Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Stage Funerals To Protest Against Cuts — a New Trend?
ananyo writes "Physicists, chemists and mathematicians in the UK are campaigning against their chief public funder (EPSRC) over reforms that they say threaten blue-skies research, kicking off their protest by toting a coffin to the Prime Minister in Downing Street. The reforms are a response to declining budgets and political pressure to focus science on areas that will produce economic benefits for the UK. Last month, over 2000 Canadian scientists marched to Parliament Hill with a coffin to protest against the Harper government's cuts to basic research and scientific facilities, which they believe undermine the quality of scientific evidence in government. With budget cuts to science expected in the U.S., is it time for scientists in U.S. — and perhaps elsewhere — to think about getting their retaliation in first and ready their coffins?"
In response to your Subject, which is the comment version of a headline, "No".
There is an educated minority who does obviously but big business that can't make use of curiosity based research in the immediate quarter doesn't care, Joe Sixpack who is fearing unemployment due to a massive recession doesn't care. Political powers that are trying to "stabilize" the middle east by shooting at it don't care.
So who, with power, cares?
RTFA much? The coffin is not a mock funeral for the respective prime ministers, but rather for the 'death of science'.
"Old man yells at systemd"
This is intentional. They deliberately impoverish the intellectual community so that few will be able to question what government does. If no one has hard data, the government can do what it wants. If hard data is available, the government has to take that into consideration. Behind every anti-intellectual is an authoritarian.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
We can't cut social security because old people will starve in the streets.
We can't cut the drug benefits because old people can't afford their medication.
We can't cut the military, or our enemies will attack us.
We can't cut unemployment benefits, because people are unemployed.
We can't cut benefits to the poor because the poor need help.
We can't cut support to the bank industry because they need help to recover.
And apparently, we also can't cut science funding, or scientists will die.
The government is huge because people never want to give up ANYTHING. It's always "the other guy" who should pay.
Well when you have a massive debt, everyone has to give up something.. and that includes (unfortunately) scientists. Maybe those researching "blue skies" projects that have gone no where should be cut.
Actually, (with the U.S. government at least) we're worse than broke. Broke would imply we at least had nothing. We would actually have to earn about $15 trillion to be broke.
So no, we DON'T have the money. We have these pieces of paper that SAY "money" on them. But they only work because no one has figured out yet that they're worthless.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
I wonder how long before they start devouring human flesh?
Everything is better with chainsaws.
If you don't have anything informed to say, you could try saying nothing at all.
"Old man yells at systemd"
And they shouldn't be subject to economic downturns eh?
Absoloutely, the best way out of an economic downturn is to make sure you don't develop anything new.
Also, you and the idiots who modded you up are idiots.
The real think that's pissing off all the victims of the EPSRC incompetence is that the EPSRC fucked up its advocacy efforts and got much heavier funding cuts than the other members of RCUK.
So, basically, you and the mods have no idea what you're talking about and decided to mod up inflammatory crap anyway.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
no cuts to science funding needed. Problem solved.
We Canadians weren't protesting because of general science funding cuts. Budgets get rearranged. The economy is in shambles. We accept that.
The "Death of evidence" protest formed because cuts were being very carefully targeted: If your research produced results that suggested the Harper Government (tm) might be making a dumb decision, your research was ignored, suppressed, and eventually canned.
Statistics Canada has never lost control of any personal information. Never. So the long-form census gets scrapped, citing "privacy concerns". Now we have huge holes in the data that used to guide policy decisions.
The Experimental Lakes Area costs nearly nothing (~$2m/yr). It taught us what damage various chemicals will do to aquatic ecosystems, how to clean that damage up, and how to prevent it from happening in the first place. So we're spending ~$50m, or 25 years of operating funding, to shut it down.
We have thousands of scientists employed in federal labs. They are now required, apparently under threat of dismissal, to obtain political approval from the Prime Minister's Office before they can talk to the media or release their findings.
There are many, many related examples from all over Canada.
So it's not that funding is being "cut". It's that scientific results are being systematically ignored, dismissed and suppressed, so our policy-making is now based on pure ideology with no evidence to back up decisions. And the institutions that could provide that evidence are quietly being muzzled and gutted.
(Posting AC for obvious reasons...)
ps. Captcha = "Losers".
Even if te government spent $10 trllion on research, but then announced "cuts" to a more-reasonable level, these guys would still protest. It's human nature never to be satisfied. You will never hear them say, "Oh well 10 trllion was outrageously high. Cuts to 7 trillion would be reasonable."
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I doubt anything "new" will come out of "blue sky" research efforts in a time frame that will help the current economic downturn.
While they should be concerned about funding cuts and should do what they can to minimize them and their impacts, parading down the street with a coffin is stupid and melodramatic.
Buck up and do the best you can, as will everyone else.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And they shouldn't be subject to economic downturns eh?
Self important blowhards.
Of course scientists are not saying that. Budgets have to be tightened for everyone if they are going to be balanced. What's being argued is that the cuts are disproportionate and clearly politically-motivated. This is especially apparent when you see what's being cut (a lot of environment-related research) and when you see the unreasonable excesses that continue for other government budget items. Two that come to mind are the ridiculously exorbitant pensions that MPs get after only a few years of public service, and the current government is quite happy to keep on funding the multi-billion-dollar F-35 stealth fighter acquisition, even as the costs for it have almost doubled. If the government truly wanted to balance the budget at all costs, then they'd re-open the fighter contract to have proper competitive bids, and consider settling for cheaper, proven aircraft such as the Super Hornet (F-18E/F). Sure, it wouldn't be cutting-edge, but it would be an upgrade over the current fighter fleet (mostly F-18s), it would be twin-engine (safer for remote operations), and a hell of a lot cheaper. The Super Hornet is the approach that Australia took while waiting for the F-35 to get into production. Sounds like a decent "austerity" approach to me. But, no, our supposedly budget-conscious government didn't even have a competitive bid process and is sticking to the expensive, unproven "Cadillac" model based on what they saw in the showroom.
It can also be argued that if you are going to cut back, cutting government and educational science is a bad idea because it is akin to "eating the seed grain". You're cutting into your future prospects for growth. That might help a little with balancing the budget, but it's going to cost big down the line. Not necessarily a good tradeoff.
Scientists aren't saying "Don't cut us, because we're privileged", they're saying "Wait a second. Why are you cutting us to the bone while these other programs have plenty of fat, and why are you cutting us when politicians need more information about scientific issues, not less?" There has been little public consultation to determine whether cutting science fits with the public's priorities too.
It does exist. Look at the Pentagon. They get close to a trllion dollars a year but the moment someone says, "The war is almost over. Let's lower that 100 billion," then they and their military supporters have a fit about how cuts will hurt them.
(shrug). Can YOU cite a single example where teachers or military or old people or students or some other group said, "Yeah we're okay if you cut our budget 10%." It doesn't exist.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
(shrug). Can YOU cite a single example where teachers or military or old people or students or some other group said, "Yeah we're okay if you cut our budget 10%." It doesn't exist.
well, yeah.
WELL DONE HAPRER. Let them eat their own shit. Just like the health insurance, and doctors, and nurses, and their GIGANTIC salaries, these guys needs to learn how to survive as the regular John does. By WORKING HARD. Not by eating for free, and drinking for free (free as a beer, with the annoying detail the we, the people are paying his beer...).
As it was blown some time ago, do you know that one stupid little anesthesiologist makes $400 thousands Canadian dollars??? WTF??? Can you imagine how many patients he must manage in order to justify his salary? I could, but for some strange reason he does not do it.
As of the "scientists", i wonder how many innovations do you happen to know made by them? Zero? Really? Then what is the point!!!
Because these scientists are Special And they shouldn't be subject to economic downturns eh?
In the last year or so the British government spent more money bailing out the banks that it has spent on science in the last 1,000 years. Now just pause and think about that for a second. Think about the world 1,000 years ago and where we are today because that difference is due primarily to science. If governments can blow more than 1,000 years worth of their science budget to bail out the very people whose greed created the economic down turn then you might think that they could find the relatively meagre pittance required to continue a program which has transformed our society.
...of course this may be part of the problem: it was far easier for those in power to deal with us troublesome peasants in the dark ages!
Why do these scientists feel so entitled to my tax dollars? Support yourselves and raise your own research dollars, you fucking leeches.
In which case: bye-bye space program, bye-bye national security, bye-bye communications. etc.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun