Thank you for this. It is excellent, and helpful. I was considering taking the time to make a comment, as an old (85 years) science educator and researcher. Now, in reading your newsletter, I definitely will. 90,000 and counting!
Everyone reading this post should take the time to go over and leave a comment pointing out the flaws in this disastrous proposal! It only takes a few minutes, and the more comments that are left, the harder it will be for the administration to later claim that the changes had broad support.
It's an appallingly ignorant government. I'm sure many laboratories in the UK and Europe would welcome young US scientists, but not everyone wants to leave their family and friends.
Your country is in the grip of a very backward cult
I wish it were so, but there is just not enough hiring anywhere else in the world (except China) to meaningfully compare to the US academic job market.
That’s not to mention the salary difference between the US and Europe which is very far from inconsiderable (unless you get hired in Switzerland or Luxembourg).
Vought is the enforcer for Project 2025, and he operates with no oversight at all. He can do whatever he likes, and the only thing to have slowed him down are lawsuits.
Unfortunately, he - like the rest of the Trump Administration - is also lawless. Since there is no oversight at the government level, it's hard if not impossible to tell if even the court opinions are having any real effect.
The next non-Trump, non-GOP administration may find horrors rivaling those uncovered in Nazi Germany at the end of WWII.
As I was reading this, a flashing light illuminating the name, Russ Vought, kept appearing. This is his handiwork, the very same that Trump said he knew nothing about during the 2024 campaign. As Trump deteriorates before our eyes, expect Vought to flood the zone with every Old Testament inspired idea he has squirreled away in his fetid brain.
For Mr Trump, 'true' means whatever he wants to hear, usually something that embiggens his brittle self-regard, and 'false' or 'fake' anything he doesn't want to hear. Any other mechanism claiming authority to determine truthfulness or falsity is a competitor to that mechanism, and so is not to be abided….
I have spread the word on how to comment on two separate posts on this subject but when you are on the right and have lost Alex Tabarrok you need to go off by yourself for a while and reflect on the error of your ways.
Seems to me that belief in science needs to be put on the endangered species list in the US of A. The MAGA right doesn’t believe in vaccines or green energy technologies (even after the Iran oil boondoggle) or in funding scientific research. And an apparently significant part of the left doesn’t believe in biology and thinks sex is an “identity” that can be revised as feelings change. And not a reflection of who produces eggs and who produces sperm. The lot of them on both sides should write the university they graduated from- if they did attend at all - and request their tuition be returned. None of them got their money’s worth.
I remember an economist getting the Noble Prize in economics for showing that investments in science and research were the number 1 indicator of future economic growth. Now, not only are we turning away the top students (immigrants) who might want to study in America, but we are massively defunding science and research in government agencies and in universities to such an extent that 75% of scientists surveyed said they were seriously considering relocating to countries more supportive of science. Trump's seemingly endless attacks on all sorts of science, truth, fact and free speech need to be opposed by every patriotic American!
I find my mind returning to the fact that it took the Vatican centuries to revise its determination that the sun orbits the earth.
It is not only the egregious error, it was the time wasted while observing the sky under this mistaken paradigm, as well as hobbling development of the processes and the whole idea of rigor.
The Trump administration is attacking the very foundation of western civilization. Rules of evidence, check. Consensus on the meaning drawn from the data, check. Insights that lead to more and more subtle questions, check.
Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen supported the politicization of science/university funding when it mattered, calling it "progress" when anything "woke" was targeted by Republicans. They provided intellectual justification for DOGE at critical early stages, and are affiliated with every anti-liberty techbro on the planet.
They are not worth linking to ever again, on any subject. They are clearly terrible at social science in this era -- this is not an era in which marginal thinking is the pathway to enlightenment -- and they appear to be paid marketers for industry. Nothing more.
With respect there is a difference between certain projects that wear their ideological priors on their sleeve getting a grant and the politicization of every single project when a political officer has to approve it.
The illustration for this essay should be the revisions Trump made with a Sharpie on a map indicating the area in the southeast affected by a hurricane.
Thank you for this. It is excellent, and helpful. I was considering taking the time to make a comment, as an old (85 years) science educator and researcher. Now, in reading your newsletter, I definitely will. 90,000 and counting!
Everyone reading this post should take the time to go over and leave a comment pointing out the flaws in this disastrous proposal! It only takes a few minutes, and the more comments that are left, the harder it will be for the administration to later claim that the changes had broad support.
It's an appallingly ignorant government. I'm sure many laboratories in the UK and Europe would welcome young US scientists, but not everyone wants to leave their family and friends.
Your country is in the grip of a very backward cult
I wish it were so, but there is just not enough hiring anywhere else in the world (except China) to meaningfully compare to the US academic job market.
That’s not to mention the salary difference between the US and Europe which is very far from inconsiderable (unless you get hired in Switzerland or Luxembourg).
Why does the current administration hate America so much?
Because we proved that liberalism works.
Like penicillin kills bacteria. (we used to celebrate good things)
Sounds like Heritage 2025 takeover like everything else they propose.
Vought is the enforcer for Project 2025, and he operates with no oversight at all. He can do whatever he likes, and the only thing to have slowed him down are lawsuits.
Unfortunately, he - like the rest of the Trump Administration - is also lawless. Since there is no oversight at the government level, it's hard if not impossible to tell if even the court opinions are having any real effect.
The next non-Trump, non-GOP administration may find horrors rivaling those uncovered in Nazi Germany at the end of WWII.
As I was reading this, a flashing light illuminating the name, Russ Vought, kept appearing. This is his handiwork, the very same that Trump said he knew nothing about during the 2024 campaign. As Trump deteriorates before our eyes, expect Vought to flood the zone with every Old Testament inspired idea he has squirreled away in his fetid brain.
For Mr Trump, 'true' means whatever he wants to hear, usually something that embiggens his brittle self-regard, and 'false' or 'fake' anything he doesn't want to hear. Any other mechanism claiming authority to determine truthfulness or falsity is a competitor to that mechanism, and so is not to be abided….
I have spread the word on how to comment on two separate posts on this subject but when you are on the right and have lost Alex Tabarrok you need to go off by yourself for a while and reflect on the error of your ways.
(JVL's and Noah Smith's; I did not write a single one)
Better to have weak fascists than strong fascists. Weak US science is good for the free world.
Seems to me that belief in science needs to be put on the endangered species list in the US of A. The MAGA right doesn’t believe in vaccines or green energy technologies (even after the Iran oil boondoggle) or in funding scientific research. And an apparently significant part of the left doesn’t believe in biology and thinks sex is an “identity” that can be revised as feelings change. And not a reflection of who produces eggs and who produces sperm. The lot of them on both sides should write the university they graduated from- if they did attend at all - and request their tuition be returned. None of them got their money’s worth.
I remember an economist getting the Noble Prize in economics for showing that investments in science and research were the number 1 indicator of future economic growth. Now, not only are we turning away the top students (immigrants) who might want to study in America, but we are massively defunding science and research in government agencies and in universities to such an extent that 75% of scientists surveyed said they were seriously considering relocating to countries more supportive of science. Trump's seemingly endless attacks on all sorts of science, truth, fact and free speech need to be opposed by every patriotic American!
Signed. If this gets enacted, we can forget meaningful scientific and medical advances in the US for decades.
Greed by the super rich is the endgame. The very rich often do quite well in a third world country.
I find my mind returning to the fact that it took the Vatican centuries to revise its determination that the sun orbits the earth.
It is not only the egregious error, it was the time wasted while observing the sky under this mistaken paradigm, as well as hobbling development of the processes and the whole idea of rigor.
The Trump administration is attacking the very foundation of western civilization. Rules of evidence, check. Consensus on the meaning drawn from the data, check. Insights that lead to more and more subtle questions, check.
Has Russian biology ever recovered?
Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen supported the politicization of science/university funding when it mattered, calling it "progress" when anything "woke" was targeted by Republicans. They provided intellectual justification for DOGE at critical early stages, and are affiliated with every anti-liberty techbro on the planet.
They are not worth linking to ever again, on any subject. They are clearly terrible at social science in this era -- this is not an era in which marginal thinking is the pathway to enlightenment -- and they appear to be paid marketers for industry. Nothing more.
With respect there is a difference between certain projects that wear their ideological priors on their sleeve getting a grant and the politicization of every single project when a political officer has to approve it.
(I assume that most of these ideological projects are in the social sciences, not health issues affecting LGBTQ people kind of stuff)
That was badly said. Health-issues-affecting-LGBTQ-people is legitimate science.
The illustration for this essay should be the revisions Trump made with a Sharpie on a map indicating the area in the southeast affected by a hurricane.