Anecdote Regarding What Happens When You Challenge the Status Quo in Academia
terp said:
I know the point you're trying to make, and you are completely missing the point. If there are going to be government grants(which for obvious reasons I think there shouldn't be) they should at least be equitable. I mean, that's the point from most leftists. The market will not invest in ideas in an equitable way, so let's have the government do it. Right?
Again, NOT YOUR GOVERNMENT!
What part of this simple fact don't you understand????
CANADA dude! It really, REALLY, really isn't the 51st state.
Canada has hate speech laws that the U.S. doesn't, and never would. I'm not in favor of those types of laws, but since I'm not Canadian, my opinion holds zero weight in their country.
Klinker said:CANADA dude! It really, REALLY, really isn't the 51st state.
When California secedes, we'll need a replacement 50th. Just looking ahead.
DaveSchmidt said:
Klinker said:
CANADA dude! It really, REALLY, really isn't the 51st state.
When California secedes, we'll need a replacement 50th. Just looking ahead.
I don't think we should get too attached to the number 50. There was an article in the Times yesterday about how Russian nationalists have their eyes on Alaska and Tsar Vlad's birthday is coming up.
terp said:
But what when the government only likes investing in a certain spectrum of ideas?
Maybe you can get a grant to get the First Amendment back from those maple-licking moose-lovers.
Read the thread. It does not reflect well on one's intelligence if they are unable to identify the context of a thread post. I strongly suggest you try to read the threads going forward.
Klinker said:
terp said:
I know the point you're trying to make, and you are completely missing the point. If there are going to be government grants(which for obvious reasons I think there shouldn't be) they should at least be equitable. I mean, that's the point from most leftists. The market will not invest in ideas in an equitable way, so let's have the government do it. Right?
Again, NOT YOUR GOVERNMENT!
What part of this simple fact don't you understand????
CANADA dude! It really, REALLY, really isn't the 51st state.
The amount of rational discourse you have offered is not going to solve any problems for anyone.
Klinker said:
terp said:
Thank you for proving my point. This person knows more about the climate than you will ever kniw if you were granted 1000 lifetimes. Yet, she takes a position that goes against the dogma, and she's evil.
I am sure it seems that way from where you are sitting. I think you have to heal yourself, no amount of rational discourse on our part can solve your problems for you.
The issue isn't the topics of the requests. The problems arise when the grants are given only to researchers likely to reach the desired conclusions.
sprout said:
terp said:
But what when the government only likes investing in a certain spectrum of ideas?
Um, the government often likes investing in a specific set of ideas.
For example the Department of Justice recent request for grant applications focuses on addressing Opioid abuse ( https://www.bja.gov/funding/CA...), and Bias crimes in another ( https://nij.gov/funding/Docume...).
The requests tend to change with the times. These topics are completely different from 2015 which had more of a focus on School Safety; or last year's competitions which focused more on smart policing, smart prosecuting, body cameras, and addressing the problem of an oversized prison population.
terp said:
The issue isn't the topics of the requests. The problems arise when the grants are given only to researchers likely to reach the desired conclusions.
Grants are not given *only* to researchers likely to reach the desired conclusions, so I guess there's no problem. At least in the US. Not sure about Canada.
Actually, the grants often are given to those likely to reach the desired conclusions. That's kind of the point of some grants. For example, in the Opioid abuse grant, one category is called:
System-level Diversion and Alternatives to Incarceration Projects
So... if you don't propose a grant outlining how you would reach their desired conclusion (reducing opioid abuse using System-level Diversion and Alternatives to Incarceration), then they aren't going to fund it.
The guy in your linked article didn't give any indication of what the reviewers comments were, and why he was rejected. You take this guy's claim at face value simply because you agree with his POV. But it doesn't fit most researcher's reality.
We had one grant rejected due to low ratings from two independent reviewers. The comments were bizarre. One reviewer said our sample size was too small to get generalizable results. The second reviewer said our sample size was too large for researchers to get a deep understanding of what was occurring. We had a team of superstar researchers who were well renowned from Harvard, Stanford, UCLA, and other top universities; a strong history of implementation; and a cutting-edge concept.
Really, it's super easy to get one's fabulous grant proposal rejected without being a controversial attention hog.
terp said:
The issue isn't the topics of the requests. The problems arise when the grants are given only to researchers likely to reach the desired conclusions.
sprout said:
terp said:
But what when the government only likes investing in a certain spectrum of ideas?
Um, the government often likes investing in a specific set of ideas.
For example the Department of Justice recent request for grant applications focuses on addressing Opioid abuse ( https://www.bja.gov/funding/CA...), and Bias crimes in another ( https://nij.gov/funding/Docume...).
The requests tend to change with the times. These topics are completely different from 2015 which had more of a focus on School Safety; or last year's competitions which focused more on smart policing, smart prosecuting, body cameras, and addressing the problem of an oversized prison population.
Up next, Terp's rants about the challenges to academic freedom in Botswana.
Tell it to sprout
dave23 said:
terp said:
The issue isn't the topics of the requests. The problems arise when the grants are given only to researchers likely to reach the desired conclusions.
Grants are not given *only* to researchers likely to reach the desired conclusions, so I guess there's no problem. At least in the US. Not sure about Canada.
I guess this is just more of that rational discourse you seem so fond of.
Klinker said:
Up next, Terp's rants about the challenges to academic freedom in Botswana.
What are you getting at? Do you have dual Canadian/Botswanian citizenship or do you just enjoy ranting about foreign educational bureaucracies?
I think the issue here is less rationality and more relevancy.
Then again, the issue may just be you.
dave23 said:
No need to. I actually read Sprout's post.
We'd be fools to take her expertise lightly.
It's pretty freaking simple to prove Terp's point - get a list of all grant applications in the subject area, and figure out if one's that challenge the "status quo" are unfairly being denied grant monies. It won't be perfect, but there should be something to glean from it.
The fact that the results of such a fairly simple research project have not been publicized, in the face of many years of a well-funded, concerted climate denialism, probably means that such an effect doesn't exist. Or else Exxon would have told us years ago.
So as usual, the climate denialist side is, yet again, full of sh!t.
I'm going to back up a bit here and thank you for your response. That being said, I'm not sure that I feel great about governments looking for studies that might retrofit into policies. I'm not well informed in this sphere, so if you say that is how it works, I will take your word for it.
sprout said:
Actually, the grants often are given to those likely to reach the desired conclusions. That's kind of the point of some grants. For example, in the Opioid abuse grant, one category is called:
System-level Diversion and Alternatives to Incarceration Projects
So... if you don't propose a grant outlining how you would reach their desired conclusion (reducing opioid abuse using System-level Diversion and Alternatives to Incarceration), then they aren't going to fund it.
The guy in your linked article didn't give any indication of what the reviewers comments were, and why he was rejected. You take this guy's claim at face value simply because you agree with his POV. But it doesn't fit most researcher's reality.
We had one grant rejected due to low ratings from two independent reviewers. The comments were bizarre. One reviewer said our sample size was too small to get generalizable results. The second reviewer said our sample size was too large for researchers to get a deep understanding of what was occurring. We had a team of superstar researchers who were well renowned from Harvard, Stanford, UCLA, and other top universities; a strong history of implementation; and a cutting-edge concept.
Really, it's super easy to get one's fabulous grant proposal rejected without being a controversial attention hog.
terp said:
The issue isn't the topics of the requests. The problems arise when the grants are given only to researchers likely to reach the desired conclusions.
sprout said:
terp said:
But what when the government only likes investing in a certain spectrum of ideas?
Um, the government often likes investing in a specific set of ideas.
For example the Department of Justice recent request for grant applications focuses on addressing Opioid abuse ( https://www.bja.gov/funding/CA...), and Bias crimes in another ( https://nij.gov/funding/Docume...).
The requests tend to change with the times. These topics are completely different from 2015 which had more of a focus on School Safety; or last year's competitions which focused more on smart policing, smart prosecuting, body cameras, and addressing the problem of an oversized prison population.
This feels a bit like a straw man. And the attitude expressed below is a real problem IMO. Everything I've read about/from Judith Curry seems to indicate that she does agree that man has affected the climate. What she questions is the level of concern and the devastating affects that are often predicted.
If we can't talk to people who have a differing opinion, then how the hell do we get anywhere? I mean, if you don't get in line you are a "denialist" or a bigot. We should be better than this.
drummerboy said:
It's pretty freaking simple to prove Terp's point - get a list of all grant applications in the subject area, and figure out if one's that challenge the "status quo" are unfairly being denied grant monies. It won't be perfect, but there should be something to glean from it.
The fact that the results of such a fairly simple research project have not been publicized, in the face of many years of a well-funded, concerted climate denialism, probably means that such an effect doesn't exist. Or else Exxon would have told us years ago.
So as usual, the climate denialist side is, yet again, full of sh!t.
terp said:
I'm going to back up a bit here and thank you for your response. That being said, I'm not sure that I feel great about governments looking for studies that might retrofit into policies. I'm not well informed in this sphere, so if you say that is how it works, I will take your word for it.
Sorry to burst that bubble. Yes, the government grants I'm most familiar with do seem to fund policy-related implementation studies rather than seeking some creative original research. Questions seem to be closer to 'what is the best way to do what we want to be done, and how can we demonstrate that it really works?' Parameters may be provided for the solution, and/or a certain methodology (e.g., a randomized controlled trial) may be requirement.
The small corner of the grant and university worlds I'm familiar with feel more like businesses than incubators of creativity. The rates universities charge, on top of the actual research and salary/benefits costs, can be upwards of 50%, and how that gets divided within the university can be political. Department feuds have developed over these financial arrangements. It's not really the romantic world some think it to be.
I don't know. I read this about Curry, and I am unimpressed with her as a beacon of principled opposition.
drummerboy said:
I don't know. I read this about Curry, and I am unimpressed with her as a beacon of principled opposition.
http://www.nature.com/news/201...
I don't think there's anything damning in that article at all. She certainly isn't some wacky denier like you and others on this thread tried to paint her as. From your article:
Curry began to find other examples where she thought the IPCC was "torquing the science" in various ways. For example, she says, "a senior leader at one of the big climate-modeling institutions told me that climate modelers seem to be spending 80 percent of their time on the IPCC production runs and 20 percent of their time developing better climate models." She also asserts that the IPCC has violated its own rules by accepting nonpeer-reviewed papers and assigning high-status positions to relatively untested scientists who happen to feed into the organization's "narrative" of impending doom. Climate skeptics have seized on Curry's statements to cast doubt on the basic science of climate change. So it is important to emphasize that nothing she encountered led her to question the science; she still has no doubt that the planet is warming, that human-generated greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, are in large part to blame, or that the plausible worst-case scenario could be catastrophic. She does not believe that the Climategate e-mails are evidence of fraud or that the IPCC is some kind of grand international conspiracy. What she does believe is that the mainstream climate science community has moved beyond the ivory tower into a type of fortress mentality, in which insiders can do no wrong and outsiders are forbidden entry.
If I didn't know better, I'd say that sounds like healthy skepticism.
Sprout, the other thing is that a submitting project needs to be 'new', I.e. not replicate or continue other projects. Every three years, a totally new thought process needs to be found, and the previously successful project needs to have found a way to be self-sustainable (in other words, commercially viable). You're right: this doesn't mean it's innovative as a project, it's just different for that team, compared with previous efforts. Yet we know that a lot (most) of important 'big' research takes much more than three years to gather sufficient evidence and move through full design stages, trials and every stage of publication... You're often looking at close to a decade, at least. But grant funding isn't awarded like that.
Often, funding bodies make a point these days of not awarding to someone who's already won theirs, because they want to ensure plenty of fresh opportunities in an ever-decreasing $$$$-pool.
I don't know why anyone would be arguing about this story. The title of this thread clearly says it's an anecdote. People can take it for what it's worth. It's one story about one person making a claim of discrimination. We'll probably never know the truth unless some grant reviewer comes out and directly says "yeah, we turned down that professor's grant application because we don't like his views on transgender issues."
yeah - as I said, it would be easy to try to make a case that this is a widespread phenomenon. The fact that no case has been made means this particular case means next to nothing. A weak data point of one doesn't prove much .
ml1 said:
I don't know why anyone would be arguing about this story. The title of this thread clearly says it's an anecdote. People can take it for what it's worth. It's one story about one person making a claim of discrimination. We'll probably never know the truth unless some grant reviewer comes out and directly says "yeah, we turned down that professor's grant application because we don't like his views on transgender issues."
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I am sure it seems that way from where you are sitting. I think you have to heal yourself, no amount of rational discourse on our part can solve your problems for you.