As a non-US resident that doesn't much read the news, is there any particular reason for the comparison of 'now' vs '6 months ago'? Has there been a particular change in policy or some other big event in the US that's motivated the sudden change in attitude?

[–] whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

US federal budgeting this year have pushed hard to gut science. I've heard talking points regurgitated by college educated folks that businesses will pay for it instead, but when pressed for examples or how it would work they are only able to point to engineering projects, they can't differentiate between basic scientific research producing testable, accurate models and the products and services built using this models.

[–] DrPop@lemmy.world 3 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Businesses will pay for studies that help businesses or had a profit incentive. When you hear the govt spent a large sum of money studying how ocelots react to opium or somelike that, people usually say that's a waste of money, rather than finding out why.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Like there was one Republican complaint about studying soybeans. Beans! Useless!

Yeah well guess what one of the biggest crops in the US is. We used to export soy to Asia.

https://www.agri-pulse.com/articles/23114-opinion-the-trump-administration-is-wrong-about-the-value-of-crop-research-labs-and-farmers-know-it

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 7 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

yeah, Trump.

Not that things weren't kind of shitty before, he just accelerated the problems by defunding science and preventing foreigners from coming here to study, which sadly make up many 1/3 of the students of our PhD programs, especially hard sciences.

higher education in the USA needs systematically reform, but I don't think anything Trump has done has improved anything, just accelerated the issues by turning off the money/labor spigot so many research programs were overly-reliant on.

a lot of this talented foreign labor is now going to study in other countries rather than the USA and that will impact things for decades, reducing USA's lead in many scientific fields.

[–] crpknkr@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago

"... money / labor spigot so many research programs were overly-reliant on."

I don't see how research or more generally anything at all could get done without money or labor.