Talk:National Science Foundation

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Is the new section on the NSF and global cooling essential to the reader's understanding of what the NSF is? I would rather see the entry discuss the purpose of the NSF at the top, and put such controvertial issues near the bottom. As I started editing the "Special Programs" and "Fields of Science" at the same time as another author was putting in the "Global Cooling" entry, I left mine at the bottom and leave it to be sorted out at a later time. --Zandperl 23:42, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Done, even before I saw this. :-)

Thanks for adding some material; there was way too much on this insignificant global cooling stuff. Evercat 23:45, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I agree. Even though my primary interest in the NSF is that it has presented one or more POVs on climate science, e.g., global cooling vs. global warming -- we should still describe the foundation itself first. Lovely controversial stuff fits better at the end. --Uncle Ed 16:42, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 21:34, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)): I'm pretty suspicious of the NSF-cooling stuff. For one thing, its not the NSF - as it says on the page, its the national science board, the parent of the NSF. So why is it on the nsf page at all? For another, this really ought to be on the global cooling page. And what is the NAS quote doing in there?!?! And lastly, where does this mysterious quote come from? Has whoever put it into the article read the text and extracted the quote themselves, or are they relying on some second hand source? If so, we should be told who: quoting out of context is a speciality of the there-was-global-cooling-in-the-1970's people [1].

I agree with all but your last point, and I even agree with half of that. So please go ahead and fix it as you suggested, while I sit back and admire your scholarly perfection. :-) --Uncle Ed 22:04, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

OK, I think the substance of this should be moved to the global cooling page. But the only substance is the two quotes, which are sourceless. Searching for the first on google I get http://www.citizenreviewonline.org/july_2003/climate.htm which also doesn't source the quote, but does give just a teensy hint where Ed has been cut-and-pasting his text from... Is the Washington Post GPDL?!? So if I was to move the quotes, I would have to write: "the washington post says the NSB says..." since they give no source.

The link above says "The CO 2 / climate-change relationship has hardened into orthodoxy -- always a worrisome sign -- an orthodoxy that searches out heretics and seeks to punish them."

Oh - & re my last point. I'm away from my sources at the moment but will be sure to put some appropriate text onto the GC page when I get the chance ;-)

[edit] Digital Science Library and MatSci Research

I am of the feeling that the DigSciLibrary and the MatSci research stuff doesn't really merit inclusion because NSF funds a veritible ton of projects, but I would like community comments before deleting them. -SocratesJedi | Talk 20:30, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Inept compromise?

The remark

The NSF is generally considered by historians of science to be an inept compromise between too many clashing visions of the purpose and scope of the federal government.

really should at least mention the name of one historian of science who says so, and giving a reference, and an actual quotation. I'm no historian of science but this sure smells like POV to me. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:31, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The source is Hart's book (see the references at the bottom of the page). Hart systematically dissected the various proposals that were floated from the Great Depression through World War II. He pointed out that the National Science Foundation, in the form it finally took, was a rather weak shadow of the much more powerful National Research Foundation that Vannevar Bush proposed in Science, The Endless Frontier.

The NSF was very difficult to create for several reasons. First, there was the whole issue, back in the laissez-faire days of the 1920s, of how most libertarians and conservatives thought that science was for rich people, foundations, corporations, or for state governments. There is no fundamental reason why scientific research has to be funded by a national agency; for example, if you look at other countries, a lot of scientific research in Canada is done at the provincial level. There was also the issue of how the Constitution doesn't have an explicit clause authorizing the NSF, but that ceased to be a problem after the 1937 "switch in time that saved nine," in which the Supreme Court gave FDR carte blanche to proceed with the New Deal, through the reinterpretation of the Commerce Clause.

And once the Cold War got started, it was easier for scientists to get money out of Congress if they could position their projects as another great way to fight the Soviets or win the space race. That's why most money for American science until the 1970s was being delivered through ARPA, AFOSR, ONR, etc.

Unfortunately, it's been several years since I read Hart's book in college for a history seminar, so I'm unable to quote it verbatim or give specific page citations.

--Coolcaesar 00:45, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Regardless, that's still just one historian of science, not "historians of science"; and inept is still a pretty strong word. I'm moving all of this to its own section, to mark it as just one person's critique. -- Hongooi 06:06, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Complete revision

Full disclosure: the author of this revision, M. Mitchell Waldrop, works for the public affairs office of the National Science Foundation itself, and posted it with the full knowledge of the NSF hierarchy.

Since I recognize that this fact may raise some eyebrows (and hackles) among many Wikipedia contributors, I would like to emphasize that I have made every effort to be purely factual, to avoid any particular POV or special pleading, and to adhere to the Wikipedia guidelines in both letter and spirit. Indeed, my sole purpose in posting this revision has been to make the article more complete, more more up-to-date, and more useful to the readers.

And of course, as always in Wikipedia, changes and improvements by others are welcome. Mwaldrop 13:26, 20 January 2006 (UTC)