For countries to compete economically in the 21st century, support for fundamental research in science and engineering needs to be an integral part of policymaking. China, India, Singapore, Korea and numerous other countries are devoting billions to building up their research enterprises, and in numerous cases are beginning to outstrip the West. One of the problems in North America is that major science funding agencies have become fixated on devoting resources to addressing perceived social justice issues, drawing key funding away from the science enterprise itself.
I have already written in these pages about the ridiculous quotas being imposed on the prestigious Canada Research Chairs Program, the appointments of which are now dominated by demographic and identity considerations and not merit. But such affirmative action policies are merely one side of the coin; an even more insidious effort is underway to steer science funding toward social engineering.
Other Canadian examples from recent years include the federal New Frontiers in Research Fund, which in 2018 sponsored an academic initiative entitled “Decolonizing Light” to study “the reproduction of colonialism in and through physics” and “how colonial scientific knowledge authority was and is still reproduced in the context of light.” As muddled as this is, the program’s research summary makes it clear that physics is fundamentally bad: “Physics is considered as ‘hard,’ objective and socially independent. This narrative both constitutes and reproduces inequality such as the underrepresentation of women, (people of colour) and Indigenous peoples in contemporary physics.”
Meanwhile, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) has been developing a new competency framework to guide physician training, called CanMEDS 2025. While most people who go to a doctor would probably prefer if the chief emphasis of that doctor’s education involved developing their medical expertise, the RCPSC’s new model would “seek to centre values such as anti-oppression, anti-racism and social justice, rather than medical expertise.”
“CanMEDS 2025 affords us the opportunity to think critically and propose a vision for the practice of medicine which is rooted in social justice, anti-racism, anti-oppression and cultural safety, promoting a broader cultural shift which is necessary for the profession,” read an RCPSC working group letter.
Beyond the danger of shifting the emphasis of medical education from medical expertise to anti-racism, this is a stunning and despicable indictment of the thousands of doctors who entered the profession to save lives, which they do every day, and who are neither oppressors nor racists.
In the United States, all the major science funding agencies have now developed significant social justice programs, at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars that could otherwise be spent on cutting-edge science research. I will focus here on the National Science Foundation (NSF), which is the U.S. funding agency whose mandate is most carefully focused on supporting the national scientific enterprise.
Two recent grants to Duke University first reported to me by a colleague provide, in microcosm, evidence of a trend in NSF funding away from formal science research. In 2020, Duke received a foundation grant of almost US$10 million (C$14 million) to get more women into computer science. What surprised him was that no evidence of discrimination was provided. It was just that, to the tune of millions, the NSF thought there should be more women on the faculty in that department.
More recently, another NSF grant went to Dukefor “A Program to Support the Diversity Initiative for Tenure in Economics.” Here, once again, the award abstract made no suggestion of explicit discrimination, but rather it described “an imperative for special efforts” to ensure that Black, Latino and Native American junior faculty “develop the research and teaching profile that will lead to promotion to tenure.”
When Congress established the National Science Foundation in 1950, it did so to promote the progress of science. It fulfills this mission, as currently stated on its website, by providing “federal support to America’s colleges and universities for basic research: research driven by curiosity and discovery.”
In the 21st century, a vibrant scientific and technological infrastructure has become more important than ever for driving the economic health and well-being of nations, which is why so many previously third-world countries, including China, India, Korea and more, are investing so heavily in science and technology. By comparison, government funding for basic science in the U.S. has remained relatively static. For example, Congress cut the NSF budget by eight per cent, to US$9.06 billion.
With research funding so tight in the U.S., and with fewer than 15 per cent of researchers applying for NSF grants being successful, it is vital for every dollar spent by the NSF to support cutting-edge research with the greatest potential, as described in the foundation’s mission statement. But that is no longer what is happening. Instead, the NSF appears to be spending an increasing fraction of its resources — as much as several hundred million dollars — on ideologically motivated social engineering efforts rather than fundamental science.
To get a sense of the direction of NSF priorities one merely needs to go to the NSF’s website and type in keywords like “diversity,” “equity” and “inclusion.” Some results relate to real science programs, like exploring biological diversity in an ecosystem. However, the bulk include programs like these:
- Leading Culture Change Through Professional Societies of Biology
- Cultural Transformation in the Geosciences Community
- Fundamental Research on Equity, Inclusion, and Ethics in Postsecondary Academic Workplaces and the Academic Profession
- Piloting Department-level Systemic Change for Equity
- Catalyzing Institutional Change to Support Greater Equity, Inclusion, and Access in STEM Academic Careers and Advanced Degree Attainment
- Organizational Change for Gender Equity in STEM Academic Professions
- Geoscience Opportunities for Leadership in Diversity
- Growing Research Access for Nationally Transformative Equity and Diversity
- Racial Equity in STEM Education
Just a quick perusal yields dozens of different funding programs providing millions of dollars for sponsoring cultural change and/or equity and diversity. While some might argue that these are noble social goals, it would be hard to argue that the National Science Foundation should divert its focus away from supporting scientific research in this way.
Perhaps to counter such a concern, initiatives are often couched in language to make them seem like they support actual scientific research. Consider, for example, the announcement for “Workplace Equity for Persons with Disabilities in STEM and STEM Education.” This might seem like a program to support more accessible facilities for researchers with disabilities. Not so; rather, the program “Supports fundamental, applied and translational research that advances knowledge and practice about diverse, equitable, inclusive and accessible STEM and STEM education workplaces … for persons with disabilities.” But diving deeper into the proposal, it is rife with critical social justice boilerplate. Program research themes included “Applying intersectional social identity perspectives to investigate characteristics and conditions of STEM and STEM education workplaces.”
One of the more notable and egregious abuses of both the English language and the NSF mandate is the mammoth new program entitled “Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discovers in Engineering and Science Initiative,” so named to allow it to go by the socially pleasing acronym INCLUDES.
The NSF proudly proclaims this initiative, designed to produce “inclusive change” and a STEM workforce that “reflects the diversity of the Nation’s population” according to the program synopsis. It is considered one of the NSF’s “bold, long-term research and process ideas that identify areas for future investment at the frontiers of science and engineering.” The NSF database shows that the INCLUDES program has funded 92 awards, nearly 50 of which have been granted more than US$1 million.
A 2007 study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recommended that a “comprehensive and coordinated federal effort is urgently needed to bolster U.S. competitiveness and pre-eminence.” Almost 20 years later, there is a far more competitive international landscape of first-rank science and technology research.
This is a challenge faced both in the U.S. and Canada. With this in mind, neither country can afford to divert significant scientific research funding to a coordinated federal social justice effort, regardless of good intentions.
National Post
Lawrence M. Krauss, a theoretical physicist, has led research programs at major universities in the U.S. and elsewhere, and is currently the President of the Origins Project Foundation and is also a senior fellow of the Aristotle Foundation. His most recent book is The Edge of Knowledge.