DOGE Battles to Free Ideologically Captured Scientific Institutions
As the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health get the DOGE-treatment, scientists are filled with dread.
Before COVID, Americans generally trusted its scientists.
Post-COVID, Americans’ trust in science has declined significantly. In 2023, only 57% of American adults said science had a “mostly positive” effect on society, down 16 percentage points from pre-pandemic levels. The percentage of Americans with strong trust in scientists fell from 39% in 2020 to 23%.
Now two of the major institutions funding American science are receiving the DOGE- treatment, as the Department of Government Efficiency staff has begun looking at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health. There appears to be an effort to streamline and refocus these groups so they support actual science rather than narrative support.
NSF has already terminated 168 probationary employees, representing approximately 10% of its workforce.
The National Science Foundation fired 170 probationary employees and experts Tuesday as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the size of the federal workforce, the agency confirmed.
In a written statement, NSF spokesman Mike England pointed to President Donald Trump’s executive order last week that included plans to reduce the size of the federal workforce as part of the work of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
“To ensure compliance with this E.O. the National Science Foundation has released 168 employees from Federal service effective today,” England said Tuesday. “We thank these employees for their service to NSF and their contributions to advance the agency mission.”
And as those probationary employees were hired under the Biden administration, the move is likely to benefit real science.
NSF grants are also being targeted, especially if they contain the hallmarks of Diversity-Equity-Inclusion.
Many grants seem to be in jeopardy. Nature recently reported that roughly 10,000 existing grants were marked for potential cancellation given their inclusion of keywords like “women” and “people of color,” which are targeted in the Trump Administration rollback of DEI initiatives.
During the Biden-Harris administration, the proportion of @NSF funding allocated to DEI efforts increased by over 9210% from 2021 to 2024, rising from 0.29% to 27.21%. @DOGE pic.twitter.com/g3FE5ymDMY
— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) December 3, 2024
At the National Institutes of Health, the fun is just getting started. DOGE has proposed drastic cuts to NIH research funding, reducing “indirect costs” to 15% of previous levels.
One complaint is that grant recipients, such as our woke universities, receive this money supposedly to cover the practical costs related to the research (e.g., light and heat for the laboratory facility), but not the research itself—to 15%. However, these indirect costs are often nearly a substantial portion of the grant and can be used to support non-scientific endeavors that might otherwise be unsustainable.
For example. the ever-expanding administrative state associated with universities. “Indirect costs” cover:
- General administration
- Accounting and financial management
- Human resources
- Legal affairs
- Grant administration
How many of these are DEI-activists supporting the progressive antics at their institutions? And how many thwart the hiring of scientists whose research may challenge the current orthodoxy related to climate, gender, and other critical fields?
Amazing job by @NIH team.
Saved > $4B annually in excessive grant administrative costs. https://t.co/ICLlcJxp8V
— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) February 7, 2025
Of course, scientists attending the current meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science are on edge as a result of the new scrutiny they are under from Elon Musk’s team of super-geniuses.
The official theme of the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, held February 13–15, is “Science Shaping Tomorrow.”
The unofficial theme is “uncertainty.”
With thousands of scientists, advocates and policy experts in attendance, AAAS is the largest science meeting to take place in the United States since the beginning of the second Trump administration. It’s happening against a backdrop of threats to funding that supports research, scrubbing public data from online sources and a purge of federal workers.
…Noted AAAS board chair Joseph Francisco: “The unprecedented nature of the last few weeks have left many of us in the science and engineering community uncertain, anxious, and fearful… These feelings are valid.”
The researchers I spoke with used words like “chaos,” “confusion” and “insane” to describe the climate at their institutions.
I don’t recall the same degree of wailing and gnashing of teeth when our military service members and other federal employees were discharged for failure to take the COVID shot.
If scientists and scientific institutions care to learn, what DOGE is doing can provide some valuable lessons, starting with good choices about what constitutes worthwhile research.
This. Is. Why. #madscientistmofos pic.twitter.com/y5sm5IxKbj
— amy brenna (@prettyinc) February 20, 2025
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Comments
Corruption and subversion of science must be rooted out, carrying dead weight Affirmative and DEI is innately unjust and demoralizing for real scientists and engineers.
A ridiculously naive friend of mine who worked at HRL in Malibu is running around in circles with his hair on fire over all these cuts. Much of his work was government-funded. He also is convinced he is losing his Social Security and Medicare. A brilliant man with virtually no ability to think in real-world terms.
WAY off-topic, but, love the dog in the top picture.
You may be right that it is a dog, but I took it as a picture of a fox in the hen house. IMO, a perfect metaphor for the at least the last four years, and really much longer than that.
The dog in the picture above is a Shiba Inu, from the classic Doge meme, for those who haven’t spent their entire adult lives on line.
That’s not a Shiba Inu.
It’s a portrait of Pope Viking III, our first black pope.
Your friend may need to take desperate measures: like finding a REAL job in the DPS (dreaded private sector). The horror!
Pampered, PRIVILEGED elites freaking out as usual. Love it!
He’s retired. Hughes Research Labs is owned by a “private sector” company that, like Lockheed-Martin, would not exist were it not for their ability to take tax money from the Congressmen they buy.
For each government science grant 65% to 75% of the total is taken by the institution for general overhead and support. So, a University or hospital that gets $100 million in grants, takes $70 million off the top. Shutting down that gravy train is going to hurt a lot of bloated organizations.
“Elon Musk’s team of super-geniuses” seriously, credulous comment or what. Are these the same geniuses who blindly fired all the nuclear experts and then realised it was a massive mistake, the same geniuses that fired the staff on an understaffed air traffic control unit being a direct cause of a plane crash. So smart
Are you still trespassed from airport baggage claims, Lola?
Announcer narrator voice “Early in the 1960s at Bell Telephone Laboratories …” , mocked by a co-worker at the time. It wasn’t woke then, just a contrast between the (few) nerds doing all the work and management.
There’s always capture.
When Uncle Sugar has a preconceived notion or narrative in mind, and they are handing out $$$$ like after dinner mints, the “unbiased’ scientists will beat a path to DC’s door for a ticket to ride the gravy train,
Always follow the money.
“If you don’t have the slant,
You don’t get the grant.”
The piper plays the tune called by the guy with the gold.
By squeezing the overhead costs, the government will force institutions to become far less generous with the “extras” of administration. That is a good thing.