The Future of Science in America

The Trump Administration has been consistently anti-science. The new proposed budget continues this behavior (Trump's 2021 budget drowns science agencies red ink again). The DOE Office of Science, which funds most of HEP, has a proposed cut of 17%.

I think it is the case that the next 4 years will be a nightmare for science in the US if Trump is re-elected. The Republicans have stopped pushing back against Trump in many areas, and if he wins again in November I doubt the science budget will be important place of resistance for either Republicans or Democrats (and I doubt there will be any resistance left in elected Republicans not named Mitt Romney). It has been this resistance the previous 3 years, and I expect again this year (at least from the Democrats) which have mitigated some of the damage that this administration has tried to do to American Science.

Here is some additional documentation for this, that I have seen just in the last 36 hours:
Trump's new budget cuts all favored few science programs
Climate change once again left out of Trumps federal budget

While HEP hasn't faced nearly the barriers and difficulties that many other areas have faced (like Climate Science), HEP still faces challenges from the leadership of the DOE. One that I didn't see reported elsewhere is that Fermilab faced severe restrictions on collaboration with some foreign nationals soon (June 2017) after the Perry took over which was reduced/eliminated within days of the announcement of Perry's resignation in October 2019. Talking to older people, there were similar restrictions for a short period of time after September 11, 2001.

While the challenges that Science in the US faces due to Trump is minor compared to the challenges immigrants and various other groups face, and the challenges that HEP faces is minor compared to some other sciences, it is still something to think about during this election year.

Chilean Unrest

Despite the proximity between my resignation and the social unrest in Chile, the social unrest had nothing to do with my departure. I permanently left Chile in 2018 and not in 2019. The connection is that the social unrest is due to the lack of opportunity, which is one of the reasons for my departure (my family left Chile in 2015, partially due to a lack of opportunity).

While the social unrest appears to be extremely costly, I hope that the structural changes needed will come about and Chile will be in a better place in a decade than it otherwise would have been. There is a constitution vote in April, which is an opportunity for improvement and for a more socially cohesive future.

While my place in the development of human and intellectual capital was at the top (I primarily worked with PhD students), my observation is that Chile’s education system needed an overhaul from the ground up. While I was not an expert at this, I was told that the problems were intrinsic and in the Chilean constitution. 

It seems that the problem with education is similar to what has become a problem in places in the US, where the money and wealthy students go to private schools which provide barriers to the majority and bring the overall level of education down by reducing competition between the wealthy and upper middle class and the majority of the population. In this way it is a disservice to both the upper classes and the masses and the country as a whole.

I observed this was a problem, but because I wanted my kids to compete internationally, if we had stayed in Chile my daughters would have gone to expensive private schools. It is hard to cause the required change without mass action, which is done by government, and in education the current Chilean constitution does not allow this.

It is interesting that in the Economist Ranking, Chile recently moved up to Full Democracy and the US recently moved down to Flawed Democracy (Economist: Global Democracy).

Further information on education in Chile (OECD Summary 2018  ODI Chilean Education).

Editorial from the Times on the protests (NY Times Opinion Chilean Protests).

The Chilean constitution (in English) (Chilean 2012 Constitution).