All this would seem to call for the leadership of American scientific organizations to put pressure on the importance of scientific funding for the United States and highlight the damage that these cuts would cause. But, if the event of yesterday’s national academies is something to judge, leadership is not particularly interested.
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As the country’s first scientific organization and which performs numerous analyzes for the government, national academies would seem to be able to be taken seriously by its concerns by the members of the Congress. And, given that the present and the future of science in the United States are established by political choices, a meeting entitled The State of Science would seem to be the obvious place to respond to these concerns.
If this is the case, it was not easy for Marcia McNutt, the president of the NAS, who made the presentation. She made some oblique references to the current problems, saying, that “we entail a new radical experience under the conditions of the promotion of scientific leadership, the United States being the treatment group, and China as control”, and acknowledged that “uncertainties on scientific budgets for next year, associated with cancellations of billion dollars of already hard researchers.
But its main objective was to focus on the trends that have been operational in scientific financing and policy leading to But to exclusion The second Trump administration. McNutt suggested that this was necessary to look beyond the next four years. However, this ignores the obvious fact that American science will be fundamentally different if the Trump administration can follow its plans and policies; The trends that have been present for two decades will not be relevant.
It was also remarkably selective about the avoidance to discuss the priorities of the Trump administration. After noting that the investigations of teachers suggested that they spend about 40% of their time managing the regulatory requirements, she mentioned twice that the anti-regulator position of the administration could be a net positive here (once the appellant “the opportunity to help”). However, she neglected to note that many of the abandoned regulations represent a retirement from science -oriented policy.