We all get it that this is a Kremlin lead project to utterly destroy America’s Science and Technology leadership, right? See today’s posting on the firing of NOAA Hurricane hunters.
Get very clear on that.
Andrew Dessler in The Climate Brink:
Dear America:
On behalf of the People’s Republic of China, I would like to deeply thank the current U.S. administration for implementing policies that threaten to dismantle America’s university research enterprise, thereby helping China become the preeminent global power of the 21st century.
For decades, we have watched with envy as the United States built the world’s most powerful innovation engine through its university system. The formula was brilliant in its simplicity: substantial federal funding for basic research combined with a visa system that allowed the smartest people from around the world to contribute to American innovation. Silicon Valley, biotechnology, artificial intelligence — all grew from seeds planted in American university laboratories.
This system created a remarkable virtuous cycle: federal research funding led to breakthrough discoveries, which spawned new industries, which generated economic growth, which supported more research funding. From the internet to GPS, from genetic engineering to computer chips, university laboratories have been the birthplace of innovations that drove 85% of our economic growth.
More than half of America’s billion-dollar startups were founded by immigrants, many of whom began as international students in university labs.
While we in China have made tremendous strides in building our own research capabilities, particularly in strategic areas like artificial intelligence and quantum computing, we still trail the United States in many critical fields. But, thanks to your new policies, not for long.
Darby Saxbe is worried her research funding might get canceled.
People’s brains change when they become parents. She studies fathers’ brains, in particular, to understand which changes might underlie better parenting. And she wants to study a variety of brains.
“If you want to understand the brain and biology changes of fathers, you don’t necessarily want to only look at white affluent fathers who are hanging out around a university, which is what a convenient sample might be composed of,” says the University of Southern California neuroendocrinologist. “That just makes for a better, more impactful research project.”
Continue reading “Teardown of American Science has Begun”