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Scientific Research Encountering More Restrictions
vab writes "MSNBC is running an article
that details how the MIT AI Lab, the birth place of the free software movement, walked away from a $404K study because the government wanted to restrict participation by foreign students. The article talks about further restrictions the US Government is trying to impose in the name of homeland security and how other research institutions are reacting."
I was a grad student at Texas Tech until a few months ago and one of my prof.s had funding from US DOD to study dispersion of chem./bio. warfare agents. The project was multi-year and for 90% of the project, no foreign national was allowed to work on it. That was finally overturned, however, mainly because there weren't enough Americans to work on it.
The project was new just before Sept. 11th and I'm not sure I can blame them for their restrictions at the time. I think they finally figured out that, at least in this case, it didn't matter who worked on the project. It wasn't going to propogate information about how to make delivery agents more effective, just how they interact with urban, rural, etc. environments.
That and Lubbock isn't a hotbed for terrorists if you know what I mean. Cow-tippers, yes. Foreign spies, no.
There is no saying it was racist.
Nationalist, sure, but that isn't the same thing.
If the 'strings' had said "No French" or "No Germans", then this conversation wouldn't be happening.
In this case, the NSA wanted to pre-screen any foreign nationals working on the project.
I'm sorry, but I don't see the racism there. They didn't say that they (the foreign nationals) automatically couldn't work on the project, they just wanted to check out whichever ones did.
Profiling? Maybe. But it happens regularly in government and business. The last two companies I worked for had a much more rigorous screening process for foreign nationals. In their defense, they'd gotten burned at least once.
But then so has the US Government. I don't blame them for being careful.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
What makes you think that more funding will improve the situation? The reason the percentage of foreign grad students pursuing PhDs is so high is because (this is the case in the uk and I assume also the us) the income from a PhD is so low. When faced with the choice of doing a PhD and earning $12k per year for 3-4 years or taking that job offer with company xyz for $30k per year rising to $60k after 4 years, it's easy to see why uk born graduates take the job.
More funding will simply increase the amount of new PhDs available, not increase the salaries of the people doing the PhDs.
Also, many of the PhD graduates I have known have the opinion that one's employability after completing the PhD is the same (and sometimes less) than before the PhD, unless the objective is to stay in academia.
you belong to Caesar. It's a concept simple enough that it was expressed by a simple bookshelf builder who grew up out in the sticks two thousand years ago.
Once upon a time the great private universities were the bastions of independant thinking, but a funny thing happened on the way to the Forum. They started takeing Caesar's money. A little aid here, a little aid there, and then the big money, government contracts.
This has created on odd state of affairs where a private institution has a public face presenting public knowledge, and at the same time a public face creating very, very, VERY private knowledge.
Or worse, presenting as public knowledge that which it is payed to present as public by Ceasar. Do you really need it spelled out that some of that "knowledge" lacks a bit around the edges in the "truth" department?
When a government contracts for science the government OWNS that science. I mean this quite literally.
If you wish to do science, or engage in ANY free thought for that matter, the solution is obvious and simple. Don't take Caesar's coin.
The poet laureate, by accepting the the coin and protection of the Lord is compelled by his very state to write only that which is pleasing and/or flattering to the Lord. If you don't think this happens in science you are naive. The poet who rejects the Lords money may say anything he wishes, although his life may otherwise be somewhat harsher.
Which way to go is a choice. Choose wisely, if not well.
KFG