Stand Up for Funding

Science™ is fighting back! In case you were worried.

The final straw was the National Institutes of Health (NIH) decreeing in February that indirect cost reimbursements on research grants would henceforth be cut to about 25 percent of their current rate. Hard to see what the complaint is there. Indirect costs mostly fuel administrative bloat, and trimming indirect costs would mean more money for researchers. So, you’d think those cuts would prompt a sigh of relief from scientists, not anger. But because the reduction was part of the Trump/Musk attack on Science™, it had to be defied!

This is how I came to be at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, on a beautiful, crisp day this month. There was going to be a rally to “Stand Up for Science” on the National Mall at the west end of the Reflecting Pool. The DC rally was being held in conjunction with subsidiary rallies in 31 cities nationwide. So, it seemed like it would be a big deal. The chant writes itself: “Scientists™ united … Will never be defeated!” (repeat ad infinitum).

The organizers may have hoped for a reprise of 2017, when the first Trump administration tried to reduce indirect cost reimbursements to 20 percent of the current rate. That proposal stirred up the 2017 “March for Science,” which attracted about 100,000 people to the then-rain-soaked National Mall—nearly a million marchers worldwide. Since Trump’s plan was thwarted then, the thought was that the scientists who once were known as Stand Up for Science would beat it back now.

The rally opened hopefully with a recording of Martin Luther King, Jr. addressing the 250,000-strong crowd that had gathered in 1963 for the March on Washington. Stand Up for Science wasn’t hoping for that, of course, but hoped at least to approach the six-figure attendance the March for Science drew in 2017. In the end, I estimated that Stand Up for Science drew about a thousand attendees, barely filling the space between the foot of the Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pool.

Never mind. It was a beautiful day, full of earnest festivity. There was an abundance of handmade placards. Some had clever slogans: “Defunding science is like burning the library at Alexandria.” “Brains love science” because “Science prevents brain worms.” “American eagle brought to you by the Interior Department.” “Entomologist ‘ticked’ off about cuts in science” (kind of an inside baseball thing). There were jokes. Setup: What does DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) stand for? Punchline: Diabolic Oligarch Grifting Efficiently. As if. “Good luck getting to Mars without science!” I think Elon’s on top of that.

Speaking of Elon, he was a prominent hate object. Some of the placards were ham-fisted and angry. “Fork you, President Musk.” “He MUSK go.” “MAHA kills.” OK, that’s Kennedy, not Musk, but same thing. A few placards recycled Musk’s over-exuberant “my heart to yours” gesture as a supposed Nazi salute. One sandwich board simply declared “NO NAZIS,” front and back just to make sure you didn’t miss it.

And some were endearing. “You know it’s bad when introverts protest!” gave me a chuckle. There was even an adorable canine point of view: “Dogs not DOGE.”

Dogs, not DOGE

As in all lefty protests, there was music to warm up the crowd. Protest standards like “This Little Light of Mine” were trotted out, with science-y lyrics helpfully shoehorned in:

Science lights the way
I’m gonna let it shine
Science lights the way
I’m gonna let it shine
Science lights the way
I’m gonna let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Science improves our lives
I’m gonna let it shine
Science improves our lives
I’m gonna let it shine
Science improves our lives
I’m gonna let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Pete Seeger it wasn’t. Fortunately, Francis Collins stepped in to fill that role. You’ll remember Francis Collins as the former Director of the NIH, now best known for his collusion with Anthony Fauci to suppress the “fringe epidemiologist,” Jay Bhattacharya, who, along with Martin Kulldorff and Sunetra Gupta, led the dissent against the destructive and nonsensical NIH lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. Bhattacharya now has Collins’s former job.

Today, Collins was acting as an informal Master of Ceremonies, introducing several of the speakers. He concluded his own speech by whipping out his guitar to sing a scientized version of Ken Hicks’ virtue-signaling anthem “For all the Good People:”

(Chorus)
Well, this is a song for all the good people
All the good people who are part of this family.
This is a song for all the good people,
We’re joined together by this noble dream.

Well, this is a song for all of those dreamers
Who are looking for answers to calm our way.
Scientists, doctors, students all seekers
Share in the hopes of a much brighter day.

(Chorus)

Well, this is a song for all of the patients.
Your strength and your spirit have touched one and all.
It’s your dedication that’s our inspiration.
When we see your courage, we have to stand tall.

(Chorus)

So come all you people
And stand up for science.
Come join this alliance to make those dreams clear.
It’s of, it’s by, and it’s for the people.
What Lincoln was thinkin’, it’s now and it’s here. 

(Chorus)

(Coda)
We’re joined together by this noble dream.

Nice touch roping Lincoln into your cause, Francis.

Collins’s rendition of this song does raise the obvious question: If all the good people are here, who are all the bad people out there? One of the speakers, from the Union of Concerned Scientists, provided helpful clarity on that question:

Because we know that when science is ignored, censored, … filled with misinformation, and defunded, people get hurt. And when there’s no funding for scientific research into disease prevention, it kills. Real people will suffer. And when there’s no one to keep our food and water quality safe and clean, we know people will get sick. When there’s no one watching and alerting us to hurricanes, wildfires and other extreme weather and climate impacts, people will die. When people are restricted from working on science that involves diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and environmental justice, real communities are harmed. And so we must save science and save lives.

And just to drive the point home:

Oh, make no mistake, this administration is attacking people who tell the truth, those who promote facts, evidence and reality that it doesn’t like.

The administration is firing and bullying and threatening scientists and workers across the government who make the world a better place, a safer place, a happier place. Workers who quietly save lives every day

So, that’s pretty straightforward. We scientists just want people not to be hurt, nor to suffer, nor die, nor get sick. All we want is your money to support our noble goals! The bad people are Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and everyone who voted for him, who oppose truth and all things good, and want to take the money away and all the good we do with it. By the way, guess what got the loudest cheers from the crowd in that litany of grief? No, it wasn’t disease prevention, not protecting food and water quality, not guarding against natural disasters. It was DEI science, whatever that is.

Speaking of money, Collins argued that not only are Trump, Musk, and the DOGE nerds evil, but they’re also financially stupid! The crowd went wild! How did he attribute financial stupidity to two of the world’s richest men? Well, they’re stupid because they don’t see that science produces great economic returns on investment! In support, Collins cited the Human Genome Project—which Collins directed for a time—which he claimed returned $141 over fifteen years for each dollar invested.

You have to admire the chutzpah. Even Bernie Madoff only promised returns of 20 percent. Collins might want to walk back that claim. For one thing, it undercuts the rationale for the rally Collins was addressing. Let’s do a calculation. The entire federal research budget amounts to about $200 billion annually. The budget for the NIH alone accounts for about $40 billion of that. A fifteen-year return on investment (ROI) of 14,100 percent would yield about $5.64 trillion, or about $376 billion annually. Why, then, should the NIH be begging for public funds at all? Following Collins’s economic logic, what he should be arguing for is privatizing the NIH so they can keep all that ROI. But that wouldn’t have played well with the crowd that day.

My back-of-the-envelope calculation would no doubt yield the retort that I’m being simplistic and naïve, to which I would reply, “Absolutely correct!” No more simplistic and naïve than the “science is a good investment” trope. The simple fact of the matter is that calculating the ROI on research ranges from nebulous to magical. Let’s take Collins’s example. Depending upon the financial and economic models used, the estimates of ROI for the Human Genome Project have ranged from a high of $178 to a low of $2.[1] What’s the real number? I wouldn’t bet my house on the answer.

So unreliable are estimates of ROI on research that pharmaceutical companies, which stand or fall on the ROI from their research spending, base their decisions largely on “leaps-of-faith” rather than on any hope of a reliable ROI guiding their decisions.[2] Some economists even argue that public spending on research is a net drag on economic growth because money taken in taxes is money that cannot be invested privately.[3] So, while science can yield dividends, it’s by no means a sure bet.

If numbers don’t persuade, there’s emotion. Another tactic prominently on display that day was testimonial. “Science Saves Lives,” as several placards declared. In support, several people with difficult medical conditions were brought on stage to share their stories. Now, one is always happy to learn that physicians have treatments for people beset by difficult disease. One can only wish them well. But sympathy clouds the actual question that was at hand that day, namely to what extent did the nearly $40 billion disbursed each year to the NIH make this happen?

There is no straightforward answer to this question, but there is ample reason to be skeptical. Just what is that $40 billion of NIH funds buying? Focused philanthropic funding can produce tangible health results more quickly and reliably than shoveling $40 billion into the NIH coffers does.[4] Could more cures be found at half the price? A quarter? A tenth? Could they have been bought by cutting out the NIH altogether? Nobody knows, but there are things we do know the $40 billion is buying. The scientific literature is beset with an ongoing and well-documented irreproducibility crisis, where the vast proportion of published papers are simply unreliable or false.[5] As for the placards saying “NIH saves lives!,” I imagine the multitude of people harmed by the NIH’s inept—and borderline criminal—handling of the COVID-19 pandemic—and throw in the equally mismanaged AIDS epidemic, for good measure—might offer a different testimony on how the NIH “saves lives.” None of them were invited to the stage that day.

Never mind. The issue at hand is reduced funding, and the organizers of Stand Up for Science have a plan to fix the problem. Increase NIH funding by 20 percent over the next three years and restore those sweet indirect costs! And hand out more money not just to the NIH, but to all the federal agencies that fund research. They list nine: there are actually two dozen. That will get us 20 percent more science! And 20 percent more science means more returns on those fabulous ROIs. Oh, and promote DEI in science throughout the federal government! Because Diversity is our Strength.™ And—this was presented without irony—end political interference and censorship in science! We’ll tell that to the lady from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Leaving aside the crude money-in to science-out funding model that underlies this litany, there was a telling clue of the real agenda that day, found on the most numerous and prominently displayed placards in the crowd, from the United Auto Workers (AUW). What were they doing at a Stand Up for Science rally? Don’t they make cars?

Here’s what they were doing there that day. The UAW is the bargaining representative for NIH Fellows United, a union group founded in 2023 representing about 5,000 NIH trainees, which includes graduate students—”post-bacs” as they are designated—and post-docs. The founding of NIH Fellows United is the UAW’s latest victory in a nationwide drive to unionize graduate students and post-docs. The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) also have their hand in this drive. We now see Stand Up for Science for what it really was: science astroturfing by the UAW.

There’s more at work here than typical union antics. There’s a hint in the UAW and UE designating the people they represent not as “scientists” or “researchers” or “students,” but as research, scientific, or academic “workers.”

These newly-minted science workers now need the UAW to regulate their relationship with NIH “management,” that is, scientists that what once were known as “mentors.” That relationship, once so crucial to training the next generation of scientists, is now spelled out by a 72-page contract, which specifies benefits, workplace conditions, “workload,” bargaining rules, relocation allowances, leave, telework, and a variety of other categories. Things I never had, nor did I ever miss, as a graduate student or post-doc, by the way.

Science astroturf!

The redesignation of trainee scientist to “science worker” reflects an ongoing cultural shift in the nature of science. When the public hears the word “science,” they think of the discovery of new things about nature, of improvement in lives and health, and in prosperity. This was the story that Stand Up for Science sought to promote in the hope that the public would continue to buy it.

Scientific discovery has only a tenuous relationship to money spent on science, though. Since 1950, when the federal government embarked on its experiment to fund science with tax dollars, breakthrough discoveries have continued to emerge but at a fairly steady pace, independently of the exponentially rising expenditures on research since then.[6] While funding can certainly help discovery along, what really drives discovery is genius, which comes at its own pace and cannot be purchased. This is why it is a mistake to try and calculate an ROI on scientific discovery. Nor can it be regulated, pretensions of the UAW and all its science workers aside.

It’s also why the public should be skeptical of any claims that cuts in federal research spending will damage science.

Since 1950, the federal government has spent nearly a trillion dollars on funding science. If not discovery, then what has that funding bought? What it has bought has been a degradation of the culture of science and of its value to society. What matters now is not scientific discovery but scientific production—a nonsensical notion if you think about it. Where once scientific careers were built upon what you discovered, now careers are built nearly entirely upon how “productive” a scientist you are: by numbers of papers published, by grant dollars won, by students pushed through the conduit of higher education. This cultural shift has been devastating for modern science. Rather than promoting independence of thought and taking intellectual risks, the focus on science “productivity” has fostered risk aversion, conformity, and crowd-following—the very opposite of the virtues that promote discovery.[7]

It also fosters the illusion, prominently on display on the Mall that day, that standing up for funding is the same thing as standing up for science. Redesignating graduate students and post-docs as “science workers” feeds right into that illusion. Trump and Musk are hate objects because they challenge that cherished illusion. It also makes the NIH science trainees the rough equivalent of fast food employees clamoring for a “livable” minimum wage. NIH Fellows United should be mindful of Thomas Sowell: the real minimum wage is zero.

Before the Stand Up for Science rally, several participants gathered at the Einstein Memorial, in front of the National Academy of Sciences building, just across Constitution Avenue from the Lincoln Memorial. The location was ironic, given that Einstein made his most momentous discoveries not through generous amounts of cash being dumped on him by the Kaiser but while moonlighting as a patent clerk in the Swiss patent office in Geneva.

Would the UAW consider Einstein a scientific discoverer, or a scientific worker? I know my answer. I don’t think the UAW or NIH Fellows United would agree with me.

Discoverer? Or worker?

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[1] Wadman, M. (2013). Economic return from Human Genome Project grows. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2013.13187

[2] Buss, D. (2011). Examining the ROI of R&D. Chief Executive. Stamford, CT`, Chief Executive Group, LLC.

[3] Kealey, T. (2013) The case against public science. Cato Unbound. A Journal of Debate.

[4] Sarewitz, D. (2016). Saving science. The New Atlantis 49(Spring/Summer 2016): 4-40.

[5] Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2005). Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. PLoS medicine 2(8): e124.

[6] Park, M., E. Leahey, et al. (2023). Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time. Nature 613(7942): 138-144.

[7][7] Turner, S. P. and D. E. Chubin (2020). The Changing Temptations of Science. Issues in Science and Technology 36(3): 40-46.

Cover by J. Scott Turner