Here’s a quick off-the-cuff list of neuroscience domains, not part of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, that will be impacted by this censorship. This is not an exhaustive list, it’s just what I thought of after thinking critically for 10 minutes.
It goes without saying this practice is evil and reprehensible. No academic domain should be politically targeted. But it reaches more than their targets. It is dangerous. It is unscientific. It is book-burning. Contact your representatives. Take action. Donate to good causes.
Patient advocacy for people who have had a stroke, or have dementia, or have any number of disabilities, hereditary or acquired.
Any research about the blood brain barrier, including development of drugs that can cross it more efficiently.
Any research about the placental barrier, including development of safe medications for birthing people.
Research into cognitive bias.
Development of statistics (including Bayesian, the hot frontier), machine learning (that’s AI for anyone who prefers that term), where the term bias is used to talk about parameters and model performance.
Basic visual and auditory science, where we talk about visual and auditory discrimination.
Sex differences research- this isn’t just a social issue, we don’t understand how differences in metabolism impact drug metabolism. Can’t have female mice anymore, apparently.
Basic research in the function of neurons, which polarize, depolarize, hyperpolarize, etc.
Concussion research and, again, stroke research. The field is broadly known as traumatic brain injury.
I can’t imagine that flags will get awards automatically cancelled. Any human (f)MRI work is going to describe its participant inclusion or exclusion criteria, because you can’t put people with any risk of metal in their bodies within an MRI machine. Republicans tend to like brain research because the military really likes it. Additionally, virtually all NSF broader impacts will contain at least some speculative verbiage like, “this could help to increase representation.” My guess is that flags return an AI or actual person review, which then makes a decision. Some folks at my university have been told that their awards have been cancelled. My awards that have some of these words haven’t been cancelled.
The article describes the review process - you’re right, these words just flag a paper for further review. I wonder if it’s an automatic flagging system like you suggested.
However, it took me almost a decade of rigorous training to understand my research. I sure as hell don’t trust an elected or appointed official with a political vendetta to critically read my grants. Leave politics out of peer review.
This is still an emergency situation, IMHO. Like you said, people’s grants are being canceled. I see this as a direct attack against higher education.
ETA: It’s also a waste of taxpayer money. These grants are already competing for meager funds. Why should we siphon away any resources to “investigate” them?
Here’s a quick off-the-cuff list of neuroscience domains, not part of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, that will be impacted by this censorship. This is not an exhaustive list, it’s just what I thought of after thinking critically for 10 minutes.
It goes without saying this practice is evil and reprehensible. No academic domain should be politically targeted. But it reaches more than their targets. It is dangerous. It is unscientific. It is book-burning. Contact your representatives. Take action. Donate to good causes.
Patient advocacy for people who have had a stroke, or have dementia, or have any number of disabilities, hereditary or acquired.
Any research about the blood brain barrier, including development of drugs that can cross it more efficiently.
Any research about the placental barrier, including development of safe medications for birthing people.
Research into cognitive bias.
Development of statistics (including Bayesian, the hot frontier), machine learning (that’s AI for anyone who prefers that term), where the term bias is used to talk about parameters and model performance.
Basic visual and auditory science, where we talk about visual and auditory discrimination.
Sex differences research- this isn’t just a social issue, we don’t understand how differences in metabolism impact drug metabolism. Can’t have female mice anymore, apparently.
Basic research in the function of neurons, which polarize, depolarize, hyperpolarize, etc.
Concussion research and, again, stroke research. The field is broadly known as traumatic brain injury.
I can’t imagine that flags will get awards automatically cancelled. Any human (f)MRI work is going to describe its participant inclusion or exclusion criteria, because you can’t put people with any risk of metal in their bodies within an MRI machine. Republicans tend to like brain research because the military really likes it. Additionally, virtually all NSF broader impacts will contain at least some speculative verbiage like, “this could help to increase representation.” My guess is that flags return an AI or actual person review, which then makes a decision. Some folks at my university have been told that their awards have been cancelled. My awards that have some of these words haven’t been cancelled.
The article describes the review process - you’re right, these words just flag a paper for further review. I wonder if it’s an automatic flagging system like you suggested.
However, it took me almost a decade of rigorous training to understand my research. I sure as hell don’t trust an elected or appointed official with a political vendetta to critically read my grants. Leave politics out of peer review.
This is still an emergency situation, IMHO. Like you said, people’s grants are being canceled. I see this as a direct attack against higher education.
ETA: It’s also a waste of taxpayer money. These grants are already competing for meager funds. Why should we siphon away any resources to “investigate” them?
I completely agree on all points.
This is the one that gets me the most.
Not just neurons- Any research into electromagnetism.
One of the fundamental forces? Too bad. You aren’t allowed to talk about that.
Sunglasses with polarized lenses? Worrying about eye cancer is too woke.