http://www.apsanet.org/media/PDFs/NSFAmendmentAsModified.pdf So this hurts on a number of levels. On a personal level, this takes about $160 million out of the political science grant pool and could possibly end the funding of the American National Election Survey. If you know what that is and how big an undertaking the ANES is, do me a favor and contact every single one of your elected representatives. Secondly, this is a return to the 1950s. Who the hell does this man think he is, telling scientists what is and what isn't good research? Political science these days is about psychological experiments on human behavior, econometrics on institutional behavior. It's about history, philosophy, sociology, economics, psychology, and the humanities. Research in the discipline is groundbreaking for use of statistical tools, experimental procedures, methodological robustness, and a thousand other things that the academic community would lose because, again, Tom Coburn is a tool. And finally, if Tom Coburn can kill of political science despite not knowing what it is, he or some other troglodyte could kill NSF funding for any other academic discipline because of some grudge, or some B- handed out thirty years ago, or who knows what. This isn't a call for debate; if you're in favor of cutting NSF funding for any academic discipline for any reason whatsoever you're an idiot and your mother doesn't love you. This is a call to send out to your elected representatives to tell them that this isn't acceptable behavior and if politicians were really interested in this country, they'd fund academic research because research is what makes America truly great.
So, you want politicians to fund academic research, and then you complain when politicians act like politicians? Ok.
Reminds me of university, debating whether the the social sciences were actual sciences or trumped up humanities. This could be fun - especially if the poli-sci gang get in a tizzy. I see our resident dismal scientist has subscribed too.
My hope is that the Obama administration - having basically utilized the last twenty years' worth of political science in the Americanist subfield to win re-election last year - goes to bat for us.
If we didn't, viagra would have been on the market about 30 years ago, we would still not know much about cancer or parkinson's or even stem cells. And kids would still likely be classified as socially retarded rather than autistic. Yes, government funded academic research is very, very important. Particularly when it is done by professional researchers and not directed by politicians or lay people.
Yeah, until soccernutter responded I wasn't sure how much beyond "******** you, Luddite" I could get out. Nonetheless, soccernutter makes a very good point. Research by academia researches stuff we don't necessarily consider important at the time, and that's a really, REALLY good thing. Also, research in academia gets peer-review, which is a much higher standard than non-academic research.
You'd think the Democrats across the board would - but knowing Democrats they'll screw it up somehow. And probably not as bad as the Republicans have though.
I am not opposed to academic or non-academic research. What I find hilarious is you calling being personally offended for a politician being stupid. This is like number 9 billion on the list of things politicians do wrong. If you want this protected from politicians, don't take funding from politicians.
I want funding paid for by taxpayers because it's what democracies should invest in. I don't want it protected by politicians - unlike you, I grew up and know how the world works - I want it protected from Tom Coburn and his one-man moron show.
Making fun of you is good venting. Winning is getting my funding back, losing is seeing it signed the President's desk.
There is a lot of funding paid for by taxpayers that our democracy has no business investing in. Unfortunately, in a democracy it's the politicians who decide what gets invested in and what the private sector has to pay for.
Ok, I'll be nice. You don't get to make that choice. If you get money taken by force (or the threat thereof, same thing), then people who are generally among the worst among us get to decide how it's spent. You may as well say you want to lounge around and eat candy all day and never gain weight. It don't work like that.
The bolded part - that's not how the world works. You need to read the classical philosophers' take on the Social Contract. I'd start with Rousseau and Locke. We do not have our wealth extracted by force, we pool it together as a communal resource and share its benefits. Get your faux-intellectual libertarianism out of this thread, please.
OK, now I'm against legalizing pot. Apparently, it's a problem with 8.8 billion layers to it...it's too complicated then.
roadkit, I'm still wondering if you could answer this for me. You made a pretty stupid claim and then didn't have any evidence to back up the stupid claim. Got any now?
We do pool some of our wealth together, we just don't all do so voluntarily. If you don't want to call that force, well, we all have our own dialect of English I suppose, including where the same word means the exact opposite in different places. I'm fully aware of the concept of the social contract.