It’s time for some science up in this podcast! Joining me for the second time is Krakus Varsovian, who you may remember from an episode back in September. The state of science funding in Canada back then was dire, but it has since improved! In addition to a science funding update, Krakus is going to tell us about the incredible threat superbugs could pose. We also talk all kinds of other sciency things. It was a fun, educational time!
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Hey another without comments – Just wanted to emphasize a point that I think both of you recognized but did not mention specifically,
that constant funding of scientific research is VITAL to the continued functioning of a society.
We’re not at a point in history where ‘wow we figured out so much and our quality of life is so much better!’ and that’s just it – it requires a constant input to maintain that quality of life, to ensure that we do not lose what we’ve gained, and can carry it forward through adversity.
Annnnd since it’s my focus, I’ll have to plug that it’s equally vital that we are concerned that the research is done well – you might notice at this point in time that the greatest threats to society are social, and that whatever other threats we face are in large part consequent to those. Unfortunately the state of research in psychology and the social sciences is utterly abhorrent, the de facto standard is essentially philosophy of mind with evidential allusion. An alarming amount of research in these areas isn’t even sufficiently defined to be testable, let alone repeatable…. and what makes it worse is that there are extremely reliable results that are shocking that are often overlooked or only given as much credence as the other studies that are essentially story building.
… could rant so much more but been meaning to start a blog for that lol
but to reiterate – be loud and assertive politically that we need science to be well funded (also push for higher compensation or pay for grad students, those guys don’t get nearly enough!)