> She also said that, while cancelled grants may cause serious disruption to labs, jobs and students, the plaintiffs hadn't met the high legal bar for proving "irreparable harm" needed to justify emergency relief.
Bit on the nose that American law does not seem to consider mass layoffs and the indefinite downsizing of an entire industry to be irreparable harm to those affected.
kolbe•41m ago
Generally, no, because jobs can be reinstated and money recompensated. Irreparable harm is harm that is... well... not reparable.
davidw•28m ago
When entire labs are shut down, work halted, experiments frozen, people move on because they need to eat, this is absolutely going to cause irreparable harm to those specific people and programs, as well as science in the United States. (Edited to reflect that the harm is both specific and general)
My wife works in science and is seeing some of the effects of all this, and it's going to be a generational hit to research and development in this country.
If the Europeans were smart and faster moving they would have large scale programs to hire up people and move them over there, because there are tons of brilliant people doing important work that are being left high and dry.
philipallstar•25m ago
> this is absolutely going to cause irreparable harm to science in the United States
Science isn't the plaintiff.
> If the Europeans were smart and faster moving they would have large scale programs to hire up people and move them over there, because there are tons of brilliant people doing important work that are being left high and dry.
Science often requires a lot of money, and generally Europe would rather wait for America to spend the money and make the discoveries while laughing at them for not spending the money on social niceties.
vlovich123•17m ago
> Science isn't the plaintiff.
But scientists are and science is the industry that is being harmed.
> Europe would rather wait for America to spend the money and make the discoveries while laughing at them for not spending the money on social niceties.
And so now we’re not spending the money on discoveries and also cutting back on the social “niceties” we had spent whatever little amount of money on?
clcaev•6m ago
> Science isn't the plaintiff.
Yes, but public interest is a guiding principal.
flir•2m ago
Glad to hear you'll be implementing universal healthcare with the savings from the NSF.
*eyeroll*
mattlutze•23m ago
Except jobs can't be just reinstated when people are out of them so long that the knowledge moves elsewhere or experiments expire. Irreparable harm also includes things like injury to reputation, goodwill, professional practice.
The impending harm here is explicit, immediate, and as demonstrated previously serious for these labs and research fields. It's unfortunate that Judge Cobb didn't find this to be sufficient, but hopefully on appeals some relief may be offered.
Temporary loss of income is I think not generally a basis for irreparable harm for more or less the argument you hint at.
dataflow•12m ago
> Except jobs can't be just reinstated when people are out of them so long that the knowledge moves elsewhere or experiments expire.
Experiments expiring seems like a more compelling argument than knowledge moving elsewhere. The theory behind irreparable seems to be "it can't be fixed with money," not "you don't have enough money to fix it." If someone goes to a competitor then presumably there is an amount of money that would bring them back - it just might be out of your reach.
eli_gottlieb•46m ago
Bit on the nose that American law does not seem to consider mass layoffs and the indefinite downsizing of an entire industry to be irreparable harm to those affected.
kolbe•41m ago
davidw•28m ago
My wife works in science and is seeing some of the effects of all this, and it's going to be a generational hit to research and development in this country.
If the Europeans were smart and faster moving they would have large scale programs to hire up people and move them over there, because there are tons of brilliant people doing important work that are being left high and dry.
philipallstar•25m ago
Science isn't the plaintiff.
> If the Europeans were smart and faster moving they would have large scale programs to hire up people and move them over there, because there are tons of brilliant people doing important work that are being left high and dry.
Science often requires a lot of money, and generally Europe would rather wait for America to spend the money and make the discoveries while laughing at them for not spending the money on social niceties.
vlovich123•17m ago
But scientists are and science is the industry that is being harmed.
> Europe would rather wait for America to spend the money and make the discoveries while laughing at them for not spending the money on social niceties.
And so now we’re not spending the money on discoveries and also cutting back on the social “niceties” we had spent whatever little amount of money on?
clcaev•6m ago
Yes, but public interest is a guiding principal.
flir•2m ago
*eyeroll*
mattlutze•23m ago
The impending harm here is explicit, immediate, and as demonstrated previously serious for these labs and research fields. It's unfortunate that Judge Cobb didn't find this to be sufficient, but hopefully on appeals some relief may be offered.
Temporary loss of income is I think not generally a basis for irreparable harm for more or less the argument you hint at.
dataflow•12m ago
Experiments expiring seems like a more compelling argument than knowledge moving elsewhere. The theory behind irreparable seems to be "it can't be fixed with money," not "you don't have enough money to fix it." If someone goes to a competitor then presumably there is an amount of money that would bring them back - it just might be out of your reach.