Funding
mikethemadbiologist | October 16, 2007Once again, the science framing wars have flared up. While I'm not allergic to the concept of framing as some are, one of the major reasons why I'm not a big fan of dwelling on the topic is that obsessing over language reminds me of the late 80s and 90s when the Left won the battle of words, and the fundamentalist Uruk-hai took over the damn country.
I've been doing some thinking about the 'progressive' concern with media communication (including my own)--and it is important, no doubt about it. But, as the 2006 elections have shown, if words aren't turned into the exercise of power, there…
mikethemadbiologist | October 14, 2007Knute Berger relays the following email from Ed Lazowska, the former co-chair of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (italics mine):
The years of the [George W.] Bush administration have been a black time for science in this nation. I speak with the experience of having co-chaired the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee for Bush, and having chaired the Defense Department's DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency] Information Science and Technology Study Group during his presidency. Funds for research, the seed corn of our future competitiveness…
mikethemadbiologist | September 17, 2007This is why elections have consequences: the Democrats have decided to increase the funding for college schloarships...by decreasing the tax subsidies to college loan sharkslenders. From the NY Times:
Congress gave final approval to a broad overhaul of federal student loan programs Friday, sharply cutting subsidies to lenders and increasing grants to needy students.
In quick succession, the Senate and the House approved the changes, allowing Democrats to say they had made good on one of their campaign promises last year, to ease the strain of rising college costs. In the Senate, the bill…
mikethemadbiologist | September 12, 2007In case you missed it, there was a very interesting article in the NY Times about philanthropy. ScienceBlogling Jonah has some thoughts on the matter:
http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2007/09/tax_deductions_and_science.php
I think it's pretty tough to defend tax deductions for cultural organizations. As much as I love the ballet, I'm not sure I want my tax dollars going to support a theater named after a rich person.
But one aspect of philanthropy that this article didn't touch upon was the deep reliance of modern American science on charitable donations, which almost always take the form of…
purepedantry | September 10, 2007An article in Science discusses the physician-scientist program (or MD-PhD) and the trouble in maintaining people in the basic sciences. Basically, most MD-PhDs say when they finish the program that they would like to remain researchers in some capacity, but many of them drop-out in order to become straight clinicians, instructors at medical schools, or work in industry.
Money quote:
The problem, he believes, stems from the fact that every lab chief "essentially is running a small business." Like all businesses, "you have to pay your bills." Lab chiefs, however, can only get the money they…
mikethemadbiologist | August 21, 2007The Massachusetts Public Health Association released a statement in July about the new budget for the Department of Public Health (pdf). You'll notice that most budget items increase:
The legislature and Governor Patrick have approved $548.7 million for the Department of Public Health (DPH) in the Fiscal Year 2008 budget. This is $74.4 million (16 percent) higher than the basic FY07 DPH budget passed by the legislature a year ago. It is $31.6 million (6 percent) higher than the total currently available for FY07, including supplemental funding that was approved for use in FY07.
Here's a list…
mikethemadbiologist | August 20, 2007...to me. Or at least, to the residents of my congressional district. MoveOn.org has a district-by-district list of what your congressional district's contribution to the Iraqi War and Occupation could have bought instead. For me, a resident of Massachusetts' Eight District:
*The cost to Massachusetts taxpayers alone is $12.89 billion.
*Taxpayers in the 8th congressional district are paying $998 million for the Iraq war.
What Citizens of Massachusetts's 8th District Could Have Gotten Instead:
· Health care coverage for 290,837 people--or 363,877 kids, or
· Head Start for 118,751…
purepedantry | August 13, 2007If you haven't read this post by Matthew Nisbet at Framing Science, you really, really should. It shows how framing scientific issues in terms of jobs and economic competitiveness is much more likely to pass funding bills:
As I've noted here many times, major funding initiatives for science are mostly likely to be successful in winning support from policymakers under conditions where they can be exclusively defined in terms of economic competitiveness and growth. If opponents are unable to recast elements of the proposal in terms of public accountability (funding in the public vs private…
mikethemadbiologist | August 5, 2007Much has been said about the bridge collapse, but R.J. Eskow says it best (italics mine):
It's been said before, but let's say it again: If terrorists had bombed this bridge, or destroyed the levees and flooded New Orleans, life in America would change forever. But since it's only our own governmental neglect -- and conservative greed -- nobody seems to give a damn....
Conservatives want "government so small you can drown it in a bathtub." Or the Mississippi River. Or the Ninth Ward.
Ronald Reagan's quips about taxes and bureaucracy don't seem so funny any more, do they?
The next time some…
mikethemadbiologist | July 22, 2007The Democrats aren't doing any better funding stem cell research--or any other research. Empty pockets at the Next Hurrah writes:
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/will-democrats…
Inflation in the life sciences this year is estimated at 3.7%; thus, Congress's increase [of 2.8%] is yet another year of real-dollar budget cuts for NIH. Even worse, the way they're allocating the money, most NIH institutes would see an increase of less than 2.5% under the Senate plan and less than 1.7% under the House plan, increases well below the level of inflation (Facts and figures on…
mikethemadbiologist | July 20, 2007By way of Brad Delong, I stumbled across this column by Washington Post editor Ruth Marcus calling for merit pay for teachers. Centrist Democrats, particularly those who suffer from a touch of Compulsive Centrist Disorder, have been pushing this since the early 80s. And it makes no sense to me.
When I think about science education, these are the areas that I think need dramatic improvement:
1) Fully equipped science laboratories. You actually have to do some science occasionally.
2) Funding for the occasional trip to a museum, nature preserve, or science lab.
3) Smaller class sizes.…
mikethemadbiologist | July 17, 2007...good for him. What struck me was this part of his goodbye post:
For the last two years, as anybody who's been reading my blog since its inception will now, I've been feeling increasingly miserable and increasingly desperate because of the funding and (thus) tenure situation. My research productivity has plummeted in the last two years because of the feeling of futility it all had-- it's difficult to get things done when I have the near-sure knowledge that my University is just waiting to kick me out for not being good enough. The serious depression that set in because of the constant…
purepedantry | July 11, 2007It's your money. An article in the Scientist deals with the financial returns for investments in research:
Twenty-eight percent. This is the figure Edwin Mansfield, a now-deceased economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, obtained after wrestling with an army of assumptions to pinpoint a likely return on research payoffs.1 In 1991, Mansfield estimated that the rate of return on investing in academic research (across all disciplines) was 28%, meaning each dollar put into research would yield $1.28 in social and economic benefits within about a decade.
As part of the study,…
mikethemadbiologist | July 9, 2007The headline in today's Boston Globe: "Colleges fear debt puts damper on donations." Gee, do ya think?
When universities are touting college as a personal, economic investment--and not an investment in society, why on earth did they think loyalty would still exist? Most students have been told that to gain access to or remain in the middle class, they need a college degree. When they rack up massive debt, and at the same time, are forced to take jobs they really don't want to pay off that debt, did it ever occur to the universities that this might happen?
Rising tuition rates aren't like…
mikethemadbiologist | July 7, 2007Susan Madrak is dead on target: if the rightwing is willing to give its wingnuts cushy jobs (also known as 'wingnut welfare'), why can't the left provide its own moonbat welfare for leftwing moonbats? As Madrak writes:
Someone from either the Democratic party or some liberal organization showed up a few years back at the Philadelphia chapter of Drinking Liberally to ask the question, "What do bloggers want? How can we help?" She had, of course, already answered the question: Free Lexis-Nexis access! One account to be shared by I don't know how many bloggers!
I looked at her. I cleared my…
mikethemadbiologist | June 27, 2007More ridiculous budget cuts in Massachusetts at the local level. This time it's schools, not libraries. According to the Boston Globe, Shoreham, MA has failed to approve a property tax override leading to the following educational budget cuts:
*shutting down the sixth-grade wing of the middle school and sending those students back to elementary school to save money.
*All athletic programs.
*Physical education classes.
*Elementary and middle school fine arts classes.
*Laying off an assistant high school principal.
And what's behind this? Homeowners, particularly retirees:
Override…
mikethemadbiologist | June 20, 2007Having been encouraged by ScienceBlogling John Wilkins, I'm going to follow up on my post about science journalism, and, no doubt, get myself into further trouble. First, though, I want to clarify some points.
Without going into specific detail, I work for a non-profit organization that deals with infectious disease. My primary job--and the one that pays my bills and keeps the lights on--is to conduct and develop research projects. However, I'm also the primary person who deals with questions about the 'science' of our issue (we also have clinical and economic experts). An average day is…
mikethemadbiologist | June 14, 2007While this particular program on behalf of a religious organization is not nearly as bad as the government-sanctioned anti-Semitism run out of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives*, it still is yet another example of why government and religion require a strict separation:
While all earmarks are troublesome to critics like Mr. Ellis, who called the Canvasback gift an "utter indictment of earmarks," those made for faith-based groups involve special questions about the constitutional borders between church and state.
The Coast Guard ships were given to Canvasback for a secular…
mikethemadbiologist | June 13, 2007I'm not the only one bothered by Mudcat Saunders' article about the Metropolitan Opera Wing of the Democratic Party; maha is too. That post is worth a read, but at the end of the post she makes a very good point about preserving culture (italics mine):
Mudcat has slandered opera fans by implying they are elitist snobs. The fiercest opera fans I have ever met have been regular working-class folks -- construction workers, plumbers, clerks. I used to know a lady who worked the counter in a Paramus, New Jersey, department store and who saw every production at the Met. It was her religion. She…
mikethemadbiologist | May 30, 2007Would you pay $728 more a year to keep schools and libraries fully funded? I would, but the voters of Northbridge, MA wouldn't. According to the Boston Globe:
And yesterday, budget cuts and voter indifference in Northbridge finally caught up with the institution officially known as the Whitinsville Social Library. Its doors closed at 2 p.m. And though they will reopen again this week, people in Northbridge, population 13,100, will notice a difference.
The town cannot afford the $200,000 needed to keep the library fully running for another year. Once open 40 hours a week, it will be open…