Comment by spwa4
2 days ago
> .. the current WH has decided science has a bias against them and wants to curb it ...
The US spent ~1 trillion dollars on science in 2024, 2025 will be maybe 10% less.
The EU spent ~460 billion dollars on science in 2024 ... and 2025 will be 10 to 20% less.
So the problem I have here is simple. I mostly agree with you. But European governments, despite having more money to spend, spent less on science, and are taking back grants faster than Trump. Per-capita or per-GDP-dollar they spent 3 to 4 times less than the US on science. In absolute terms, they spent less than half the US spent.
EU politicians (and diplomats) are doing worse than Trump on this issue, not better.
This is the part that's always forgotten. Everyone's gleefully saying that this Trump White House is going to finally, after decades, reverse the EU to US brain drain!
Then you look at the facts ... and no, it's not. In fact it may accelerate under Trump. What the EU is doing to science funding is worse than what Trump is doing.
I mean, I get it. Trump is worse than Biden. Or, to put it a different way: the US is so far ahead of the EU in science that the major idiotic stumble Trump is turning out to be ... just doesn't matter. But yeah, bring back Biden!
If getting a science grant for X is 5 years of effort in the EU, it's about 2 years of effort in the US. Sure, it used to be 1.8 years and that sucks. But there is still a very large difference and obviously the expected outcome here, if we're being honest, is that the US ... will easily remain far ahead in science to the EU.
A long whataboutism and defending points which were never made.
"What about EU? European governments, despite having more money to spend, spent less on science, and are taking back grants faster than Trump." where have we seen this? Oh yes, the RW who talk about EU "offloading" science to US.
I understand this makes for good TV content where the focus is to shift goalposts to new topic.
I didn't make the points about brain drain or whether US will remain ahead. I only pointed out is that the real reason WH is doing this and those on the right gleefully clapping along. People defend this in bad faith. There is no way to know if this is going to be net positive. Numbers look fine on paper but the cost of say private biased research unchallenged by neutral public research might erase the gain. I am fine if I am proven wrong in 4 years and things remain unchanged.
But yeah, Biden something something and Trump something something.
The topic of this whole thread is that an "US destroying its reputation as a scientific leader – European science diplomat" ...