On April 20, those two agencies announced the availability of grants to increase the "Diversity" of biomedical research labs.
To the contrary, such new hires will be a drag on any medical advance, since the scientists must pledge to mentor the students, taking time and attention away from their scientific research.
Those mentees will be chosen not because of their science skills-they need present none-but because of their group's underrepresentation in STEM. The premier federal funders of biomedical research, in other words, apparently believe that a pandemic is the perfect moment to focus further on identity politics.
If diversity trumps scientific merit in biomedical research, including in immunology and virology, then those research efforts cannot be particularly important, despite the experts' economy-crushing shutdown mandates.
The CDC, NIH, and the National Science Foundation have been color- and sex-coding their research grants for years, on the grounds that "Scientific innovation," in the words of the NIH, requires scientists from "Diverse backgrounds and life experiences." But the newly announced "Research Supplements to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research" exponentially boost those agencies' social-justice agenda.
The latest "Research Supplements to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research" place great stock in "Intersectionality." STEM departments hoping for a research supplement will increase their chances by hiring females who are also an underrepresented minority, disabled, or from a "Disadvantaged background." Singly, these categories have nothing to do with scientific merit; they gain no additional relevance from having been aggregated.
A research lab racing to develop vaccines is not the place to try belatedly to close the academic achievement gap, even were such a goal within reach.
https://www.city-journal.org/should-identity-politics-dictate-vaccine-research
To the contrary, such new hires will be a drag on any medical advance, since the scientists must pledge to mentor the students, taking time and attention away from their scientific research.
Those mentees will be chosen not because of their science skills-they need present none-but because of their group's underrepresentation in STEM. The premier federal funders of biomedical research, in other words, apparently believe that a pandemic is the perfect moment to focus further on identity politics.
If diversity trumps scientific merit in biomedical research, including in immunology and virology, then those research efforts cannot be particularly important, despite the experts' economy-crushing shutdown mandates.
The CDC, NIH, and the National Science Foundation have been color- and sex-coding their research grants for years, on the grounds that "Scientific innovation," in the words of the NIH, requires scientists from "Diverse backgrounds and life experiences." But the newly announced "Research Supplements to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research" exponentially boost those agencies' social-justice agenda.
The latest "Research Supplements to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research" place great stock in "Intersectionality." STEM departments hoping for a research supplement will increase their chances by hiring females who are also an underrepresented minority, disabled, or from a "Disadvantaged background." Singly, these categories have nothing to do with scientific merit; they gain no additional relevance from having been aggregated.
A research lab racing to develop vaccines is not the place to try belatedly to close the academic achievement gap, even were such a goal within reach.
https://www.city-journal.org/should-identity-politics-dictate-vaccine-research
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