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Congress

Injecting Partisan Politics into Scientific Peer Review

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 30, 2013
Filed under , , , , ,

Letter from Rep. Lamar Smith, Chairmain, House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology to NSF Director Cora Marrett
“During the course of the hearing, I asked Dr. Holdren about taxpayer funding for social, behavioral and political science studies at the National Science Foundation (NSF), and how we can better prioritize research spending. During that discussion, Dr. Holdren said that there is “room for improvement” in how NSF prioritizes research initiatives based on the potential value to the national interest. Based on my review of NSF-funded studies, I have concerns regarding some grants approved by the Foundation and how closely they adhere to NSF’s “intellectual merit” guideline. To better understand how NSF makes decisions to approve and fund grants, it would be helpful to obtain detailed information on specific research projects awarded NSF grants.”
Letter from Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking Member, House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology to. Rep. Lamar Smith
“Your letter of April 25 to the Acting Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), Dr. Cora Marrett, has provoked me to write to you. At our hearing on April 17, both Dr. Marrett and the Chairman of the National Science Board (NSB), Dr. Dan Arvizu, offered to engage with the Committee in a meaningful discussion of the mission of NSF and how the agency’s merit review process can best be constructed to support that mission. Rather than entering into that dialogue, your letter marks the beginning of an investigative effort, the implications of which are profound. This is the first step on a path that would destroy the merit-based review process at NSF and intrudes political pressure into what is widely viewed as the most effective and creative process for awarding research funds in the world. … I cannot stand by silently as you continue this political intrusion into one of our Nation’s and indeed, one of the world’s most important scientific organizations. I ask that you withdraw your letter to Dr. Marrett. I stand ready to work with you to identify a less destructive, but more effective, effort to hold NSF accountable to the requirements laid out in law.”
Congress tries to reset science grants, wants every one to be “groundbreaking”, Ars Technica
“The other two requirements, however, completely misunderstand both basic research and the role of the National Science Foundation. Basic research is largely about exploring the unknown; by definition, it’s almost impossible to tell which areas of research will end up being groundbreaking or have commercial applications. And the NSF is specifically tasked with funding basic research and science education.”
U.S. Lawmaker Proposes New Criteria for Choosing NSF Grants, Science Insider
“The new chair of the House of Representatives science committee has drafted a bill that, in effect, would replace peer review at the National Science Foundation (NSF) with a set of funding criteria chosen by Congress. For good measure, it would also set in motion a process to determine whether the same criteria should be adopted by every other federal science agency.”
Discussion Draft (via ScienceInsider)
Keith’s note: Rest assured, Rep. Smith and his staff will soon start to poke around NASA funding decisions as well looking for things that they have ideological objections to.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

31 responses to “Injecting Partisan Politics into Scientific Peer Review”

  1. Nassau Goi says:
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    Only if Lamar Smith did the same for military budget authorizations and his pet projects, like the pointless Ronald Reagan legacy project all things considered. I think he has some points in this process, some NSF grants make little sense to the nation at large, but what he is going after is a drop in the bucket in relation to the national budget issues.

    The fact that he signed the taxpayer protection pledge, or more accurately stated as the baby boomer generation screwing over the future generations pledge, speaks to the volume of his commitment about solving budget issues. Nothing is going to be solved without significant increases in revenue, which he is strictly against whether by taxation or immigration reform. His enormous generation is retiring and you can tell he really believes that this isn’t a problem.

    NASA will be lucky to get any budget trimmings in the future with the way things are going.

  2. Steve Whitfield says:
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    I have a great deal of respect for Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson for her letter, both for it’s content and for the fact that she took the time and made the effort to write it, and make it strong. It seems to me that previous ranking members of the Committee on Science and Technology would mostly have let it slide rather than cause themselves more work.

    Lamar Smith investigating the NSF is a joke; like a 10-year-old doing a bank audit. Smith knows only what he likes and what he doesn’t like, and that seems to be his sole criteria for evaluating anything. It still absolutely baffles me how he ended up getting the Chairmanship of a technical Committee.

    • npng says:
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      Say Steve, can you help me with this NSF discussion? I’d like to hear your and others views on this. I have many friends at NSF. It’s always nice to think they are doing productive and valuable things there, but I frequently cringe at the NSF charter and balance sheet of NSF and could use examples of some of the valuable things the NSF has created or done.

      When I talk with the executives at NSF, dear friends of many years, they quickly remind me that NSF’s charter is to pursue “pure research”, PERIOD. I love science and research, so initially the “pure” part seemed cool. But, when I bring up “applied science” or ROI, they shudder and shout “heresy!!”, claiming full exemption from any fiscal accountability or need to deliver tangible outcomes or outputs of real worth and value. So when I put my fiscal hat on, NSF becomes very worrisome. Meaning…

      If NSF gets $7 Billion a year in federal funds, what does it do for all of those taxpayer dollars or more specifically For For For The Taxpayer? I suppose the answer is: pure research! Endless pure research!

      Let’s look at three possible outcome scenarios for NSF:

      Scenario A: Get $7 Billion/Yr – Create $0 Value.
      Scenario B: Get $7 Billion/Yr – Create $7 Billion in Value.
      Scenario C: Get $7 Billion/Yr – Create $70 Billion in Value.

      Notice the scenarios do not say:

      Scenario D: Get $7 Billion/Yr – Publish piles of stuff, or

      Scenario E: Get $7 Billion/Yr – Shout “Pure Science”, fund piles of institutes and then ask the Feds for $7 Billion more.

      If you were to select one of the above scenarios, which one would you select? “C” I would guess. But you’d be hard pressed to select any of them. Why? Because there are no dollarized value outcomes published by NSF. They’ll do work on nanotech or brain cells or circadian rhythms or turbulence. They’ll publish reams of papers. But will they ever place a dollar value on their outputs? No.
      Lamar Smith may have raised the issue of the “intellectual merit” of NSF’s work, but he’s errored by focusing on a relevant but really a sideline issue, a prioritization mechanism. The real “elephant in the room” is the total lack of accountability (dollars-in to dollars-of-real-value-out).

      Certainly, my NSF friends will gag when they read this. They will assert that they are at the pinnacle of annointed pure science and that they are therefore, with the exception of exploring cool new science and writing papers, exempt from any nonsense of productive output and fiscal accountability. I’m sure the lash-back will flash through them, but, they need to realize something…
      As a scientist myself, I applaud their pure research efforts. The only thing they are missing is a rigorous means of placing a real dollar value on the end-point outcome of their work. If they spend $2,000,000 studying circadian rhythms, great. But they must be able to show a value, a dollar value of the possible outcome of that work. If the resultant is worth NOTHING, then stop the work. If the projected resultant is worth $20,000,000 then great! Work faster! Lamar can “rank” intellectual merit” until he is blue in the face, but absent placing a $ dollar value on these programs and having real and professional accountability, the entire organization will always be subject to political whim, hidden agendas and organizational power plays.
      Both Lamar and Bernice are wasting time bantering back and forth on the wrong NSF mechanisms. They need to rethink their NSF questions, recognize the root problems and bring in the professional expertise needed to fix them. The U.S. needs a strong and vibrant NSF, but it must be one that functions efficiently and that genuinely creates real and verifiable economic value.

      • sunman42 says:
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        Would the huge European taxpayer investment in CERN have been more or less worth it if Tim Berners-Lee had not used some of his time to develop the Web while working there?

        You simply cannot tell where research will lead; all you can be certain of that not supporting a broad portfolio of high-quality, peer-reviewed research will lead to nowhere.

        And while we’re at it, what is the economic value of the detection of the Higgs boson? Of earthlike planets orbiting other stars? Of landing humans safely on the moon and returning them to earth?

      • Steve Whitfield says:
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        npng,

        I’ve thought about it and there’s not a lot I can say that won’t have already occurred to you. As a general statement, there are many “defining documents” that made good sense at the time of their creation, but became less sensible, because they became less relevant, as time passed, and as society and science have changed.

        The NSF charter is one example, but then again so are the Constitution, The Bill of Rights, and many laws on the books in many countries, so the idea of altering a defining document must be approached carefully so that a bad precedent is not set.

        With respect to the scenarios you propose above, I don’t see how anyone could choose one, because we’re talking about an unquantifiable situation. There’s no way to predict an outcome for a given amount spent, so there’s no reasonable expectation. You spend as much on NSF as you’re willing to, and you take whatever results you get for that investment. At the level of a development or manufacturing program you can define the required “output,” but not for a collection of research programs. The way I see it, each year’s NSF budget allocation is much like sitting down in a poker game with $20 in your pocket and deciding when it’s gone, you’re out of the game. You might go home with $100 in your pocket, or you might just lose the entire $20, or anywhere in between. There’s no way to know until you leave the game. How much you do have in your pocket when you go home is just one factor in deciding whether you’ll join the game again next week, and the factors and their values change from week to week. Bottom line: If you don’t play you can’t win.

        The U.S. needs a strong and vibrant NSF, but it must be one that functions efficiently and that genuinely creates real and verifiable economic value.

        This, I think, is looking for the unachievable. I refer you to my poker game analogy. All we can really hope for is to come out ahead on average, but then how we define coming out ahead is the real issue here. One man’s pet research program is another man’s nausea. It’s easy to dismiss something out of hand because you’ve already discounted it, or because it seems worthless in the context of one’s own life. But I think we need to allow some leniency. I, myself, have no use for facebook or astrology, yet many other people wrap their entire existence around either or both of these. Are they “wrong”? That’s not really the issue. Is it important to them? Apparently yes, and that perhaps is how we can best measure the “worth” of any research topic.

        One can easily argue, yes but science knows…., and we can easily come up with long list of crucial items where science was wrong for many years before it was right. Taking it one step further, some times right and wrong is a matter of application. Newton gave us the answers for the everyday stuff, but we had to wait for Einstein to take things to more esoteric levels. Was Newton wrong? So, who’s to say, ahead of the outcome, what will prove useful — and that’s the word I think we should use as a metric — useful, as opposed to worth, value or any economic term.

        One final thought: no one is an expert in everything. So no one person is in a position to decide, without bias or prejudice, which research programs are valid. And even the experts are often wrong at the outset. An expert said that rockets wouldn’t work in space because there was nothing for them to push against. When the first large computer was being developed at IBM, the senior manager for that division estimated that the world market for computers would be “about six.” In both cases things changed, a lot.

        All of this leads me to one conclusion: If a given research topic is important enough to someone to do the proposal and all of the leg work that goes into submitting it to NSF, then it’s important to at least one person, and therefore probably a lot more people. We already have a “committee” that accepts or rejects proposals, and one such group is enough. If we also had a group who did the choosing of the research topics for submission to NSF, we’d be one step away from the old Soviet way of doing things, which would lead to the value of the NSF being lost. The current system whereby researchers and PIs do the proposals and submissions works well enough to be retained, and we probably won’t find a better system.

        Combining that with the idea of “important” instead of “value,” as I’ve defined them, I’m inclined to say leave the system alone. It’s working. And you’re never going to satisfy everybody no matter what list of programs you have or who proposed them. I don’t think it’s broke enough to warrant trying to fix it. I suspect that only the people who sell stationary products would benefit by it.

        I’m guessing this is not what you were looking for, but it’s how I see it.

        Steve

      • hikingmike says:
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        So how do you come up with the values?

        What prevents a scientist from making completely subjective arguments and blowing the dollar value way up? Seems like we could be only allowing projects for the best liars in that scenario.

        I liked edwinkite’s examples above-

        “Checking for microbes of no known utility in heat-sterilized sludge in a beautiful National Park,” P.I. Thomas Brock (basis of modern biotechnology)

        “Detailed analysis of Tortoise Shells and Mockingbirds on a sunny tropical island,” P.I. Charles Darwin (basis of modern biology and medicine)

        Now for the circadian rhythm… what if it leads to us all finding better ways to sleep and rest our bodies and minds in 20 years. What is the value of that? Probably can’t value it even after the fact, but it potentially creates incredible productivity gains, right?

  3. Luke says:
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    In the “The National Science Foundation: Under the Microscope” report back in 2011, questions were raised regarding NSF’s management and priorities. The report identified $1.2 billion the agency lost due to waste and fraud and an additional $1.7 billion in unspent funds.

    The vast majority of people understand the benefits of scientific research. What people do not understand is spending money on silly research projects such as:

    • $80,000 study on why the same teams always dominate March Madness;

    • $315,000 study suggesting playing FarmVille on Facebook helps adults develop and maintain relationships;

    • $1 million for an analysis of how quickly parents respond to trendy baby names;

    • $50,000 to produce and publicize amateur songs about science, including a rap called “Money 4 Drugz,” and a misleading song titled “Biogas is a Gas, Gas, Gas”;

    • $2 million to figure out that people who often post pictures on the internet from the same location at the same time are usually friends; and

    • $581,000 on whether online dating site users are racist;

    • And my personal favorite: research staff porn surfing, Jell-O wrestling and skinny-dipping at NSF-operated facilities in Antarctica.

    The United States must live within its means. Learn to use existing resources wisely, keeping in mind we are nearly 17 trillion dollars in debt. Please do not come to the taxpayers for more money until you have eliminated the waste and fraud rampant in federal agencies like NSF. I also don’t see anything wrong with calling out ridiculous research projects that do nothing to benefit and advance society.

    • Todd Austin says:
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      A cherry-picked list of misleading items torn from context and deliberately selected to deceive and inflame serves only to demonstrate the lack of integrity of the person making the statement.

      • Luke says:
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        Are you saying that the items cited are not true? Are you really saying that you favor these silly research projects over funding research to cure diseases, or better methods of growing food for starving people around the world, or ways to provide people with clean water? I am a strong proponent of governement funding research to help solve these problems. I am opposed to wasting tax dollars on silly projects that do not advance society. You may attack my integrity, but it only serves to demonstrate what is wrong with Washington today. If you cannot logically argue your viewpoint, you resort to personal attacks, and nothing changes, and nothing gets done.

        • Anonymous says:
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          Skinny-dipping seems like it would be a way to cut costs. Other than that, the list does seem out there. However, I’d still prefer withholding judgement on the list of studies without first discussing it with the PI to understand what the purpose is. I would be surprised if anyone on Sen. Coburn’s staff did, but I’d be happy to be wrong.

        • Jim Kelly says:
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          Luke – I challenge you to sit down with any of the principal investigators on even your cherry-picked list and discuss his or her project’s merits. I think you might find that one person’s “silliness” is often another’s original thinking.

        • edwinkite says:
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          Luke, the man who ran U.S. military R&D during World War II was asked to recommend to Truman how basic research should be run. Bush thought the correct balance was for Congress to be hands-on in deciding how much money to allocate for basic research (democracy), and hands-off in telling them what to spend it on (expertise). NSF has kept that balance since then.

          Bush was a weapons scientist, not a tree-hugging hippy. (That term hadn’t been invented.) Try reading the report – especially the link it draws between freedom of inquiry and national security objectives http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/nsf5

          Internally, basic research (NSF) is a competitive market. Political interference with individual science projects would create an incentive for individual scientists to cosy up to individual politicians – clientism and rent-seeking. Is that what Republicans want?

          Here are some imagined “silly research projects” for the next edition of the Republican senator’s report:

          “Checking for microbes of no known utility in heat-sterilized sludge in a beautiful National Park,” P.I. Thomas Brock (basis of modern biotechnology)

          “Detailed analysis of Tortoise Shells and Mockingbirds on a sunny tropical island,” P.I. Charles Darwin (basis of modern biology and medicine)

        • Michael Reynolds says:
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          I agree with you on everything you said. BUT, I believe the biggest issue here isn’t that we should investigate where and how these funds are being spent. On the contrary it should. The biggest issue here is that Lamar Smith is the one in charge of this decision. Anyone that believes that spiritual reality is the only reality and that the material world is an illusion should not be in charge of this investigation let alone hold the chairmanship for the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

        • GentleGiant says:
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          Luke, to use your own words, you are not logically arguing your viewpoint, you’re taking brief descriptions of NSF-funded studies and presenting them out of context as being silly. Have you looked at these proposals, or are you assuming they are worthless because their description is not sciencey enough? Even if a handful of studies are found to be silly it is still a long stretch to assert that NSF needs greater oversight because of a few outlier decisions.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            Also, listing any NSF project without stating it’s starting date and duration has the potential to be very misleading. What seems pointless today may have been a new unknown subject 30 years ago.

        • hikingmike says:
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          Luke, pick out a list of some you really like and support. Then imagine what if intrusions into NSF’s process as described above over time would have prevented many of those from occurring… especially if done ignorantly out of political ideology or maneuvering… and would have seriously damaged NSF’s productivity.

          I see you must have gotten these from the “National Science Foundation: Under the Microscope is a 73-page report released by US Senator Tom Coburn (a conservative Republican from Oklahoma) on May 26, 2011” http://en.wikipedia.org/wik

          I’d imagine the criticism against Luke’s comments should be directed more at that report.

        • Luke says:
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          I appreciate all the comments, both who support my viewpoints and those who do not. Whenever people can discuss issues logically without resulting to personal attacks, a productive debate ensues. I am not a scientist, however I am an engineer who worked in the space field, and attended many presentations given by PI’s to understand the payloads I was helping to launch. I found these presentations enlightening and educational. More importantly, as a taxpayer, I saw the benefit to society at large. Perhaps the NSF needs a website like the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, that clearly describes the research being funded, and any Earth-bound applications that result from the research. I invite everyone to checkout the website at http://www.nsbri.com. When presented in this format, I think that would take away many of the complaints of the current system. Again, thank you for the robust debate.

          • GentleGiant says:
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            You mean the NSF should have a page like http://www.nsf.gov/discover… ?

          • Luke says:
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            Thanks for the link GentleGiant, this is exactly what I wanted to see. I will be reviewing the discoveries projects and learning about the great opportunities (which there are many) in the future to impact society is a positive way. Interestly, I searched under discoveries for insights into March Madness teams, Farmville and if online dating sites are racist, and no records were found. I just did a quick search, but I’ll keep looking. Thanks again for the link.

    • edwinkite says:
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      Immediately after the Second World War, Vannevar Bush, the head of the U.S. military scientific research organization responsible for atomic bombs, radar, proximity fuses, guided missiles and so on, wrote the report “Science The Endless Frontier” – http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/n

      This 1945 report served as the basis for the NSF.

      Bush wrote,

      “Five Fundamentals.

      There are certain basic principles which must underlie the program of Government support for scientific research and education if such support is to be effective and if it is to avoid impairing the very things we seek to foster. These principles are as follows:

      (1) Whatever the extent of support may be, there must be stability of funds over a period of years so that long-range programs may be undertaken. (2) The agency to administer such funds should be composed of citizens selected only on the basis of their interest in and capacity to promote the work of the agency. They should be persons of broad interest in and understanding of the peculiarities of scientific research and education. (3) The agency should promote research through contracts or grants to organizations outside the Federal Government. It should not operate any laboratories of its own. (4) Support of basic research in the public and private colleges, universities, and research institutes must leave the internal control of policy, personnel, and the method and scope of the research to the institutions themselves. This is of the utmost importance. (5) While assuring complete independence and freedom for the nature, scope, and methodology of research carried on in the institutions receiving public funds, and while retaining discretion in the allocation of funds among such institutions, the Foundation proposed herein must be responsible to the President and the Congress. Only through such responsibility can we maintain the proper relationship between science and other aspects of a democratic system. The usual controls of audits, reports, budgeting, and the like, should, of course, apply to the administrative and fiscal operations of the Foundation, subject, however, to such adjustments in procedure as are necessary to meet the special requirements of research.”

      Congresspeople picking and choosing what science they consider politically acceptable is not a minor nuisance.

      It is a direct attack on the integrity of the NSF – as set out in the NSF’s founding document.

      • Ken Davidian says:
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        I just finished the Bush report to FDR and I agree with most of the recommendations in it. Readers should pick up “Science-Mart” by Philip Mirowski to see how this intrusion into the NSF grant selection process is merely an attempt to impose more “junk science” on a body that has already begun venturing into the realm of privatized science… kinda depressing…

      • Luke says:
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        Thank you for the insight into the origins of the NSF. I found the information enlightening and educational. I must point out there is another side to this arguement. Is it not the constitutional role of Congress to appropriate funds, as a check and balance on the executive branch, make sure the funds are spent wisely in ways that benefit society? Would you rather have the NSF receive funds with no congressional oversight? While this might prove benefiical in the current environment, in the future a president could be elected that doesn’t believe any federal funds should be used for research, here on Earth or in space. Would you want Congress to step in and restore those funds? Just something to think about. Thank you again for your insights.

        • Steve Whitfield says:
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          Oversight is essential. However, oversight is only meaningful if it is executed by people qualified to make informed decisions about the matters in question.

          We all grew up with the adage that everyone is entitled to an opinion. This, unfortunately, guarantees nothing whatsoever about the worth of any one person’s opinion on any given issue.

          Why is it that so much critical government oversight, especially in science and technology matters, seems to be in the hands of people who aren’t qualified to provide it?

      • Anonymous says:
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        During and immediately after WWII (buildup of Cold War) science was considered important even if it meant some money might be wasted on non-profitable programs. The country’s fate was at stake, no time to argue as the commies may take over the world. Even corporations saw a need for R&D and willing to pay people to work in labs on projects that nobody else understands (like fusing materials that are neither conductors or insulators together with desire to get something better than a vacuum tube).

    • barc0de says:
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      Each of those studies was awarded from a proposal that stated the potential benefit of the project, and NSF reviewers judged the cost to be worth that potential benefit. I haven’t read any of the proposals, but I can imagine quite easily the potential benefits of each study:

      Maybe the March Madness study uncovers key elements of institutions that outperform their competitors for decades, after every leader and every teammate in them has been replaced twice over. I’m sure American companies, research groups, foundations, financial advisers, the military, etc. would love to know what those are.

      Maybe someone will read the FarmVille study and start a business that builds a dating site centered around gaming. Maybe it’s as successful as Zynga, makers of FarmVille itself, which employed over 2,800 people and had assets of $2.5 billion in 2011 (thanks Wikipedia).

      And so on. The others seem focused on the migration of human psychology and social phenomena (trend-spotting, racism, the spread of ideas, etc.) into the digital realm. Also useful, given we’re all spending more and more time in cyberspace.

      By definition, the outcome (and therefore, the benefit) of scientific research is not known before it’s performed. However, for centuries the benefits have almost always outweighed the cost. That’s precisely why NSF exists.

      Also, “keeping in mind we are nearly 17 trillion dollars in debt”, the studies you mentioned sum to a little over $4M, which is 0.000024% of $17T. If you’re looking to reduce fraud in our government (and I don’t think the studies you listed even qualify), there are _far_ bigger fish to fry.

  4. Joseph says:
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    Holy cow, does nasawatch think its readers are so uninformed they will fall for this spin? No one believes it is Lamar Smith bringing politics into NASA budgeting. The ignorant NASA science cuts are coming 100% from the Obama White House.

    This hit piece is an affront to all the work so many people have been doing to try and stop the cuts to NASA.

    Are 2 links enough to inject actual facts into this thread: 1) http://www.space.com/20835-… 2) youtu.be/72LgMgzMqYQ

    After you watch Bill Nye on Youtube, we could really use everyone’s help trying to stop the White House’s cuts to NASA.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      Holy cow, Joseph, it’s not just NASA science that’s being cut — it’s a lot of things. Remember the out-of-control debt? Remember the sequestration? The White House is trying to take across-the-board action, facing up to these problems, while most of Congress continues to pretend they don’t exist. Every time any group is given more money than was proposed the situation is made worse for the following years. You can’t just continue running the debt up for ever. And when the sequestration hits home, everything will be changed again anyhow. Continually overriding budget proposals guarantees that one day there will be no money at all for NASA. I’m as big a fan of NASA as anybody, but the country’s fiscal problems are the higher priority and need to be attended to or else NASA and every other government agency will suffer the consequences.

      If you, and Mr. Nye, are pleading special action for your personal interests, then you’re being as illogical as Lamar Smith.

  5. John Gardi says:
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    Folks:

    No, what they need is to inject scientific peer review into politics!

    Maybe the decisions make by these committees should be scrutinized by peer review. Considering that none of them have the qualifications to make those decisions in the first place, how much would make it to a vote?

    You can’t fix a system that’s broken at the top tier, you retire it and start from scratch.

    tinker

  6. curiousgemini says:
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    20 years ago, this would be unthinkable. It shows how crazy the GOP has become.

  7. yg1968 says:
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    Smith’s letter is only asking for information. There is nothing wrong with that. It’s part of Congress’ role to ask questions.

  8. dogstar29 says:
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    If there is an immediate application for basic research, all the better, NSF should not turn it down. But it should not be a critical requirement for basic research, or we will never have sound theoretical foundations for our applied science. Generally NSF seems to give its research section leaders reasonable autonomy in choosing new ideas to support. Requiring every proposal to be earthshaking will only force researchers to exaggerate. The real problem is that when funds are obviously far short of what is needed, many good ideas will be rejected, and in today’s tax-phobic atmosphere that seems likely to continue.

    The letter from Rep. Johnson is right on target. My guess is this is a ploy by self-proclaimed tax-cut crusaders to have more influence and thus get more of the few remaining tax dollars for their home districts, not unlike SLS.