In his 2011 book The Great Stagnation, economist Tyler Cowen argued that economic growth in the U.S. is slowing due to less technological innovation. And he suggested this is because most of the “low-hanging fruit” have already been picked. Other commentators have made similar arguments.
In a new report for the CSPI, researcher Leif Rasmussen puts forward an alternative (or additional) explanation for the decline in technological innovation: science has become politicised.
Scientists, Rasmussen argues, have come under increasing pressure to tailor their research to the agenda of woke activists. (He doesn’t use the term ‘woke’ in his report, but we all know what he’s talking about.)
Rasmussen’s method is very simple. He counted the frequency of various politicized terms (i.e., woke jargon) in the abstracts of successful National Science Foundation research awards between 1990 and 2020.
Specifically, he noted whether each abstract contained at least one of seven terms: ‘equity’, ‘diversity’, ‘inclusion’, ‘gender’, ‘marginalize’, ‘underrepresented’ and ‘disparity’. Variants of each term (e.g., ‘inclusive’ or ‘inclusivity’) were included in this.
Note: the National Science Foundation is an independent federal agency with an annual budget of $8.5 billion (so not exactly pocket change). And it accounts for a quarter of all federal funding of basic research at U.S. colleges.
Rasmussen’s main finding is shown in the chart below, with each line corresponding to a different area of science.
As you can see, the frequency of woke jargon has increased massively in all areas of science. Unsurprisingly, the worst offender is ‘Education & Human Resources’. As of 2020, more than half of all abstracts contain at least one of the seven terms.
By contrast, ‘Mathematics & Physical Sciences’ has seen the smallest increase; though even here, the rise is non-trivial. More than 20% of abstracts now mention ‘equity’, ‘diversity’, ‘inclusion’ or one of the other terms.
It should be noted that every NSF abstract has a section titled ‘Broader Impacts’, in which the researchers must explain why on earth their research would be of interest to anyone else. The official guidance for this section explicitly mentions the goal of increasing representation of women and minorities:
NSF values the advancement of scientific knowledge and activities that contribute to the achievement of societally relevant outcomes. Such outcomes include, but are not limited to: full participation of women, persons with disabilities, and underrepresented minorities … development of a diverse, globally competitive STEM workforce
Hence, it’s not necessarily true that every abstract mentioning one of the seven terms corresponds to an ideological research project per se. In a lot of cases, the researchers probably just crammed as much woke jargon as they could in the ‘Broader Impacts’ section, hoping to maximise the chance of success.
‘Our attempt to prove the Riemann hypothesis will encourage more women and minorities to enter the field of mathematics because…’ You get the idea.
Rasmussen’s finding is therefore consistent with two distinct types of politicisation. First, funding agencies may have become politicised. (And in fact, we can already see this in the text quoted above). And second, scientific research itself may have become politicised.
Further research is needed to quantify the scale of each of these types. (I suspect that both are getting worse, or at least have been for the last decade.) Nonetheless, Rasmussen’s report provides valuable insights into a troubling phenomenon, and is worth reading in full.
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I’ve said it before, both here and elsewhere, but it bears repeating. Short rope, long drop.
A nice idea. But Hancock is really just a particular odious scapegoat. We need to get Whitty, Vallance, Michie, Greenalgh, the impronouncible Scottish tee-totaler and all the other advisors who really decided which policies were to be implemented. I’d also very much prefer to make them live up to their achievements. Eg, make them permanently live on JSA in some well-marked hostel after confiscating whatever property they may have and distribute that among their victims.
Love the redistribution thought.
Personally, when it all gets a bit too much for me and I’m running out of places to go to get well-reasoned opinions with a generous dollop of wisdom, I always defer to the rational and wise words of Dr McHonk-Honk and Monkey Boy. They never fail me;
https://metatron.substack.com/p/whatsappgate-by-doctor-dr-mchonk
Thank you for this. I hadn’t come across these before.
Why aren’t people on the streets yet?
Because normies are in denial.
That is perhaps the most scary part of all this.
The shrugging.
There is little hope for a society that doesn’t mind being abused and then mocked for the abuse it has received.
Nobody likes openly admitting that he has been a credulous fool?
People were on the streets, a million plus (imo) marched in London when there was the ‘rule of 6’. People are on the streets now for ‘Stop The War’ but it’s not in MSM…makes one wonder why
I’ve made the mistake three times over the last couple of years of posting something in my family WhatsApp group about one of the many Covid outrages. Compared with some of the things they bang on about ad nauseam, my posts have been very restrained and not numerous – but the reaction suggests I absolutely won’t stop going on about it. “Dad, we’ve moved on! Can’t you let it go?!” etc. Three posts in two years – really. I’ve now been sent to Coventry after suggesting that “moved on” really means “deeply ignorant about anything other than video games and football”. Learnt my lesson though. Trying to make people aware of these things gets you nowhere; they’re going to have to learn the hard way.
Because we’ve never had a revolution and the consequent “aux barricades mes amis” attitude
Is Toby rewriting his initial piece now and finally joining James’ camp?
When is an arrest warrant going to be issued for Midazolam Mat? Clearly he has questions to answer.
That would require the criminal justice system and police to be even handed, and we know that that is no longer an option in the two tier system that we now live under.
I know but at least if the question is asked it shines its own spotlight.
And yet we’re meant to actually believe the results of the latest YouGov poll twaddle is a genuine reflection of how the British public feel?! Was that poll conducted before or after the release of ‘Lockdown Filesgate’? It beggars belief, however, I’m also thinking the poll ( and all others henceforth ) will be showing similar results in a vain attempt to try and negate some of the damage these text messages are inevitably doing to the completely collapsed narrative and obliterated reputations of Hancock, Johnson and co. The Official Narrative and these messages cannot both be simultaneously true, the latter cancels out the former, that much is patently obvious to even the most ardent Covidian gonk.
The polls were used as a form of psychological manipulation. It should have been stated from the outset that YouGov was founded you the Vaccines Minister.
I’ll be seeking advice tomorrow to check out into whether it’s feasible to crowd fund a private criminal prosecution.
I will chip in.
There are a lot of rumblings:
arrest for acts of terrorism (fear tactics)
arrest for misconduct in public office.
Although the principal culprits may have been identified from these messages, let’s not forget who else was in the Cabinet at the time. Let’s not forget who was demanding more and sooner – yes, step forward HM opposition, the Scottish witch, MSM and my mate down the pub.
Oh yes, Kneel, the Sturge and the rapist’s dad need to be pinned down for a bit of Q and A.
So we were absolutely right when we said “it’s amazing how for two years running, a variant appeared just in time for Christmas”.
Likewise, these revelations feel like they are being very carefully timed: something is just not right about them. Somebody wants to make sure the dust from this settles before something important, perhaps the coronation. Will Saint Boris be allowed to attend, in case he gets booed? Incidentally, I will not be watching that live, as I think it is only a matter of time before such things are forcibly broadcast into our homes, on our telescreens. I shall go for a lonely country walk – it might feel like lockdown again, where the only people you meet are your fellow sceptics.
Yes, I want to go for a walk on Dartmoor. I need to be in open space, far from the oppressive urban hell we’ve been put through.
Notice what hasn’t been mentioned so far at all in these cherry-picked messages: a significant word beginning with V, about which they would certainly have been talking. Being saved for later? Just when the govt think the goldfish-memory public has forgotten this, ready to be revealed in round 2?
It’s very simple: any MP who voted for any restriction after the initial three weeks (I’ll be generous and give the benefit of the doubt that they were lied to at the start) is barred from standing for public office ever again. Same goes for the House of Lords – anyone backing these restrictions is stripped of his peerage. We need a Small Government Act 2023, massively reducing the size of the state and keeping the state small permanently. All COVID-19 related fines should be repaid with interest. All newspapers and TV stations that attacked citizens for alleged breaches of rules need to be obliged to pay compensation (like the nice Plymouth couple who tried to keep their coffee shop going and were targeted by the Reach PLC-owned local paper and ended up narrowly avoiding prison.)
People on this website all knew what was going on in the country. Knowing was almost to suffer worse than many who believed the Government’s lies. It doesn’t make me any less angry. I sat in the café at Tesco yesterday and that felt like a novelty, because my job has gone from being a freelancer travelling round the country to working permanently from home. I’ve turned into a hermit and I’ve become aware in the last few weeks how badly I’ve been affected by that, psychologically. Forget 15-minute cities: I’ve barely gone more than five minutes from my home in three years!
The Telegraph’s revelations don’t surprise me, but the anger that’s been coursing through me for three years is still there. I don’t like carrying that around of rage and loathing in my heart, but if it becomes sorrow, I think I’d weep for an eternity.
We’ve seen the direct consequences of Big Government and Big State going out of control and falling in line with the desires of Big Business, which is currently in the hands of Larry Fink’s ESG cult (ESG should be outlawed as an illegal, anti-competitive business practice.) The only thing that can be done is to slash the size of the state and replace the current police services with new, independent police forces along Robert Peel’s lines.
Thing is, I don’t feel this is over: until lockdowns, nudge units, rule by fiat, police as operatives of the state, pressure to take experimental drugs, compulsory masking and domestic rule by international treaty are officially repudiated and blocked by law, there’s a Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads: the threat it can happen again.
Hancock is a demented monster – cometh the hour, cometh the wrong man – but scapegoating him distracts from the rest of the Government who loudly supported this behaviour. Where is Gove in all this? And Dorries? Why is the existence of the nudge unit whose disgusting use of psychological manipulation in violation of the concept of democracy, not being addressed? Where is Michie in this? Farrar is being spoken of in glowing terms in the Telegraph.
Hancock is a convenient sacrifice, but it’s like hanging Adolf Eichmann, while allowing Himmler, Goebbels, Göring and others to remain in charge of post-WWII Germany!
Well done Dom. A cracking post.
Isn’t it amazing that they same people whose sole political idea is Shrink the state! can also endlessly wail about how bad it is that ever larger parts of our lifes the state has been shrunken out of end up being controlled by unaccountable, private, international megacorps? That’s a bit like turning the light out, then complain about darkness and then seek out other lights to turn them out as well and complain some more about darkness.
Cognitive dissoance at its finest.
A classical example how Shrink the state! backfired is the idea of industry-funded regulators. Originally, that started with some foam-mouthed state shrinker simply being to niggardly to be willing to spend money on that. And that brought us the covaxx-enablers.
Isn’t it amazing that the same people who attack people who want the state shrunken automatically assume Big Business has to replace the state! Please state – with context – where I said Big Business should take over from the state! There’s no reason for the state or Big Business to intrude on our lives the way they do. If business sticks to making things and providing services and the state sticks to providing an ‘operating system’ that allows us to get on with our lives, we’d all be much happier. And you’re rather assuming that people on the national and local civil service are elected and subject to oversight when they patently aren’t.
The fallacy in your attack on my comment is that you fail to believe in the agency of ordinary people. You believe we’re sheep who need a shepherd: that if the state is taken away, we run in a panic to Big Business. I don’t believe that. We’ve seen over and over again that if you enable individuals and communities to take charge of their lives, they do so. Invariably that involves neighbours and families, the idea of which the modern state despises, because it robs the state of influence.
Unfortunately, we’ve created a litigious, busybody culture where someone who, say, sees an overgrown grass verge outside his house is prosecuted for mowing that grass. We have a busybody state that robs ordinary people and communities of their agency.
The reason COVID-19 lockdowns ran out of control is that every third-rate nobody with a job in some form of national or local government power got a massive ****-on and opened his flies to show everyone how big his **** is! Excuse my crudity, but there’s no question that the sociopaths in the state got off on the power they were given, whether it was enforcing petty rules about a coffee shop staying open or prosecuting people who tried to do good things when their communities were locked down. The state is now bigger than ever, more intrusive in our lives than ever and they’re doing it in an unholy alliance with Big Business through perverted ideologies such as ESG.
I advocate shrinking the state to get rid of useless, pointless state workers and organisations. This isn’t about creating a vacuum for Big Business to fill. There are likely entire Civil Service departments that are funded by the very tax they regulate. The tax and the department could be abolished. One of my friends in London works for the Home Office. He said that on the average day, at least a third of the staff were absent and everyone was a clock-watcher, getting in and out at the same time every day… and that was before lockdowns.
We need a smaller state that operates as a neutral referee, while people get on with their lives. Go back 50 or 60 years and we had something like that. The expansion of state influence into our homes, particularly since Blair, is phenomenal. There’s much fat that can be cut away painlessly.
As a matter of fact, big business, prominently among them outsourcer big business, is replacing the state and much to the chagrin of the people who claim that all problems on this planet are created overgrown states. You’re advocating American nonsense born in a thinly populated vast area mostly due to the fact that the American state is a better toddler. And I’m tired of this relentless effort to americanize everything in Europe so that we all end up with American problems. We’re perfectly capable of running our own affairs and have been doing so for a few thousand years. So, please write this wisdom of the clueless parvenu on a piece of paper, stick that in a bottle and dump it in the Pacific Ocean.
Ronald Reagan was not a genius but a second-rate Western actor. And this Shoot from the hip attempt to fundamentally change things which have been developed through a sometimes painful process of trial-and-error for millenia(!) is misguided nonsense. Misguided communist nonsense, actually even. The idea that the state is nothing but a mechanism the ruling classes use to suppress all other people is one of the core points of Marx’ theories and what you describe as replacement is what it supposed to occur naturally once the communist revolution has suceeded.
May a merciful deity save us from the commieversatives whose only real motivation is that they want to avoid paying taxes.
Big business is Big exactly because of government. Big business works closely with government by advising on policy, lobbying, donating, awarding personal favours to politicians and via the revolving door. The goal is to ensure monopolistic or at least oligopolistic power in the market place by creating barriers to entry for competitors — that is to eke out an unfair advantage. This is done through regulation, compliance, licensing, taxation, subsidies, policy, schemes, bureaucracy and bailouts/money printing.
In other words Big business uses political power for economic advantage. And by the way this is actually the text book definition of fascism: the state and business working hand in glove. The idea that government protects the ordinary person against the deprivations of capitalists or to strike down anti-competitive behaviour is a socialist myth. The idea that civil servants, the deep state and politicians in general are made up of selfless individuals crusading against evil capitalists for the good of the people is another socialist myth.
There are two ways you can get what you want: by taking it away from somebody else, aka looting, or by free and voluntary exchange (i.e. by offering a good or service in exchange for what you want). The government enacts and enables the former, while the free market is the definition of the latter.
The more government in our lives the less free and the poorer we will all become. Strip away government from our lives: let people take responsibility for their own lives and if they don’t want that responsibility then don’t force others to pay for their lifestyles: that’s immoral at the most basic level.
In other words Big business uses political power for economic advantage. And by the way this is actually the text book definition of fascism: the state and business working hand in glove.
No. This is the textbook definition of Clueless American excreting word salad. In this universe, the other guys are always fascists which doesn’t really mean anything except … well … the other guys (I really don’t like). Socialism was a phenomenon of the 2nd half of the 19th century. A German state has existed since about the middle of the 9th century, ie, it existed – completely without socialism – for about a 1000 years before anybody ever used this word. Hence, your dichotomy is nonsense.
Does anyone have a sense of how this story is being received in ‘normie’ world? Aside from the DT, I could see two stories in the Guardian (compared to three on Trump!) and not much in the Mail either. Non of my normie acquaintances, all fully signed up to the Covid narrative, have said anything. Curious as to what is being said on the BBC/other live channels and if it will get picked up by the morning tv shows.
Normies I know rarely mention Covid. I think they would all rather forget about it
I’m envious. I know people still masking, jabbed to the hilt and I can’t mention if the kids are sick as they immediately ask if I’ve tested.
Our kids are long since grown so that doesn’t arise for us
We don’t socialise with diehard Covid fanatics- mutual loathing
I’m sure the story will soon change and we who refuse to forget, let alone forgive, will be further demonised for refusing to draw the curtains on this whole shameful, criminal and life sapping period.
Me and my Mrs fully expect to be battling for the rest of our lives
We’re not going anywhere
With you tof.
I fear the response is muted. There’s massive jealously in the mainstream media industry at the Telegraph’s scoop. The Guardian wants our society to be like the lockdown era forever, as, I suspect, does the BBC. The trouble more much of the media is that they loudly backed the COVID-19 restrictions and indulged in what would now be seen as state-sanctioned targeting of ordinary citizens
And the truth is that society as a whole is trying to force amnesia on itself. People tend to deny to themselves that they were played, deny to themselves that they went along with vicious totalitarian rule and ratted on their friends and neighbours. They want to draw a line under it and move on, not understanding that they’ll never be able to move on, because the damage it too great. It’s akin to someone standing on the ground floor of a tall building insisting the lift will turn up in a minute, refusing to acknowledge the building was bombed weeks ago and there are no top floors let alone lifts!
To me, the UK’s COVID-19 crime is akin to the Cleveland child sex abuse scandal on a giant scale. It has all the same hallmarks of an idée fixe, out of control doctors, politicians and police who consider the unverifiable claims credible, because of a testing system that doesn’t work, in contravention of real evidence and ultimately horrors unleashed on innocent children.
Significantly, one by one, the scamdemic-era leaders and their lackeys are stepping down, so that by the time the drawn-out inquiries come to an end, they’ll all have left public office.
Indeed
The crime was global
The BBC have published an item about the ‘scariant’ manipulation on their website. I don’t know whether they have included the item in their broadcast news: –
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64848106
It might wake up a few.
That would have been nice. However, Hancock is quoted twice in the text, both times claiming that this leak would be a partial, biased account to suit an anti-lockdown agenda. He also states that it’s absolutely improper for the general public to learn about the content of these conversations. They should only be available to the official COVID enquiry which will – in due time, 2024 or later – report on the matter to ensure that the right lessons will be learnt.
This guy is really a nauseating creep.
Hancock this, Hancock that – what a crock. The entire cabinet, opposition, establishment, parliament, institutions, in almost every rich world country were in lockstep and a good part of the public were cheerleading them on.
It’s not about Hancock.
Agreed. They’ll hang this on Hancock, but he’s just one of many. If it hadn’t been that deluded little creep, they’d have found someone else. Imagine his predecessor Jeremy Hunt had been in charge. We’d be reading about him now instead.
One of many globally
Kathy Gyngell is trying her best on Twitter, spreading this. Note the date.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/bottler-johnson-a-truly-terrifying-disappointment/
She’s a star
I remember reading that piece back in 2020. I agreed with it then and most certainly do now.
That the variant-games was solely invented to cancel Christmas 2020 was absolutely clear from the timing back then. Whitty even openly admitted he had known about the so-called Kent variant since early autumn. He just hadn’t found a use for it yet.
Throughout they used the terminology of war ….. but it was a war against the British people.
The PsyOps campaign they launched is the most EVIL policy a British Government has pursued in my lifetime. Everyone involved in it …. Psychologists, Ministers, Civil Servants …. should be prosecuted in a Nuremberg-style Court.
100% agree.
The real battle of the 21st century is going to be the individual versus the collective. The states within countries are becoming increasingly homogenised via supranational governmental organisations and power-crazed Big Business. Billionaires who have decided that rather than buy big yachts, doing lots of drugs and consorting with call girls they’d rather buy big yachts, do lots of drugs, consort with call girls and CHANGE THE WORLD (TM).
The idea that you can just get up in the morning, get breakfast, go for a wander, hop on a bus into town, buy what you want with cash, buy some lunch and go home, all anonymously is gone. We’ve been beautifully played. You get up in the morning and check you emails. Somewhere, it’s noted that you accessed your emails, so you must be up and about. You walk out of the house and you’re on more than one camera. You hop on a bus and have to use your card. Your purchase of a ticket is noted. With little effort, it can be identified from the cost and time of day you bought the ticket where you are going. You’ll likely be recorded on a camera on the bus. You wander around town and be recorded on every camera. You’re incentivised to use store club cards with your purchases to get a better price. Everything you buy is noted, even if you use cash. You buy your lunch. Restaurants like you to use their app. You might not have a good signal on your phone, so you log into the restaurant wifi with your email address. You’re on camera the whole time.
We’ve sacrificed our liberty, we’ve allowed the state into our homes and into our thoughts via. the internet, be it our smart TVs, computers, phones, iPads, smart meters, smart cookers. Forget Sherlock Holmes: our actions can be deduced easily.
So the battle over the next 78 years that will define the 21st century is how much privacy, how much liberty populations sacrificed on the altar of convenience and whether they got wise and fought back against the self-proclaimed elitists and the propaganda of their nudge units.
This is a war. It’s governments versus ordinary people. The last three years are the tip of the iceberg.
Is “call” in “call girls” a synonym for “little”?
This is part of the Psyop. Not sure how people are taking this release (similar to ‘twitter files’) seriously. Come on, Govt incompetence? Ok.. but every single Government? At the same time? With the same methodology? with the same funders? #teamjames
I’ve said all along: we had incompetent, mendacious, greedy politicians and state servants manipulated by Big Pharma and other supranational organisations. There’s every reason to suppose Toby and James are right and I don’t see the explanations as binary. When ninnies are panicking, running governments in a big state country, they’ll clasp at any straw offered by a kind-faced billionaire who can offer them something that will net him even more billions plus access to the running of governments. Milton Friedman said over 40 years ago that when government gets to big, Big Business always ends up running it.
“When do we deploy the new variant”. Am I missing something? I think I must be. What is the benign explanation for this question? And if there isn’t one why are we not amassing on the streets? I must be missing something.
I can’t think of a benign explanation
Don’t forget guys The Telegraph and the rest of the MSM were publishing all this sh1te without any pushback. They are all complicit.
And all taking money from Gates.
Indeed
Has anyone seen Chris Whitty lately? The awards for this odious man and his partner in crime Vallance are a stain on our nation.
He surfaced briefly a week or two ago to urge the booster upon under-50s, who, because they didn’t need it, would shortly have eligibility withdrawn. Otherwise, he seems to have been rehearsing anonymity. Perhaps he thinks he’s going to need it.
They had an exert of him on U.K. Column last Wednesday 1/3/22 (I think it was) prattling on about air pollution in the home in front of some pompous commons committee ( presumably trying to justify their existence). He was trying to scare everyone with his nonsense once more. As you say an odious little man.