Republican Introduces Bill To Require Political Approval Of Scientific Papers | Hacker News Reader

Republican Introduces Bill To Require Political Approval Of Scientific Papers

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13 pointsteapot019 comments

This is complete bullshit. And by "this" I mean the story, not the act. The act seems to be silly, but did anyone actually read the draft? http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/HQRA.pdf

The act has nothing to do with findings in any way, it simply says that the NSF (prior to funding) has to publicly certify that each funded project is 1) in the best interests of the country, 2) ground-breaking and important, 3) not a duplicate of any research being done by other publicly-funded projects in the US.

Flagged.

1) Okay.

2) What defines “ground-breaking?”

3) Duplication is a cornerstone of the scientific method. The bill as written would preempt funding for any study checking the results of other recipients’ studies.

1) Not okay: what constitutes the 'best interests of the USA' is in the eye of the beholder. A libertarian might have a different outlook on 'best interests' than say a religious zealot, etc.

"it simply says that the NSF (prior to funding) has to publicly certify that each funded project is 1) in the best interests of the country,"

According to partisans.

I'm very confused by this article, which links to the draft in question[0], which is quite short and can be seen by anyone who reads it not to say anything like what the article claims. It doesn't say anything about findings or results. It says that before a research project is funded, the director of NSF has to publicly certify that the research is worth doing.

Which seems pretty dumb, but as far as I can tell this article is nothing but blatant lies, banking on an assumption that readers won't check the facts. Weird.

[0] http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/HQRA.pdf

High quality site with headlines such as "Dow Jones Reaches New All Time High, Making Republicans Look Like Fools" written by Justin "Filthy Liberal Scum" Rosario.

Keep political bullshit off HN.

I hereby propose "High quality government act" which requires scientific approval for all political publications.

How dare someone even try to insure taxpayer money is well spent.

> which would in effect add a politician into scientific studies.

"In some cases this will keep vivisection away from innocent animals."

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