Cat Hicks5d ago

Gathering a couple of saddening threads on US science from people with the NIH expertise to know. Not a single scientist in my life expects the rest of their career to go as they had expected a few years ago.

https://elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/i-wrote-research-funding-announcements

I Wrote Research Funding Announcements for NIH for 22 Years. This Year They’ve Published 14

How NIH went from 756 funding announcements to 14 in two years — and what it means for every disease that depends on federal research

Elizabeth Ginexi
Show threadCat Hicks5d ago
https://bsky.app/profile/markhisted.org/post/3mh6t2xxfc627
Mark Histed (@markhisted.org)

Writing out a conversation I’ve been having a lot at this conference: Things in US science are far, far worse than people know. Far worse than even other scientists know. 1/

Bluesky Social
Show threadCat Hicks
https://scienceandfreedomalliance.substack.com/p/we-will-never-get-more-than-what
We will never get more than what we celebrate

Why allowing the Trump administration to reset our expectations will harm US science

Science And Freedom Alliance
Mar 16 at 5:17pmWeb
Show threadCat Hicks5d ago
My friends here in San Diego who are R1 scientists, leading some of the most successful labs in their areas in one of the world's densest regions for scientific and medical innovation use words like: broken, bleak, devastating, nihilistic. Half the people I know who worked on equity & science topics have stopped posting publicly about it or producing scicom on it after experiencing too much stress and burden for their safety. Even *left* social media foments rage spirals and pileons
Show threadCat Hicks5d ago
I don't think "science is over," humanity is resilient. I do think individual careers and pathways are lost, and that is a kind of grief that's hard to articulate. I think we'll get what we fight for. It does make me feel sad to see so little content about this outside of my scientific circles. Cures, innovation, and skilled workforces are not inevitable but the result of many choices we make together as a society.
Show threadCat Hicks5d ago
I have to dream about a flourishing of investment in science beyond what seems possible now because it is the thing that brings me hope, to imagine that as fast as our society turned on this, it could turn back.
Show threadWulfy—Speaker to the machines4d ago

@grimalkina

"Three Body Problem" was a documentary

Show threadRich Stein (he/him)4d ago
@grimalkina
I think we'll lose a generation of basic science in academia and what were our leading research institutions, but those young scientists won't completely turn away and become plumbers or television talk show hosts (obviously I'm being facetious). They will reappear somewhere in the pipeline — inside large R&D-intensive companies? As entrepreneurs? I don't know. There is pain now, but if we survive this awful regime, there will also be resilience. We don't know what it will look like.
Show threadK-ZO da Snowman4d ago
@grimalkina yup. I foresee a lot more patient led/anarchist science.
Show threadCat Hicks4d ago
@kzodasnowman I don't know about that. Patient groups are...for the most part deeply unscientific in my experience
Show threadCat Hicks4d ago
@kzodasnowman (speaking as a patient here)
Show threadK-ZO da Snowman4d ago
@grimalkina Oh yeah, agreed, most humans are too. But as more folks are left behind by the general abandonment of patients and science the number of scientific folk working on their own health issues or doing maintenance work for free (i.e. lab maintenance during US shutdown) will increase. It won't necessarily be a steady state, nor guaranteed to be effective, but supply chains being what they are, I think people are gonna be relying on herbalism and backyard science sooner rather than later.