Slashdot Mirror
Romanian Science In Freefall
ananyo writes "In 2011, Romania took a step towards changing its cronyism-ridden research landscape by allocating government grants for science solely on the basis of performance. In 2012, a new government eliminated those rules, then slashed science funding — and since then things have gotten a whole lot worse. The entire National Research Council, Romania's main research-funding agency, has resigned in protest and 900 scientists signed a petition addressed to Prime Minister Victor Ponta, demanding that the research budget and quality control be restored. Ponta himself unfortunately has been accused of academic plagiarism so seems an unlikely figure to address corruption in the scientific establishment. The new science minister, Ecaterina Andronescu, is experienced — she's held the post twice before and is a rector at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest. But she's already reversed conflict of interest rules brought in by the previous government that were designed to end cronyism. And no wonder — they would have meant that she couldn't be science minister and run a university at the same time. Oh, she has also been accused of plagiarism."
So, it has come to this.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
I can't say that I've ever read a paper published by Romanian researchers. China, yes. Pakistan, yes. Ireland, yes. Switzerland, yes. Romania? Never.
It sucks that they are not improving science, basic science is the best investment a country can make. But it's not like they're falling from a great height.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Look at our Vice President. I guess winning the election is tantamount to a pardon.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
They're still the world champion producer of hottest pornstars. Who the hell needs more pasty-faced geeks?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Wasn't there a game called Freefall? I'm not sure what science was involved in it...
This is a worldwide issue - when budgets get tight, science and research programs are always the first to go, despite the fact that it's been shown that increased funds to research and basic technology development benefits the economy much more than financial investments, and even more than education programs.
It's always confirmation bias!
I wrote mine from scratch. I did not check if it's been done before. It's God's temple. It is divine intellect, like the Bible.
Didn't we spend a lot of money on a space station to allow just that?
(Sorry, couldn't resist).
So, just like America then?
What they need is a national anthem that would inspire their people!
If you have a problem with their results, you are free to show the errors. Anything else is political grandstanding based upon you existing beliefs.
Somalia would is wonderful this time of year. I suggest it for idiots like you that can't understand the value of organized society.
I don't want to support BitCoin but your post isn't very well thought out. Exchange between currencies is always an issue. I remember when Canadian coins were rejected at the cash register. Did that mean Canadian currency was not actually a currency? Bitcoins can be easily exchanged for services. If you live near a techno-survivalist farmer, you can probably get eggs for bitcoins. Now that governments are starting to recognize bitcoin and regulating it, it won't be long before you can get water and electricity (in some communities) in bitcoins. Mt. Gox just rolls up all the bitcoins and does accounting on the side, so if you want to verify funds, you can just ask him. He might not tell you, but that's different than being cryptographically impossible. I've never been able to charge-back a USD cash transaction, either, not without some physical or legal threat behind it. This is all just off the top of my head. You really need to think through your arguments more.
I will as soon as Phil Jones releases the unmodified data used for the IPCC reports. Whats that? He deleted it instead of risking peer review? I'm sure he deleted it before the FOIA requests. Whats that? He deleted it 5 years after the first FOIA request and a month before a court was going to force him to hand over the data?
Yea, I have a problem with the results AND the ethics of climate scientists.
Is that like the antarctic auto industry?
Not in Romania.
Politicians in Romania need the big mass of population uneducated. The voters must be many and easy to fool. The majority rules in a democracy and Romania now it's ruled by the low quality one and it's getting worst every 4-5 years at elections.
I don't understand why a science, high level professional would want to live there since it is getting worst every year since 1989.
Anyway, no surprise for me, i'm moving along.
It's really no different here in the US. It's rare to find a high level government scientist who doesn't have some arrangement with a university. At the very least, we all have our personal networks which help drive our citation counts.
This isn't a problem. Every time I've been on a funding review committee, people abstain from reviewing proposals which even look like a conflict of interest. My impression is that within US scientific culture, overt cronyism is not tolerated, while assistance in putting together the best plan and the best teams is seen as a good thing (subtle, but important distinction there).
I think we're much better off admitting that good scientists will have multiple roles in the community and we'll just try to make the best use of them we can.
This post is a bit off topic but uses this article to bring into light certain phenomenons that appear when fractured countries fall and crumble...bringing into question would they have done better keeping themselves as part of the whole (other country they left prior).
If the US currently said to any world government, join us as another one of our states, and allow us to manage you, although you keep certain laws and policies in place, thereby strengthening the fabric of government that might be fragile, they could then also help continue to mine that counrtie's (or new state's) resources whatever they might be. They would both profit as the new state would have less hardships with such polices that could just be adopting, and the US would become even stronger, but we are fracturing smaller and smaller, but to what end?
This fracturing to say you are "this label" or "that label" just to say you want to keep your culture alive is pure crap. I live in Quebec and deal with stupidity all the time concerning such issues and find any government that forces their people to the brink of bankruptcy just to say they are keeping their culture alive is wrong. The culture will remain alive no matter what country you live in as the Jews have clearly demonstrated up to today. Unfortunately they have bought into the fractured point of view by now bying their land back so to speak....
In the end, remove all borders and barriers, we are left with a language we speak and a heritage we choose to either accept and maintain or do away with. Neither is right or wrong, but atleast it is the people deciding for themselves, instead of the government deciding for them at the cost of tax payer dollars.
In this case we could see a reintegration into academic excellence and have a level of standards adopted from the US.
By the way, by no means do I think the US is the only country that could do this, as any country with a level of excellence could be considered as a viable source to "GROW" the united one world nation!.
If romania elected libertarians, this would not have happened. Garanteed.
There are two types of sciences:
There is the theoretical side of science which is mostly publicly (or academically) funded. This is a lot of the stuff that makes you go "oh neat" but has little to no practical application in our lives.
Then there is the practical side of science, this is almost always privately funded through companies R&D teams, this is the stuff you use.
Until the theoretical side of science can really get the support of individuals, they're pretty much doomed to get cut first in any budget because their focus is almost exclusively on interesting, but not practical solutions.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
If you have a problem with their results, you are free to show the errors. Anything else is political grandstanding based upon you existing beliefs.
BWAAA HAA HAAA HAAA!!!!!
Seriously?
That must be why anyone expressing skepticism towards global warming/climate change is labelled a "denier".
Might as well be truthful and call them "heretic".
speaking as a romanian national [and still living here]: Summary is right on the dime. Basically the old minister was a young chemist-intellectual that had fled communism at age 18 by himself. He was/is forward thinking and had a lot of personal achievements in his field before coming into politics. His name was Daniel Funeriu. He made a lot of enemies in the system because he made changes that changed the educational/research system. And not changes that dont change anything like we like it here. What happend was that the guy's party lost the elections and the old neo-communists came back to power (under the name of socialists). And Caty Andronescu is *the* archtype of old communist aparatchik that has zero achievement in her actual field of work but huge "achievements" in her party. This means changing something visible that has absolutely no practical result whatsoever and we can all siphon public money undisturbed. Basically young-and-result-oriented vs old-communist-the-party-is-my-wholelife-peon.
If you start handing out grants based on all that sciency stuff, you end up with a bunch scientists telling you things you don't want to hear, like the truth about the causes of global warming. Can't have that now, can we?
So, who cares that the Romanian ministry of education has a conflict of interest and that the Romanian research budget is slashed? It sounds like petty political shit from a small country spilling onto Slashdot. I only wonder how this article got published. It's not informative, and not even funny.
PS: communists hate intellectuals [truly], so no wonder research is cut. It is a lot more easy to buy votes with some free food from the millions of illiterate - no its not a joke.
OK look, this may sound like trolling, but I ask in all sincerity... why does a country like Romania need to be doing basic scientific research? Let the US and China do the hard work and maybe spend your time and effort eliminating cronyism and corruption in the government in general? If I was paying taxes to the Romanian government, I would be worried about a lot of other things before I wanted a dime of it to go to a Science Ministry.
And before anyone points me to the Wiki list of scientific discoveries by Romanians, I've looked at it. I don't know how many were made *in* Romania and in this century, and I didn't see any of them listed on the "Timeline of Romanian history".
I'm not saying they can't do good or useful research... just that in the current situation, I don't know why they would care very much about this.
I completely agree with what the article states - romanian science is in free fall. But it is wrong about some facts.
In charge of Romanian education and research are two gentlemen - Mihnea Costoiu (Ministry of Research, close to Ecaterina Andronescu - and according to his resume he got his PhD in 6 months - CV and more info at http://www.hotnews.ro/stiri-esential-13845257-cine-este-mihnea-costoiu-propus-ministru-cercetarii.htm ) and Remus Pricopie (Ministry of Education, former rector at SNSPA, National School for Political and Administrative Science).
Before that, we had The Ministry of Education and Research as a single entity - and in the past 10 years we had over 12 different ministers in charge. Every one of them tried to radically change everything while actually changing nothing. Ecaterina Andorenscu was the longest lasting and did the most harm.
The only real change was through a law in 2011, passed by Daniel Funeriu - which got obliterated indeed during the short reign of Ecaterina Andronescu in 2012.
There are many things to tell - but the conclusion is this: we are in deep sh*t and sinking.
Y'know, I understand there's a strong vein of libertarianism in the engineering and tech sectors - and there's nothing wrong with that - but this backwards teapartesque anti-science bullshit has got to go.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
How about Tom Lehrer's Lobachevsky>
I would have blamed Kirk for that, but I guess not.
I'm not sure I saw anything that was anti-science in this. Not funding science is not anti-science, it is putting monies to use in other ways.
Are you anti-McDonad's when you decide to eat at home or another restaurant? How about when you purchase school supplies for your kids instead of getting them a happy meal?
This everything is anti-science if it doesn't follow a line you approve of has to go. There are priorities that people sometimes have to put in front of others.
If your definition of "easily exchanged" requires a techno-survivalist farmer, I think you need a new definition. One that substitutes crackpot for "Walmart". If you can go to Walmart and use Bitcoin, I will definitely accept that you can easily exchange it. However, if you really do have to go to your local anarchist/survivalist I will only say that you can currently only exchange Bitcoin, in limited quantities, in limited locations, for a limited stock of a limited set of items.
And no, the jump from crackpot to paying your taxes and water bills with BTC is neither obvious nor even likely, at this point. Right now, the rest of the world would need to get over the stigma that it is used to buy pot, CP, and is mostly used by fringe elements. And is highly speculative. And that the government hates it and while it will recognize it just enough to tax it, but they will never recognize it enough to be easily used to replace their own monopoly money.
That said it could, through some unknown mechanism, come out a winner, but the means by which that might happen is far from obvious at this point.
Minimum wage of less than 200 EUR monthly (and even that is hard to get for young people), before tax , pension, etc (and that is recent, around Y2K 30-100$ wages were common, even for engineers), VAT at 24% and prices just a bit lower than the rest of the EU. That is wages 2-3 times lower than freakin' Turkey. For a EU country, with almost EU prices.
And you can get thousands of Euros in the "normal" EU, plus all the other benefits that come from non-retarded country like medical care (I mean the actual services that really don't exist, even the head of state went to Austria for some minor intervention).
Even the freaking gypsies are leaving the country. Science? Forget it.
It would be really easy to go for the cheap shot and say the euphemism most global climate change advocates are rooting for when speaking of "Deniers" is not "Heretic", but "Deluded". That said , I think there's an important place for deniers, they keep the scientific majority honest, pressure them to dot 'I's and cross 'T's. The problem has never been deniers, but corporate interests who use the denier's debate no matter it's validity, to justify continuing full steam ahead in crashing the environment in the name of quarterly profits.
Scholarly debate is essential to good science. Cherry picking conversations, data, and spending millions on promoting FUD, is bad social policy, economics and global resource management.
Just because the "scientific facts" bear out a round earth, evolution, relativity and anthropic global climate change, doesn't make these things either a religion, or a conspiracy. Consider instead that the huge, network of supporting research simply means that the probability of these things not being so, is now vanishingly small. Sorry if the truth isn't convenient. The good news is that there are solutions to current problems that open opportunities even for deniers, so we can all still walk away winners.
We are very good at spending money and producing useless scientific papers.
My experience while working at a state owned research institute:
- Phase X of project needs buying some equipment
- Only 30-60% money available
- Write useless study to justify spending the money
- Move acquisition to next phase
- Repeat until project gets buried
Watch out for avalanche of ignorance coming your way. SD isn't about real science, just science worship for such lies as Global Scamming.
Aren't strawmen convenient. Read the thread.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
Sadly, human beings desperately want the world to fit their orthodoxies. The fallacy is that the world is bigger and more complex than any orthodoxy, and that trying to put the world in an ideological box, whether it be religious, geopolitical or sociological demands that people heavily filter reality to see only the part that fit's in their grand scheme of things.
The brave mind starts with nothing, and let's the world inform them. This demands rigor, patience and brutal honesty. You have to be willing to discover yourself completely mistaken, forced to go back to the drawing board as soon as the facts say as much. People love their world views more than the truth, and that is the down side of magical thinking.
Yeah, silly communists! You be more like America where we listen to our... Oh?! really? Never mind :-)
We dont want to eliminate corruption, thats just it. Too many of us benefit in some small way from corruption. Mostly the poor and the politicians. The losers are those in the middle who need to work to sustain their chosen lifestyle. It doesnt matter if its called research. They could stop calling it research tomorrow and start calling it "health care johnson rod" - it would still get stolen and nothing useful would get done just like everything else. And who would say we dont need "health care johnson rod"? ps: saying we didnt do nothing this century would be like asking why were there no jewish theaters being opened in ww2 germany. And it wouldnt even be our fault.
So let me get this straight, the top two leaders of the country have direct ties into the scientific realm there, and also are known cheaters.
Holy cow, you should be GRATEFUL government investment in science research has fallen, because very obviously a lot of whatever is spent is going to come back as graft to the government leaders!
You do not NEED a government to be a major investor in research. That can be done quite well by profits from universities (and they are earning a good profit) or by companies also. The government is only one player and when that government is corrupt, it only helps to keep them away from investment.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
After watching an episode of Top Gear, Romania made it to the number one spot on my Bucket List of places NOT to go to before I die. So far the check box beside it is holding strong.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
The thing is that none of these "skeptics" ever find errors or present relevant data. They just say "nuh uh, 98% of climate scientists are all wrong because Rush Limbaugh said so".
There is nothing anti-science about the thread either. maybe you failed to explain yourself properly and I just don't get it. But the comment is spot on whether you are talking about the tongue in cheek comment about climate scientist never having ulterior agendas or the Romanian government not funding science.
Truth is, hardly any self-proclaimed AGW 'sceptic' is actually a sceptic. Most of them are True Believers, repeating oft-debunked nonsense in hope of making it stick.
You shouldn't have to present your own data, you should be able to argue the merits of the published data, right? Some people are pissed that the original data was deleted, not published, and deleted in the face of FOIA requests. That's a legitimate "bad process" gripe.
You should also be able to argue the merits of the methodology used, as published alongside the results, right? But it's not yet common for people to publish the source code to their climate models. I understand the competitiveness that leads to refusing that, but again "bad process".
The accuracy of the predictions made by these models (using secret methodology upon secret data) leaves a lot to be desired. It's a new(ish) field, and maybe it's just too early to demand precise, specific, and accurate predictions. That would be fine, but it seems unduly arrogant to be keeping secrets about methodology when your results aren't really all that.
Now these are all "bad process" complaints, not "bad science" complaints. But the former becomes the latter over time. The field needs open source models running on openly published data (both the raw measurements and the methodology for "adjusting" the numbers). I surely hope /. won't be arguing that open source is bad here?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"The western world has decided that politics and religion should be separate. Why are politics and science still connected?"
For a change of pace I'd suggest visiting the USA. Our politicians all must pray to the right god in the right way, and do so often, loudly, and publicly. We also have the Republican party, which for over 30 years has been vacillating between denying science, and actively opposing it.
What exactly is Romania again?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
You don't naturally think "science". You might free associate it with gymnastics, or fierce political thought, or evil dictators. Maybe cannon fodder for German troops fighting the Soviets during WWII, or oil refineries bombed by the Allies. Or that hot chick from the Fiat 500 commercial. But science? I'm hard pressed to think of a single Romanian scientist that's contributed anything.
That must be why anyone expressing skepticism towards global warming/climate change is labelled a "denier. Might as well be truthful and call them "heretic".".
I know I shouldn't feed the climate trolls, but here are some obvious facts
All climate scientists are skeptics.
Not all skeptics are climate scientists.
There are many politically powerful pseudo-skeptics in the field (AKA deniers) who deliberately misinform via various front groups and no-think tanks.
The only way to find the "truth" in all this is to stop talking in hyperbole and start studying the science of climate. Personally I've had an interest in the subject for almost 30yrs, very interesting stuff. It's based on the "hard sciences" and is an excellent example of how "the big picture" of Science has practically rewritten our understanding of our planet in my own lifetime. I was literally born before the term Earth sciences was coined.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
One wonders what the effect would have been if you were born figuratively!
You shouldn't have to present your own data, you should be able to argue the merits of the published data, right?
Not when it is all that you do. The Denier methodology is the same as Creationists or Tobacco industry lawyers. False dillemmas, character assasinations, and out and out lies. In your system, complete ignorance is the equivalent of complete competence. The schizophrenic homless guy living under the bridge gets equal time with Einstein
And he has no place arguing the merits of the research. If you want to declare a researchers work false, you have to understand what you are judging. And one of the best ways to argue the merits of science is to present your own data.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
mod parent up
it is not that bad a place. You might like it here. Specially if you can visit some local friend who can provide explanations. You might not want to base your decisions on television, just saying.
b-but! Damn it, Pierce! Now we'll show you!
Screw the FUD spending, now we'll fund research to get unbiased evidence in support of our own opinion!
1776 will commence again!
Why didn't we think of this sooner?!
No, really. Why? Think about it.
I believe you. Your oft repeated nonsense has finally made the "no true Scotsmoron" argument stick.
What would you propose we do about it? Perhaps require teaching scientific methods in schools?
Oh, now that's just crazy talk. One could sooner teach kids by re-writing Harry Potter to teach Methods of Rationality!
One wonders what the effect would have been if you were born figuratively!
Wonder no longer. Misuse of the word "literally" is literally a dead giveaway.
Now, the many wonders how birth could be better than spontaneous emergence of sentience...
Capitalism's just continuing to do what it does best: exploiting the hard work of others.
The Romanian education system - and, indeed, the entire (legacy of the) Soviet/satellite education system - was heavily biased toward excellence in mathematics and engineering. So much so that a Western school mathematics course looks remedial.
Having beneftted from this, philosophically empty and socially incompetent graduates are seduced by dreams of power and money in the West. The exploitation continues, nothing improves, but a few clever people get rich.
And comparing people to the Tobbaco industry is not a character asassination?
Here's the thing: scientists were working for big tobacco. But they were scientists, so were noble seakers of the truth and not susceptible to normal human impulses and frailties. That would be illogical, Captain.
The country itself has some wonderful parts and there are people there as fine as anywhere but it's the society itself that needs to change. It's still possible to get your own way with bribes. I guess this happens everywhere, but particularity so in Romania so,compared to other countries, little is done by merit or rules.
Hmm, coolest (28 degrees C) and driest month of the year? Sounds lovely!
In order to have scientific research you need at least two things: money and scientists. When you think that the possible outcome could be 0 and you look in the governamental wallet just to find no money, their action is understandable. However, the outstanding researchers will migrate to other countries creating a vacuum behind.
Another option would be the private sector to take over. Unfortunately they also struggle to survive the economic crisis and they barely produce enough to make it through the month. And I'm not talking about the banks...
Not when it is all that you do.
Especially when that's all you do. When you publish "based on this data, I deduce X", the whole point of peer review is to judge that. Your deductions can stand or fall on their merits, not anyone's prestige. If you just say "based on secret data I deduce X" you're a crank, published or not. Now, if you can say "based on secret data I deduce X and thus predict Y", when no one else is predicting Y, then you're being an annoying jerk but at least that looks like science, but that's not happening here.
There's simply no requirement to present you're own data. Now, if this is a religion, then you're right: only an ordained priest has the wisdom to question the wisdom of another ordained priest. You realize that's exactly what you sound like here?
Science is not in any way immune to echo chambers and confirmation bias. That's why human trials require double-blind studies.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
No. There is an important place for constructive criticism, critical questioning, and further study. Deniers do none of this, they just state that Global Climate Change is not real because
A) it was cooler this summer than last (or, when shown raw numbers saying they're wrong, it "felt" cooler)
B) personal greed (because changing the A/C from 68 to 69 (or, heaven forbid, 70!) or walking to the mailbox instead of driving, are horrible ideas); or,
C) my pastor said so.
If someone took in and understood the evidence supporting man-made Global Climate Change and was able to produce empirical data that countered the evidence or showed an opposite trend, then they're a critic or an opposing scientist. But these are not the kind of people we are dealing with.
They don't care about keeping the scientific community "honest", they care about shutting it up.