More like "Nope! Share, Fool!"

It's worrisome to see politics bleed into science. It's even more alarming to see sources of scientific funding dry up because they don't fit a specific agenda. The National Science Foundation, under directive from Congress, recently cut off funding for political science research except for that "promoting national security or the economic interests of the United States." It's a rather general guideline for a specific field. It also reveals how legislators feel about the role of any science and when it deserves to be funded: we want results, we want them now, and we want we certainly don't need any context.


The NSF spent more than $7 billion last year. It's where 20 percent of the money for federally-funded research in the US comes from. That total goes a long way and contributes to numerous fields, from engineering to education. It's only a matter of time before some Congressman decides an entire field of research doesn't need federal funding at all.

2018 edit: Hahahaha. Haha. Haha...ha. To think this was the extent to which we were collectively worried about politics controlling science funding. (For the record - whoever is keeping track of the record these days - I don't believe that science is ever independent of politics, just that political trends can imbue supposedly objective decisions with a distinctly volatile flavor of unpredictable bias.)