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Harvard’s Endowment

Allan said:
So America is giving up funding life saving medical research? Giving up on having some of the world's top scientists working on stuff that will benefit your country?

You know who doesn't bother with that kind of thing? Shithole countries.
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It's bizarre. Apparently Trump and Trumpers want to stop all federal government sponsorship of scientific and medical research, the innovative stuff that catapulted the US to world leaders and bring back 50's style manufacturing. Barbie dolls instead of a cure for cancer. The lack of foresight is mind boggling.
 
Callen said:
Barbie dolls instead of a cure for cancer.
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Of the two, manufacturing Barbie dolls is the only thing that has produced tangible results. There is no cure for cancer. The best humanity can do is improve on treatment to buy time.
 
Napoleon said:
That is money better spent by the NIH to do its own research rather than lavishing a private institution with taxpayer dollars to fund research of dubious value.
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Dubious value? What do you think those 161 Nobel Prizes are for...basket weaving research?

You didn't read the list of medical breakthroughs I linked to. You personally benefit from some of them.
 
Allan said:
Dubious value? What do you think those 161 Nobel Prizes are for...basket weaving research?

You didn't read the list of medical breakthroughs I linked to. You personally benefit from some of them.
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Can you itemize which of those things was done with taxpayer funded grants and which with money from Harvard’s endowment or annual revenue? If it’s all valuable then why doesn’t big Benjamins Harvard pay for all of it? And, yes, Harvard gives out mock Nobel prizes for ridiculous research.
 
Callen said:
It's bizarre. Apparently Trump and Trumpers want to stop all federal government sponsorship of scientific and medical research, the innovative stuff that catapulted the US to world leaders and bring back 50's style manufacturing. Barbie dolls instead of a cure for cancer. The lack of foresight is mind boggling.
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Trump doesn't care if it doesn't affect him.

He's acting out of spite.
 
Callen said:
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Also:

"the strength of Harvard University, in Boston, Massachusetts, in the subject is clear. Its health-sciences output, measured by the metric Share, was 822.21 for the period 2022 to 2023*.

This far exceeds the Share of the second-ranked institution, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), in Bethesda, Maryland, at 290.42, and is just shy of Canada’s (823.54) — the fifth-ranked country in the subject."

Link
 
The joke about Harvard is that they are an investment institution with a great university attached.
The reality is that Harvard is among the most respected and admired institutions of higher learning anywhere in the world.
Trump gets his jollies from wielding power. There is nothing good to be accomplished by his declaration of war on Harvard.
It is a disgrace. Seriously, it is hard to imagine any good outcome from this.
No American president should be meddling this way.
But Doofus Donald has multiple beefs with Harvard, as he apparently expected to make an example of them.

On Thursday, Kristi Noem had revoked Harvard’s certification to host international students, causing fear and existential uncertainty for thousands of young people and their families. The swift restraining order comes as a relief. But it is no cause for complacency.
...
As Harvard’s lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security rightly pointed out, Noem’s revocation fits into the Trump administration’s orgy of vengeance prompted by Harvard’s refusal to comply with evidently illegal demands issued in mid-April. Among other things, Trumpists had assertedtheir right to determine appropriate levels of “viewpoint diversity” among faculty and students. After Harvard sued, $2.2bn in research funds were frozen, followed by Linda McMahon, the education secretary, asserting at a cabinet meeting on 30 April that Harvard was failing to report “foreign money that comes in”. This line of attack has now been extended with absurd claims that Harvard “coordinates with the Chinese Communist Party” and is somehow “pro-terrorist”.

The background noise to the official letters has been a steady stream of social media posts from the president, throwing invective at Harvard instead of conducting the serious government business of maligning Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift. The founder of a university whose attendees received a $25m settlement has accused the US’s oldest university of “scamming the public”, constituting a “threat to democracy”, and exposing innocent young Americans to “crazed lunatics” (as opposed to non-crazed lunatics). It is a well-known pattern in authoritarian regimes that underlings try to please the leader by anticipating his wishes and imitating his style. Official letters, posts, and press statements from DHS and the Department of Education not only fail to provide evidence and violate procedural safeguards; they not only make up ad hoc demands that have no basis in law; they also contain the signature capital letters, spelling mistakes, and kindergarten-level invective familiar from the president’s rhetoric. It is governance driven by a desire to please Fox viewers, online Maga mobs, and the Avenger-in-Chief.

Incompetence hardly makes the measures harmless. They instill fear even when courts step in (and no, not all Ivy League undergrads are spoilt kids who never have anything to fear). Noem, in a further escalation, demanded footage and audio from all protests at Harvard. It is a clear signal for young people to shut up and fall in line. But there was also a signal to foreign faculty: the letter emphasized that it was a “privilege to employ aliens on campus”. The threat aligns with the nativism of xenophobe-in-chief Stephen Miller, who is not just going after people who are in the country without proper paperwork – foreigners as such are a problem.

www.theguardian.com

Trump’s revenge spree on Harvard echoes well beyond education | Jan-Werner Müller

Attacks on the university make clear that the administration will wield its power against anyone who incurs its displeasure
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
Napoleon said:
Can you itemize which of those things was done with taxpayer funded grants and which with money from Harvard’s endowment or annual revenue? If it’s all valuable then why doesn’t big Benjamins Harvard pay for all of it? And, yes, Harvard gives out mock Nobel prizes for ridiculous research.
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What????

Do you know what you just typed?
 
Allan said:
Cancer patients are cured every day of the week.
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No they aren’t. Cancer patients are bought time with remission every day of the week but it is not cured. There is an inevitable resurgence of the cancer, only this time highly resistant to treatment.
 
Napoleon said:
No they aren’t. Cancer patients are bought time with remission every day of the week but it is not cured. There is an inevitable resurgence of the cancer, only this time highly resistant to treatment.
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You have zero idea what you're talking about.
 
Napoleon said:
No they aren’t. Cancer patients are bought time with remission every day of the week but it is not cured. There is an inevitable resurgence of the cancer, only this time highly resistant to treatment.
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Man are you seriously uninformed.....
 
Allan said:
What????

Do you know what you just typed?
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Yes, you didn’t know that Harvard gives out satirical prizes called the IG Nobel? It’s their equivalent of the Razzies. Here are some fun examples of the winners:

  • The physics prize went to Marc-Antoine Fardin of the University of Lyon for his study “On the Rheology of Cats,” which proved that since felines adopt the shapes of their containers, they’re technically both solids and liquids.
  • The peace prize went to an international group of scientists and musicians who showed that playing the didgeridoo can help treat snoring and sleep apnea.
  • An international research team took home the biology prize for their discovery of a cave insect which had developed both a penis and vagina.
  • Korean student Jiwon Han won the fluid dynamics prize for his research showing that people are less likely to spill coffee while walking backwards.
Etc.

observer.com

Harvard Awarded Ig Nobel Prizes to 10 Very Weird Scientific Studies—Like Liquid Cats

The winners at the annual Harvard ceremony studied cats, bats and didgeridoos. The prizes were handed out by actual Nobel laureates.
observer.com

So much for curing cancer. 😂
 
Napoleon said:
It’s right to question why a private institution with a $53 billion endowment and $6.5 billion in annual revenue needs a dime from the Federal government for research. That is money better spent by the NIH to do its own research rather than lavishing a private institution with taxpayer dollars to fund research of dubious value. The fact that Harvard isn’t paying for it already strongly implies that what these grants are funding is folly.
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Look, we're talking about Harvard and the Trump administration going after them because of their refusal to do anything about students that support Hamas. Because it's Trump that's going after them they could be researching the benefits of murdering gays and blacks and the left wing would STILL support Harvard because Trump. That's just the way our nation is these days.
 
Lutherf said:
Look, we're talking about Harvard and the Trump administration going after them because of their refusal to do anything about students that support Hamas. Because it's Trump that's going after them they could be researching the benefits of murdering gays and blacks and the left wing would STILL support Harvard because Trump. That's just the way our nation is these days.
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You're agreeing with someone who thinks Harvard gave itself 161 Nobel Prizes.
 
Napoleon said:
Of the two, manufacturing Barbie dolls is the only thing that has produced tangible results. There is no cure for cancer. The best humanity can do is improve on treatment to buy time.
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Tangible? Join the 21st century. The survival rates of cancers are miles ahead of where they were just 20 years ago. The entire world has benefited from the cancer research conducted at major universities throughout the US.

Just one example:

Breast cancer mortality in the US declined between 1975 and 2019 from an age-adjusted rate of 48 deaths per 100,000 women to 27 deaths per 100,000 women. Advances in breast cancer treatment contributed to this decline. The overall 5-year relative survival rate for breast cancer is about 91%.

That's pretty ****ing tangible.
 
Stealers Wheel said:
Tangible? Join the 21st century. The survival rates of cancers are miles ahead of where they were just 20 years ago. The entire world has benefited from the cancer research conducted at major universities throughout the US.

Just one example:

Breast cancer mortality in the US declined between 1975 and 2019 from an age-adjusted rate of 48 deaths per 100,000 women to 27 deaths per 100,000 women. Advances in breast cancer treatment contributed to this decline. The overall 5-year relative survival rate for breast cancer is about 91%.

That's pretty ****ing tangible.
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As I said, focusing on treatment produces tangible results. Wasting time trying to find a “cure” doesn’t do anything. It’s unfortunate that people mistake remission for a “cure.” Treatment is about management and buying time. It is not a cure.
 
Stealers Wheel said:
Tangible? Join the 21st century. The survival rates of cancers are miles ahead of where they were just 20 years ago. The entire world has benefited from the cancer research conducted at major universities throughout the US.

Just one example:

Breast cancer mortality in the US declined between 1975 and 2019 from an age-adjusted rate of 48 deaths per 100,000 women to 27 deaths per 100,000 women. Advances in breast cancer treatment contributed to this decline. The overall 5-year relative survival rate for breast cancer is about 91%.

That's pretty ****ing tangible.
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Though I minimize my interaction with the relentless, obvious trolls, I do appreciate when informed posters like yourself provide useful information with which to beat them over their heads. Keep up the good work.
 
Napoleon said:
As I said, focusing on treatment produces tangible results. Wasting time trying to find a “cure” doesn’t do anything. It’s unfortunate that people mistake remission for a “cure.” Treatment is about management and buying time. It is not a cure.
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Is anyone interested in wasting their time going down a rabbit hole of "cure vs remission?"
 
reflechissez said:
Is anyone interested in wasting their time going down a rabbit hole of "cure vs remission?"
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This is all about cutting off your nose to spite your face. So, so dumb. I'm guessing not grads of the best universities, or rather used to be, in the world. Small minded people doing small minded things
 
Napoleon said:
As I said, focusing on treatment produces tangible results. Wasting time trying to find a “cure” doesn’t do anything. It’s unfortunate that people mistake remission for a “cure.” Treatment is about management and buying time. It is not a cure.
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Wow.
 
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