wants to gut peer review at the NSF and replace it with something more to the liking of the House Republicans. This would be catastrophically bad for a large number of reasons. If they do this, you know it's only a matter of time before they decide to undermine peer review at NIH and DOE Office of Science also. Gahh. Can't blog - too incoherently angry.
update: For what it's worth, this would presumably have a hard time passing the Senate and getting signed into law by the President, though given Congress' tendency to lump zillions of unrelated bills together into giant omnibus legislation, you never know for sure. NSF is probably not the real long-term target of these types. Picture what would happen to research if big pharma lobbyists get to have Congress decide what NIH grants should be funded, or if big energy lobbyists do the same for DOE grants (to say nothing of de-funding anything they find politically unacceptable).
Several years ago (during the second Bush administration) I was at a conference and attended a session that had a staffer from the Republican side of the House Science committee as a panelist or speaker. In answer to a question he basically said that the R's on the committee were all clueless about science. (Going from memory here.) His view was that the D's on the committee were not perfect, but were much, much better informed. It was very depressing, and it seems like it hasn't changed, or has gotten worse.
ReplyDeleteIf this actually happens, I'm getting the hell out of the USA.
ReplyDeleteLarge government research grants from our tax dollars awarded without peer review... sounds a lot like what already has happened in Texas with the CPRIT money. Lamar Smith is just taking his cue from fellow good ole boys Rick Perry and his cronies.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that there is plenty of waste in the funding system - scientific and otherwise. Sounds to me like lots of this comes from the social sciences getting grants to fund "political" research favoring one party which I am sure is the cause of this controversy. This has little to do with hard science but it will definitely have an influence on us. I agree that excessive regulation is working hard to kill the hard sciences in this country. I don't have any solutions but it doesn't help when administrators at universities keep growing in numbers and giving themselves higher salaries, tuition keeps rising much higher than inflation mostly to pay these administrators, while that tuition is in turn subsidized by the government, and lots of money from the taxpayers keeps being spent on frivolous projects that are little more than political propaganda. As scientists and educators we have a duty to be good stewards of the public money but too many times some of us are not living up to that responsibility and the whole scientific enterprise in this country suffers as a result.
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind that Lamar Smith is also the guy behind SOPA....
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