from Hacker News

What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

by rrock on 2/4/25, 10:51 PM with 1536 comments

by bawolff on 2/4/25, 11:17 PM
Seems like a good opportunity for other countries to recruit scientists.
I think its underappreciated how much of America's modern success comes down to attracting scientists and intellectuals from war torn europe in the 30s-50s.
by softwaredoug on 2/5/25, 1:10 AM
The big thing is this isn't really about any real monetary savings. What we get out of these budgets is a bargain:
> The biggest single share of the NIH budget goes to the NCI ($7.8 billion in 2024), and the second-most to the NIAID ($6.5 billion) with the National Institute of Aging coming in third at $4.4 billion. (See the tables on numbered pages 11 and 46 of that link at the beginning of the paragraph for the details).
> And to put those into perspective, the largest single oulay for the Federal government is Social Security benefits ($1.4 trillion by themselves), with interest on the national debt coming in second at $949 billion, Medicare comes in third at $870 billion, and the Department of Defense fourth at $826 billion and Medicaid next at $618 billion.
by thatfrenchguy on 2/4/25, 11:20 PM
So many brilliant researchers in the US are funded by NSF grants. Even beyond public research, just the private sector benefits just from the training (and associated freedom from not having to chase money and TA) that NSF fellows get is immense.
Injecting dumb politics and refusing grants just because people put the words "biases" in their application is a great way to appeal to Republicans's undereducated voters (see https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/4BD2D522-2092... for an example of their idiotic rhetoric) but also a crazy gamble on the US's ability to be a superpower in two decades.
Just look at what happened in France when right-wing governments started defunding research: a slow but massive brain drain of the best minds. What does the current administration think will happen to our economy when they start burning future brains when they're at the seed stage?
by wileydragonfly on 2/5/25, 1:09 AM
I’m in leadership at a place everyone here has heard of. We are in absolute panic behind the scenes.
by muaytimbo on 2/5/25, 5:33 PM
It's past time these institutions were audited. I had an NSF fellowship and was on numerous NIH grants during my PhD work (Chemist). All of them, even in 2013, had DEI language that made it clear if you were a white/chinese/indian male you were not going to be funded. The institutions, already, were self sabotaging, doling out tons of taxpayer money, not to the best ideas, but to labs that had a few women of various colors other than white working in them. It pushed me and almost all of the other chemists (who were generally white/chinese/indian males) in my class to leave the field either after our PhD or post-doc.
by username223 on 2/5/25, 12:19 AM
As Sir Ian Jacob said, the Allies won World War II because "our German scientists were better than their German scientists." Brain drain is a real problem for fascist countries.
by yibg on 2/5/25, 12:16 AM
Part of me thinks this is just incompetence. People put in charge to "change" things without knowing what the thing is or does and just randomly mashing buttons.
by Meneth on 2/5/25, 2:16 PM
Side note: the article's author is Derek Lowe, who also wrote this memetic piece on Chlorine Trifluoride: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-yo...
by throwawaymaths on 2/5/25, 12:08 AM
just two days ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910829
the problems that led to these frauds are structural--no amount of patching the system will fix this.
maybe we should consider the possibility that we are due for a refactor, which is often painful, but especially painful for people (or code) with an entrenched incentive to continue existing.
i dont mean to defend what the administration is doing but I'm warning that everyone crying doom and gloom and threatening to move abroad, etc. might be eating crow. ironically, the very people most likely to move abroad (in it for the career, not for the principle) are biased to be the types bringing down our system of science. bad science is the science equivalent of a zirp.
by refurb on 2/5/25, 1:36 AM
Ok, so all payments are paused while funding is reviewed? Allowance for emergency payments to keep the lights on?
This is taxpayers money and these agencies report to the President under the executive power. A shocker that government agencies might need account for spending.
And I’m sorry “its not a lot of money” doesn’t fly when all the “its not a lot of money” is $8 trillion dollars. The federal deficit will never get smaller if nobody looks at the “its not a lot of money” line items.
by odyssey7 on 2/5/25, 12:42 PM
This hurts, but it also presents an opportunity for rebuilding.
An outcome could be a greater diversity of voices influencing research, rather than the NSF and NIH continuing to serve as monoliths.
The NIH is the dominant force in medical research. Remember how theories for Alzheimer’s having an infectious etiology were sidelined for decades? And, to this day, for autoimmune conditions?
by watersb on 2/5/25, 6:54 PM
Research labs wholly owned and operated by large corporations were prevalent sources of innovation throughout the 20th century in the United States.
Obvious, probably for Hacker News crowd:
• Bell Labs • Xerox PARC • IBM Watson, Almaden Research • Dow Chemical
I'm missing the big ones from petroleum and agricultural businesses. Aerospace.
I'm willing to believe that a political retreat from 21st century choices looks towards legendary captains of industry, rather than sprawling government bureaucracy, as a source of American greatness.
My attempt to frame this week's gleeful destruction of government institutions as a revitalization of the fountainhead.
But I don't know. It's easier to just call it the same old spiteful hatred of science that is as American as apple pie.
by herodotus on 2/5/25, 4:39 PM
Another win for China. While the US guts its research capacity, China already dominates scientific research (according to Perplexity, 29% of the most highly cited peer reviewed articles are authored by Chinese scientists). Of course all those people who voted for this regime don't believe that there is any benefit to funding science. After all, what did science ever do for them? (OK, except for the science of pick-up trucks - I'll give you that. Oh yes, and the transistor: I think I may have one in my phone. But otherwise: name one thing, bro). Maybe those hats should replace the "A" with a "C".
by Gabriel54 on 2/5/25, 12:41 AM
Despite all the hyperbole in this thread I will try to speak plainly. It has become tiring to see how DEI has affected all aspects of academia. Hiring people based on race, awarding grants to work exclusively with members of a particular set of minorities, etc. I'm sure most people choose to close their eyes to such things and move on and focus on the actual important work but there must be unimaginable waste going on in addition to unethical race based preferences.
by cbare on 2/5/25, 12:37 AM
The US has the strongest university and research system in the world. Wrecking that will be one of the worst acts of self-harm ever.
by iancmceachern on 2/4/25, 11:09 PM
Not good
by markus_zhang on 2/5/25, 12:57 AM
I'm interested to see what they find out. It is rare to have such insights into these.
by searine on 2/4/25, 11:54 PM
Do you hear that sucking sound? It's biggest brain drain you've ever seen. It already been happening, I know several great scientists who've already left, this BS just kicked it into high gear.
by tmshapland on 2/4/25, 11:25 PM
Thank you for posting this.
by spicy-punk-fog on 2/5/25, 10:41 AM
Well, here you are, dear Americans, you all have got a chance now to show the rest of the world that you, of all nations, know how to deal right with the chutzpah in your government that has just dropped the mask of democracy, by leveraging the constitution, the law, the right for protest, peaceful or not, and whatever else that is available to a citizen in such cases.
Because you're not akin to those apathetic passive supporters of their criminals-in-power like Russians and Israelis, are you?
by jmward01 on 2/5/25, 9:18 AM
This is a coup and we are calmly debating budgets. Debating the % of budget and how useful organization x is and if y will still get grant money, and, and, and... All of this is ignoring the big elephant in the room that there is one single person deciding everything that happens in government as if they were a king. The right thing to be debating is how we can stop this from continuing and how we can hold those responsible accountable.
by jl6 on 2/5/25, 7:55 AM
It seems like some new doctors have arrived and diagnosed the patient with terminal cancer. Being new, they have no experience of surgery so are hacking out the tumor with a blunt instrument, excising good tissue and bad. Some hope the surgeons will improve their skill over time. Some say the patient won’t survive. Some say the patient wouldn’t have survived if they did nothing. Some say the patient never had cancer in the first place.
by jorblumesea on 2/5/25, 12:19 AM
US loss, Europe's win. Same thing with the trade wars and other Trumpian policies. Short term gains to look strong but long term just degrades US soft power and decades of ally building.
by kittikitti on 2/5/25, 4:36 PM
A warning about the "starve the beast" philosophy: the beast will be very hungry when it breaks free.
by batushka5 on 2/5/25, 2:50 PM
As an european I envy so much this great purge - here entire castes build on feeding from grant money, perpetuating DEI, green transition, gender studies etc. Overnight nothing-scientist/ NGO profesionals carreers are over, like in those "AI stole my job" videos. Sadly EU still holds strong perpetuating this grant bottom feeding, poisoning academia and discrediting NGOs.
by zjp on 2/5/25, 12:55 AM
If they don't start reviewing grants again soon I'll be able to say I was fired by Donald Trump.
by huqedato on 2/4/25, 11:51 PM
Part Seven: Enter DOGE.
Part Eight: Hostile takeover by Musk & co.
by Invictus0 on 2/5/25, 1:43 PM
Catch your breath before you start writing. There is no reason to read past "although I keep removing curse words", it totally undermines the credibility of the piece.
by stainablesteel on 2/5/25, 1:20 AM
What i've learned in the last week is that if an unelected bureaucrat thinks it will hurt the Trump administration to follow their order through a manner of malicious compliance, then they will. But if they don't, then they'll ignore the order and pretend they're defending the constitution.
a serious audit of the endless money printing of the federal government is well overdue
by dmagee on 2/5/25, 12:04 AM
There seems to be a lot of negativity from the HN crowd about this. But, the reality is that your fellow Americans voted for this. If you don'y like it, you're going to have to convince people that it's a bad idea. Getting worked up about Trump or Musk or SV bros isn't getting us anywhere.
by sashank_1509 on 2/5/25, 5:40 AM
I got to hand it to Elon Musk, I was in the “nothing ever happens” camp and he completely, absolutely proved me wrong. The Great men theory of history posits that a lot of History happens due to the action of a few great men. Great has a baggage of positive connotation, I prefer calling it the “Important People of History” theory (to also be gender neutral). It posits that if Hitler didn’t exist, Germany wouldn’t go down the path it did, if Gandhi didn’t exist, India wouldn’t go down the path it did. It is an alternative to the more modern view, that tries to find sociological, economic and environmental reasons for Historic Change. I leaned towards the Great Men View but was not fully convinced by it. Looking at Elon Musk, leads me to believe that this theory is true.
If Elon did not exist/ tie himself to Trump, I don’t think Trump could have done even 10% of the dismantling of the Administrative State that Elon has done. Elon has a certain will to power, flagrantly breaks all norms but advertises it on Twitter for his Twitter supporters, an insane sense of urgency to move fast, an ability to attract talented 20 yr olds to join him for “low pay”, and “100 hr weeks” that gets stuff done. The Trump ecosystem was mostly professional grifter (and crypto scammers), polemicists who only talked the talk, and a small set of true believers who never had a private sector job in their life. If it was just them, I might have been right in the “Nothing Ever Happens” camp. Elon and his ecosystem has given them fangs. They still probably can direct Elon, to a limit, at some things like H1b immigration they will probably concede to Elon but in return they will actually remake the government in their image. Elon is turning out to be one of the “Important People in History”.
by hoseja on 2/5/25, 12:16 PM
Vengeance is in order.
by SquibblesRedux on 2/5/25, 4:05 AM
The financial position of the US is precarious, at best. I seriously doubt there is any painless way to correct course, as Congress seems to have lost the ability to compromise. Looking into the future, the US will go the way of the former Soviet Union if it does not take corrective action.
Is the current situation the only way, the best way, or even a good way to address the country's economic position? That is a matter of perspective. As is always the case, people will take sides. The unreasonable people (on any side) will refuse to compromise and spew inflammatory rhetoric, most often in defense of their own self interests and at the expense of others' interests.
I believe that the most sensible approach is for all parties to adhere to a metered diligence, always being mindful that the country is a collective of disparate interests. The whole point of a democracy is that through all the ups and downs, things work themselves out eventually. Sometimes there are setbacks and other times there is progress.
Things may seem chaotic, but this too shall pass.
by boc on 2/4/25, 11:25 PM
Watching the tech community waltz into DC and pretend that they know how all the levers of government work is pathetic. Are there inefficiencies? Sure. Are there places to improve? Of course. But pretending that they can understand the intricacies of literally decades of institutional knowledge and deep connections across the globe in the course of a single weekend is asinine.
We need to do better. The US government isn't Twitter. Breaking things simply because you have the power is the opposite of leadership, it's nihilism.
by tomlockwood on 2/5/25, 2:06 AM
Isn't the elephant in the room here the massive overspending on the US military which Trump and Elon and Satya and Bezos and Altman don't seem to care about?
by stefanoco on 2/5/25, 9:02 AM
This is trending on HN at the same time of another related citation, which makes a lot of sense: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42943973
by Facemelters on 2/4/25, 11:19 PM
The idea is to destroy every part of the American federal government so that techno fiefdoms can be ruled by oligarchs. It's pretty obvious. Not sure if we can stop it!
In this particular case, the goal is to privatize science entirely.
by syl_sau on 2/5/25, 1:32 PM
Some people here seem to be upset. I don't get it.
More than 40% of US adults are obese. The rates of chronic diseases are through the roof. There's obviously a systemic problem in these institutions who are tasked with the well-being of the country. We know of many fraud in social sciences (ever heard of priming research?), medical science (eg. alzheimer researchs) and nutritional science (eg. saturated fats). In fact I'd argue it has become systemically untrustworthy. Robert Kennedy Jr vowed for: (a) dedicating 20% of science funding to replication studies, (b) systemic publication of peer reviews alongside papers, (c) publication of null results. Which seems like a very good improvement over what we have now. The field is in dire need of a reform.
Am I missing something?
PS: I am not from the USA.
by _l2po on 2/5/25, 5:27 PM
> "Elon Musk has said recently that his goal is to have no regulations at all"
Is there a source for this? I ask because this concern me.
by dan_can_code on 2/4/25, 11:13 PM
The cynic in me thinks that the US is going to roll over and take this fascist shake down. The optimist in me thinks that the people will rise up with a resounding NO and do something about it. Right now I'm not sure which I believe.
by zombiwoof on 2/4/25, 11:54 PM
Are we burning Beatles records yet.
My how we’ve fallen. Trump could says he’s bigger than Jesus and sell a bible with the quote
by sam345 on 2/5/25, 3:44 PM
This is such a politically charged article and full of political hate. Is this really worthy of HN. Are political editorials now ok for HN? In addition to his obvious political hatred of the current president, the author goes out of his purview to repeat third hand rumors and allegations of illegality at other agencies he has no experience with.
Just a few quotes from the article:
"...This is amply laid out in the Project 2025 documents, and let me say right here that I was volcanically pissed off at the way that topic was handled during ..the campaign.", and
.. That’s a gigantic can of worms that I don’t have the energy to open at the moment, but past that, there is a broader hatred of education and expertise of all kinds. I hate to bring that one up, because it makes me sound like a crank, but there really is a strain of Trumpism that is nothing more than a desire for revenge against snooty over-educated elites who try to tell people what they should do based on their so-called "research." So if by pummelling the NIH and NSF you can simultaneously punch some huge bureaucracies in the face, revenge yourself against your imagined pandemic enemies, and cause distress at a bunch of big universities where they mostly hate you anyway, well. . .what's not to like? ... I strongly urge everyone to make their voices heard with their Senators and Representatives about these issues: the Republican ones need to hear that not everyone agrees with this stuff, and the Democratic ones need to hear that their constituents are not in a handshaking bipartisan mood."
We wouldn't be here if government funding was not overrun by leftist politics. How many grants have been rewritten the past few years to put a facade of DEI or to grab funding from funds specifically targeted for DEI or other leftist goals?
by hello_computer on 2/5/25, 3:04 PM
anything that gives pharma shill derek lowe a bad day is a good thing
by dr_dshiv on 2/5/25, 8:45 AM
How will high-intelligence AI change things in the next 5 years of science?
by ysofunny on 2/4/25, 11:28 PM
maybe everything will turn into a startup
whenever any team comes up with anything worthwhile then they get the money
nevermind the fact they need the money to do anything at all, oops
by bad_haircut72 on 2/5/25, 12:52 AM
I support scientific research of course but to play devils advocate, how can the USA afford this? They run a deficit and have an enormous debt. I dont understand how this can continously be ignored. Of course nobody wants cuts but how can it go on? Same with the foreign aid, isnt that something a country running a surplus should be worried about?
by systemstops on 2/5/25, 3:10 PM
"There has been a government-wide purge going on of references to any sorts of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) criteria, and indeed, various elected and unelected officials have for some time now been using "DEI" as a scapegoat term and apparently a shorter way of casting suspicion on anything that is not being run by some white guy. As a white guy myself, I find this phenomenally offensive, and I can't even imagine how I'd be feeling about it as a direct target of this garbage"
This is the kind of comment that caused all the public backlash against DEI. Completely out of touch. If you talk this way, don't expect the public to believe your claims about defunding.