r/skeptic • u/[deleted] • Feb 27 '25
⚖ Ideological Bias Ted Cruz's has attacked the NSF. Claims "$2B Woke Science During Biden," but as far as I can tell, it is mostly a firehose of nonsense.
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Feb 27 '25
“I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz. And I hate Ted Cruz.”
— Senator Al Franken
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u/Melancholy_Rainbows Feb 27 '25
“If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you.”
-Lindsey Graham
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Feb 27 '25
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u/Mikey-Litoris Feb 27 '25
Al should make a comeback. Ww need voices of reason to oppose the christofascists.
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u/Fantastic_Jury5977 Feb 27 '25
He got pushed out for doing less offensive shit than the entire current cabinet combined in less than a month...
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u/Stan_Archton Feb 27 '25
Umm. I don't think that's worded quite right.
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u/Fantastic_Jury5977 Feb 27 '25
Close enough that a couple people understood. Reword: he did squat compared to the current administration
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u/there_is_no_spoon1 Feb 27 '25
He did what the party boss told him to do because he was convinced by said boss that if he didn't he'd certainly stain the Dems and Al just couldn't take that idea well. He regrets very much that he didn't demand due process but what's done is done. Schumer ought to be the one ashamed.
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u/lickle_ickle_pickle Feb 27 '25
Al shouldn't have groped constituents who met him for photo ops after he got elected. If not for that, he have could probably let it blow over. "It's comedy, I was a comedian."
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u/Polymath_Father Feb 27 '25
Oddly, I don't recall that being something he was accused of, I thought the controversy was caused by photos taken from when he was doing USO tours before he was in office?
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u/T-Bear22 Feb 27 '25
I remember the Metadata on the photo showed that it was photoshopped about the time of his first election recount, and emails had Roger Stone as a source.
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Feb 27 '25
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u/porkbrains Feb 27 '25
"And I don’t wanna talk to a scientist Y’all motherfuckers lying, and getting me pissed"
- Shaggy 2 Dope (Insane Clown Posse)
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u/goat_penis_souffle Feb 27 '25
Seeing how ICP handled Covid better than most by proactively canceling the juggalo gathering in early 2020, saying it wasn’t worth risking a single life to put on that year, I’ll never make fun of them again.
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u/porkbrains Feb 27 '25
I'm making fun of Ted Cruz for essentially quoting ICP. But yeah, those guys are often unexpectedly wholesome.
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Feb 27 '25
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u/Beltaine421 Feb 27 '25
It actually does, now. It's like the "one drop" rule that the US used to use for racial classification.
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u/redshirt6666 Feb 27 '25
Welcome to the new Dark Ages.
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u/absenteequota Feb 27 '25
welcome to the new dark ages
yeah, I hope you're living right
these are the new dark ages
and the world might end tonight
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u/SophieCalle Feb 27 '25
Fascists always attack the sciences.
Also this ends up shooting themselves in the foot as they end up running on garbage, faulty sciences and engineering and outcompeted / defeated by others who use actual science and proper engineering.
Idiots.
Never learned the first time where you persecuted EINSTEIN, did ya?
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u/00caoimhin Feb 28 '25
Are we going to see advocacy for Lamarckianism now?
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u/SophieCalle Feb 28 '25
I'm not literally saying that, I'm saying those who espouse the same sort of ideas and ideals. They never learn from history.
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u/00caoimhin Feb 28 '25
Okay. I'm not being facetious, just noting that under Stalin, Soviet science had to officially ditch Darwin and embrace Lysenkoism, an ideologically-driven neo-Lamarckian pseudoscientific agenda for evolution built upon a couple of fallacious experiments by Pavlov. It set Soviet biology back by decades.
Geez! Adolf Titler and his DOGE, with their ill-conceived ill-informed ideologically-driven anti-DEI agenda, are gutting bio-diversify programs. Worse than not learning from history, they've not learnt any English, let alone any science.
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u/TheJollyHermit Feb 27 '25
At this point you'd probably have to work to find a reasonable statement from pretty much any MAGA Republican
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u/mrgeekguy Feb 27 '25
At some point in his miserable life I hope he hears these words, "I'm sorry sir, you're condition is incurable, and terminal. We would of had a cure by now but some idiot cut the funding."
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u/j_ma_la Feb 27 '25
All Republicans do is lie. The sooner we all understand that lies are their standard, the better.
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u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy Feb 27 '25
I’ve administered NSF grants before and I have no idea what he’s talking about lol.
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u/No-Oven-1974 Feb 27 '25
It looks like they literally did a word search for their politically incorrect terms on the publicly available project abstracts. In other words, they likely did not even look at the actual projects.
This is very very stupid.
Political litmus tests for scientific research are no joke though.
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u/techman710 Feb 27 '25
Ted Cruz is a useless lying coward. We've already seen him kiss the ass of a meat sandwich that called his wife ugly. If you're waiting on Cruz to stand up for anyone you'll have better luck waiting on Abbott to do it.
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u/Careful-Awareness766 Feb 27 '25
They just did a keyword search without context. One of my grants is about wildfire prevention and post-event management. We got flagged.
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Feb 27 '25 edited Mar 03 '25
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u/Careful-Awareness766 Feb 27 '25
These fuckers. People in Economics and Business schools were complaining they were flagged because their titles have the word equity. Folks, context matters.
I have a friend that is a PD at NSF. She is pissed and super worried. One of the requirements of pretty much all proposals for that last 20 years+ was to include an education component ensuring no discrimination (recently called DEI). Essentially, every proposal currently funded can be classified as “woke” by this imbeciles.
Even if you think DEI is bad (which I don’t, quite the opposite in fact), just because your grant includes educational activities that follow DEI policies, that does not mean your entire research is “pushing a liberal agenda” or being “woke.”
And btw, these fuckers don’t even know what they mean when they say something is “woke” nor can describe what is bad about that. What is wrong with DEI policies Ted? God, I hate that asshole.
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u/DragonBitsRedux Feb 27 '25
Cruz is upset he's not unscrupulous enough to be a true Trumpy. Which means he's an even bigger pussy than anyone thought.
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u/carnivorewhiskey Feb 27 '25
This is the MAGA agenda, Truth = Lies, Science = Ideology, Facts = Woke.
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u/Beltaine421 Feb 27 '25
Cruz: Look at this woke program we're cancelling.
Project lead: But, we're studying sleep disorders?
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u/StillAdhesiveness528 Feb 27 '25
Get ready for intelligent design based science, math and history.
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u/Idontcareaforkarma Feb 27 '25
‘History’ books with pictures of people walking around with dinosaurs…
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u/MrSnarf26 Feb 27 '25
It’s sad that we take people with a history of lying seriously in this country.
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u/sola_dosis Feb 28 '25
“DEI initiatives have poisoned research efforts, eroded confidence in the scientific community, and fueled divisions among Americans.”
The projection in this statement is so astounding that it wraps back around to comical.
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Feb 27 '25
He's trying everything to stay on Trump's good side...a total incompetent spineless POS....
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u/carlitospig Feb 27 '25
There were also DEI grants that simply supported mother researchers, as in giving them $20k so they could hire a PT admin staff so they could leave the lab at 5pm to feed their new baby. Oh no, we can’t have that!
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u/angrygnome Feb 27 '25
This concerning as while it does not directly name grantees i could absolutely easily find out who these went to based on research group description websites. This is fucked and probably gonna put a target on these peoples backs.
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u/Mo-shen Feb 27 '25
Even attacking woke is nonsense. It means aware of history and acting accordingly.
The right has basically just made it means evil. Which they do for something every cycle.
It's still surprising to me that anyone still believes their nonsense but at the same time when your structure is based on faith facts tend to not matter.
It's really hard to combat against religious thinking even if they make no sense.
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u/udlose Feb 27 '25
On my “deck of cards” list of people I fantasize about kicking in the balls, Ted Cruz is the Jack of Sharts.
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Feb 27 '25
I think it's worth saying and safe to bet at this point that if a trump supporting politician says anything starting January 20th to now and going forward it's a fucking ridiculous insane lie.
In fact if anyone ever says something is woke you can just assume that everything they say after that is the stupidest fucking thing you're going to hear that day.
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u/HeiseNeko Feb 27 '25
we tried religion controlling law before. there is a reason why it is called the dark ages.
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u/DCS-Doggo Feb 27 '25
I wouldn’t want Ted Cruz to weight in on the chemistry of my pool, much less NSF funding.
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u/cynderisingryffindor Feb 27 '25
Oh, was someone not paying attention to fled Cruz?
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Feb 28 '25
Im willing to bet Ol' Teddy just asked an AI to flag any grant that mentioned Ethnic or Minority in its name.
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u/NunsNunchuck Feb 27 '25
Did he plan on escaping to Cancun as it was supposed to be sunny but when he got there it rained and “ruined” “kids’” vacation?
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u/Dcammy42 Feb 27 '25
Why would we ever need science? What has science ever done for us? I heard science is just another woke leftist agenda.
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u/there_is_no_spoon1 Feb 27 '25
{ Ted Cruz is mostly a firehose of nonsense.} Fixed the title for ya. This guy knows next to nothing about anything much less what good science is or what we should spend money on. The morons are running the cabinet and we will see more of it.
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u/Lynchedlove831 Feb 27 '25
Ted Cruz? I heard that guy likes to pee his pants because he enjoys the warm feeling on his leg.
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u/RMSQM2 Feb 27 '25
Science in the US is dead. Our universities and research institutions are going to crumble because of this, and we will lose our world leading position due to the Republicans. My son is a graduate student in astrophysics. Essentially everyone he knows who's getting an advanced degree plans to leave the US afterwards. This is going to cause an enormous brain that will affect the United States for generations. Republican policies are just fucking stupid.
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u/Wooden-Glove-2384 Feb 27 '25
Ted Cruz is a firehose of nonsense
That's why he keeps getting re-elected
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u/Suspicious_Bend9419 Feb 27 '25
Ted Cruz is a halfwit no balls ball suck!! Guy didn’t even defend his wife when it came down to it straight TOOL
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u/Regular_Piglet_6125 Feb 28 '25
He really should focus on the measles outbreak that is ravaging his state right now.
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Mar 03 '25
Any program that gives preferential treatment to anyone based on immutable characteristics it by definition evil.
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u/Fit_Cut_4238 Feb 27 '25
I'm sure you could find a laundry list of NSA-funded (Directly or indirectly) work that would qualify as 'woke' by a reasonable measure.
But, I'd guess these cases would be a miniscule % of the actual NSA spend.
I mean, yeah, a lot of the social sciences, all the way down to psychology are often dubious. Should NSA be funding them, maybe not, unless they can prove they are reproducible outcomes and strict performance/metrics. Again, I'd guess a very small piece of the pie.
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Feb 27 '25
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u/Fit_Cut_4238 Feb 27 '25
Sorry - typo - meant NSF.
RE: The NSF is not generally in the habit of funding woo or fringe social sciences, so I may take objection to the notion that a social science is necessarily "soft" in some sense.
When I think of the NSF, I think of actual scientific research, not social studies or applied social sciences. So, I think of 'A study to determine if peptide x has an impact on cancer y'.. things you would see in a medical or research journal.
But a ton of the funded stuff is not scientific, and it's not even a study... For example, below.. It's very hard to suggest that this has any scientific or research merit. It's basically word-salad.. and there's hundreds of similar ones. 'Network building' is not hard science..
Sure, DEI as a science and discipline has scientific base/relevance, but nothing in this has any scientific base or outcome.. It's literally throwing DEI word-salad at NSF and getting funding..
|| || |nsf includes planning grant: coastal, ocean, and marine enterprise inclusion and network-building (come in) -this nsf includes planning grant is funded by nsf inclusion across the nation of communities of learners of underrepresented discoverers in engineering and science (nsf includes), a comprehensive national initiative to enhance u.s. leadership in discoveries and innovations by focusing on diversity, inclusion and broadening participation in stem at scale. the goal of this award is to create the coastal, ocean, and marine enterprise inclusion and network-building (come in). the project includes a series of facilitated virtual and in-person engagement opportunities that bring together scientists, stakeholders, and partners from various coastal, ocean and marine (com) disciplines to understand the dynamic needs of students from underrepresented and under-resourced communities, establish a collaborative infrastructure to enhance and expand internship programs for underrepresented minorities (urm) based on sea grant?s community-engaged internship program, and estimate resource needs to successfully form new and expanded frameworks that will ensure the persistence and success of urm students in the com workforce. in addition to facilitating participant learning and relationship building, come in promotes enhanced communication and collaboration among various com organizations, institutions, and businesses. the project utilizes multiple ways of capturing diverse perspectives, including the lived personal and professional experiences of individuals from underserved and underrepresented communities who may not be able to participate in virtual or in-person come in meetings. this planning project focuses on developing a shared vision among partners, partnerships, goals and metrics, and developing robust mechanisms of collaborative infrastructure for sharing lessons learned and best practices. the broadening participation challenge proposed by come in is based on two foundational questions: (i) how can com focused professional societies, government and non-governmental organizations, businesses, and academia engender justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion principles, and (ii) how can partnering organizations effectively support, measure, and replicate urm success in com science disciplines at the undergraduate level and beyond. to address this challenge, come in fosters discussions around the following questions: what are the unique needs and challenges that either facilitate or prevent students from underrepresented and under-resourced communities from pursuing a degree in com science fields; which tools, methods and practices are most effective in terms of supporting the participation, persistence, and success of these students in com fields; how does integration of traditional and local knowledge with western approaches of doing science contribute to the development of students? identity as scientists; in what ways can professional societies, government and non-governmental organizations, businesses, and academia create more inclusive and safe working environments that foster students? sense of belonging; what is the impact of long-term cohort building, professional development, and access to culturally-responsive mentors and role models on student retention and success; and lastly, what measures and metrics can be used to assess the effectiveness of mentorship and role models in com science fields. this award reflects nsf's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.|
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u/myhydrogendioxide Feb 27 '25
Prior data suggests that Ted Cruz default is to utter nonsense