@ControlsFreak comments on "Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025

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yunyun333 3mo ago

Terence Tao: I’m an award-winning mathematician. Trump just cut my funding.

In just six months, the United States has seen a wholesale assault on the scientific infrastructure that helped make it a world leader in innovation. Grants have been cancelled mid-project, fellowships for the next generation of researchers gutted, and federally funded institutes stripped of the resources they need to operate. These decisions are not the result of scientific review or Congressional debate, but of abrupt political directives that bypass long-standing norms, disrupt multi-year projects, and erode the independence of our research ecosystem.

In that time, I have seen first-hand how sustained federal investment—channeled through agencies like the National Science Foundation (NSF)—powers the collaborations that link universities, government laboratories, and industry. At UCLA's Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM), where I now serve as Director of Special Projects, those collaborations have laid the groundwork for both theoretical breakthroughs and practical technologies. My own research at IPAM, for instance, helped lead to the algorithms that now cut MRI scan times by a factor of up to 10. This is the America I chose as my adoptive home: a place where science is valued as a public good, and where researchers from around the world come to contribute their ideas and energy.

It is therefore stunning and devastating to discover that the new administration, in just its first six months, has deliberately attacked and weakened almost all the supporting pillars of this ecosystem. Executive actions have cancelled or suspended federal grants with unprecedented scale and speed, with billions of dollars worth of ongoing research projects and experiments disrupted. This is not because of a negative scientific assessment of the work, but instead by seemingly arbitrary justifications. Critical funding has been pulled for as insignificant a reason as the presence of a key word in the original proposal that is retroactively deemed unacceptable.

Federal support is, of course, a privilege, not a right; and Congress has the constitutional authority to set the budgets and rules for any expenditure of public funds and resources. But many of these executive actions have not waited for either explicit or implicit Congressional approval, and in some cases have even directly ignored past Congressional mandates for appropriations. Relative to the sheer size of the federal government as a whole, the amount allocated for supporting science is not massive. The NSF mathematics and physical sciences (MPS) directorate, for instance, is the largest of the subdivisions of the NSF, and has an annual budget of approximately $1.7 billion. This looks significant until one realizes that it amounts to about five dollars per US citizen per year, and less than a tenth of a percent of the federal budget as a whole.

He seems to be referring to how the admin took an axe to science funding by ctrl+F-ing for 'woke' dictionary terms: underrepresented, minority, diverse, etc. The problem is that the effects seem to be about indiscriminate regardless of whether you were a true believer or merely box checking. Will we see upgraded diversity science pledges in the next democrat admin? Researchers might have to carefully consider the political leanings of their funding proposals in election years.

Context

phosphorus2 yunyun333 3mo ago

Terry Tao gives all of the great reasons why we like science. And hes right on those reasons. But he does not give the reason why his funding was cut. Which is odd, he is a smart guy, but reading his letter you get the impression that Trump / the NSF just came in and randomly cut his funding. He actually say this himself:

This is not because of a negative scientific assessment of the work, but instead by seemingly arbitrary justifications.

[Side note: very lame Terry. Your entire funding just got gutted, and you can't even nut up enough to say it was "arbitrary", just "seemingly arbitrary". Weak.]

Anyways, it just seemed odd that UCLA got its funding cut for no reason, the admin has been sending letters to colleges outlining its reasons. So I looked, and this is what I found. I took it from the link to the lawsuit below, where the Trump NSF letter to UCLA is reprinted.

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has undertaken a review of its award portfolio. The agency has determined that suspension of certain awards is necessary because they are not in alignment with current NSF priorities and/or programmatic goals. NSF understands that [UCLA] continues to engage in race discrimination including in its admissions process, and in other areas of student life, as well as failing to promote a research environment free of antisemitism and bias. We have considered reliance interests and they are outweighed by the NSF’s policy concerns.

Effective immediately, the attached awards are suspended until further notice.

NSF is issuing this suspension to protect the interests of the government pursuant to NSF Grant General Conditions (GC-1) term and condition entitled ‘Termination and Enforcement,’ on the basis that the awards no longer effectuate program goals or agency priorities. This is the final agency decision and not subject to appeal.

Costs incurred as a result of this suspension may be reimbursed, provided such costs would otherwise be allowable under the terms of the award and the governing cost principles. In accordance with your award terms and conditions, you have 30 days from the suspension date to furnish an itemized accounting of allowable costs incurred prior to the suspension date.

The lawsuit gives details on claims/allegations from a second NSF / Trump letter:

• UCLA engages in racism, in the form of illegal race-based preferences in admissions practices;

• UCLA fails to promote a research environment free of antisemitism and bias;

• UCLA discriminates against and endangers women by allowing men in women’s sports and private women-only spaces

What does Terrance Tao say about these allegations? Nothing. Totally ignores them. Doesn't acknowledge them.

I am sympathetic to the argument he makes. But he is willfully blind to the larger systemic issues in his employer and university system at large. UCLA has been told over and over again to stop doing affirmative action. Its the law. And in response UCLA just sticks its fingers in its ears and mumbles something about holistic admissions and does it anyways. Which, to be fair, got them by with doing what the wanted to do for the last few decades.

But not anymore. Sorry Terry.

https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/9e9d118f-51fb-4e98-a9c0-fa060ea131ad.pdf

quiet_NaN phosphorus2 3mo ago

UCLA engages in racism, in the form of illegal race-based preferences in admissions practices;

Affirmative action is a bad thing. One might argue that forcing universities to adjust admission rules through threats of withholding research funding is also bad. OTOH, this is something I could have seen the Obama administration doing as well if the admission rules were against their ideology.

UCLA fails to promote a research environment free of antisemitism and bias;

"bias" seem extreme weak-sauce. Everyone is biased. Of course, sometimes biases are bad, but that would require going very much into the specifics.

The antisemitism thing is more plausible. Of course, for Nethanyahu, anyone who criticizes him is an antisemite, which is a great way to get people not to care about antisemitism.

Personally, I think that if the UCLA does not want to deal with Israeli institutions, that is ok. If they want to allow students to burn Israeli flags, that is also defendable. However, they do have a duty to protect their students and staff from verbal or physical attacks. If they turned a blind eye to Jews or Israeli citizens getting singled out and attacked, that would be bad.

UCLA discriminates against and endangers women by allowing men in women’s sports and private women-only spaces

Discrimination in sports? Like 73% of the NBA players being black? There are no level playing fields in sports. You can compensate for some genetic advantages (like high testosterone), but then the people who win will simply win through other genetic advantages. That does not mean that trans women in women's sports are necessarily good, but just that yelling "help, help, I am being oppressed" is just not a thing you do in sports. Are transwomen even winning most competitions?

And the "endangering women" thing is even worse. Are there credible accusations of people abusing their trans status to rape or grope women in their protected spaces, above the base rate? This seems to be a moral panic like the D&D satanism thing.

-7

ControlsFreak quiet_NaN 3mo ago

Yup. This is what I proposed six months ago. Later, I got showered in downvotes when I said maybe, perhaps, they should do something like this, targeting the institutions and policies in a way that could actually affect change rather than using 'indiscriminate chemotherapy' on academia. Tons of people here seem to have bought into the idea that the entire university system is 'enemy' and must be destroyed rather than changing their behavior.

I find that perspective mostly ignorant of theoretical premises, instead jumping in at the level of 'grunt'. That is, one should start by considering the conceptual nature of war. Clauswitz and all; politics by other means. Even modern political science treatments talk about war with the phrase "coercive bargaining". You actually have a goal that you want to accomplish. Usually that goal is not to simply genocide a people.¹ It may be that war or the threat of war furthers that political/bargaining objective.

Now, it's only after elites think that war or the threat of war may further their political/bargaining objective that you start propagandizing the proles about the other side being the 'enemy' that must simply be eliminated. Their weak minds lap that drivel up, likely blind to the political/bargaining objectives that are underlying the entire endeavor in the first place. These are the 'grunts'.

Early on, from what I could tell from the grapevine, they were genuinely just blowing up shit randomly. From what I heard, there was no rhyme or reason that could be discerned; just some random things getting cut randomly, without any meaningful reason attached. Like if some private was suddenly thrust into generalship, not even knowing the terminology or how the systems worked to align efforts with the objective. Such a private would, understandably, make all sorts of random decisions with random and unpredictable effects. Some here were happy with that pathway, with the aforementioned analogy to 'indiscriminate chemotherapy'.

Now, it seems like the administration has either gotten up to speed or put someone in charge who actually knows how to be a general. They might still not be perfect at it, but I'm glad they're at least trying something more like my six month old suggestion. Concerning Tao, specifically, I wrote previously on how this affects individual incentives:

Moreover, it also changes the individual incentives. If you're a hard sciencer who doesn't give a shit about wokeness, you might still find yourself accepting a job at a woke-ass uni, because that might be the place that really enables you to get grants, have equipment/space, top students, whatever. If suddenly, it doesn't matter what you personally do/don't do in your research, but staying at a woke uni means you're forbidden from getting grants, while moving to a cleaned up uni means gravy train, the unis that manage to clean house are going to get showered in top tier talent. No more unis managing to somehow attract some set of possibly politically-neutral, bank-making talent that they skim from to fund their crazy wokies.

1 - Possibly one might have a goal for which genociding a people is the most effective means by which to attain one's goal. Without getting into that conversation too deeply, the actual end being served is still not the actual genocide.

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