Check out my new piece in the Boston Review, where I discuss the importance of understanding pluralist democratic institutions to science policy. It’s an honor to contribute to such an important conversation alongside these illustrious thinkers!

Boston Review@bostonreview.bsky.social · 3d ago

Our forum “How to Save Science” is now online. Led by Zeynep Pamuk, with responses from @alondra.bsky.social @sbagen.bsky.social @jeremymberg.bsky.social @madeleineebaker.bsky.social @jamesowenweatherall.com @cbo.bsky.social @nataliebaviles.bsky.social @heatherdouglas.bsky.social + more

Hey #sociologists and #sts scholars! We've been teaching Merton's norms of science wrong for decades!! They're not lofty misstaken descriptions, but a prescription for state funded science to avoid Nazism! More relevant than ever today. My latest with @nataliebaviles.bsky.social #academicsky

Dan Hirschman@asociologist.bsky.social · 2mo ago

"Reading Merton’s writing on norms in science as a prescriptive text, not a descriptive one, makes visible his desire to counter the active dismantlement of prestigious and powerful scientific institutions in Nazi Germany." @nataliebaviles.bsky.social & @cyberlyra.bsky.social

So pleased to hear that After Positivism, edited by @mayrl.bsky.social and @nickhwilson.bsky.social, received the Barrington Moore book award! It was such an honor to be part of this incredible collective effort

Nick Wilson@nickhwilson.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Rare professional post: I am honored beyond words to say that @mayrl.bsky.social and me have received the @asanews.bsky.social Comparative and Historical Section Barrington Moore Award for best book in Comparative Historical Sociology for *After Positivism* (tinyurl.com/442uh3b9). 1/

My comment with @nataliebaviles.bsky.social on the proposed OMB rule. Covers the shift to presidential control over funding decisions, and how this draws from the logic of unitary executive theory—which is flawed historically, Constitutionally, and in its assertion of democratic accountability. 1/

Presidential control of funding is less, not more, accountable to the public

A comment on the OMB funding proposed rule from Mark Histed and Natalie Aviles

scienceandfreedomalliance.substack.com

@aniloza.bsky.social’s new piece is required reading to understand the stakes of the OMB uniform guidance proposal in light of the Slaughter ruling. www.statnews.com/2026/07/08/t...

Trump administration pursues more durable changes to science policy after setbacks in court

The White House has proposed sweeping changes to the bedrock regulation undergirding all federal contracts, empowering the executive branch to direct research, terminate grants, and external scientifi...

statnews.com

I spoke to @ldattaro.bsky.social for Chemical & Engineering News about how the Slaughter decision is consistent with ongoing efforts to presidentialize federal science agencies under Trump II. cen.acs.org/policy/supre...

Supreme Court ruling on independent US agencies fuels scientists’ concerns

The decision to allow Trump to fire two Federal Trade Commission commissioners without cause reinforces a view that the president has final say over what happens at federal agencies, experts say

cen.acs.org

Happy “liberal arts professor helps save the Union” day to all who celebrate

Chance to comment on NIH's plans for "measuring and rewarding scientific impact" grants.nih.gov/grants/guide... Comments due by August 19th.

Political scientist here: this is not funny, democracies only do this when they're in extreme distress

ProPublica@propublica.org · 2mo ago

NEW: Most Supreme Court Rulings Are Secretive Votes With Little Justification ProPublica conducted a new analysis that shows the court is deciding more consequential rulings than ever before in largely unsigned orders with little to no explanation.

Literally wrote an entire budget justification like this last night in my hotel room, ankles crisscrossing and everything

Sotomayor’s dissent is an obituary for science, NIH, and NSF. “Seldom, if ever, has this Court worked such a profound bait and switch on a coequal branch: For more than 90 years, Congress believed, with this Court’s express approval, that it was allowed to create a workable Govern- ment…”

Imagine somebody playing in your face like this on the WORLD STAGE.

Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 2mo ago

"So ... so I said ... why not sign your treaty here, at Versailles?"

The HPV vaccine is one of the most incredible public health innovations of the past century, and it wouldn’t have been possible without work done at the US National Institutes of Health. Yet another reason why NIH—often called the “crown jewel” of the US federal government—is worth protecting.

Kathleen Bachynski@bachynski.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Yet another wonderful study about the HPV vaccine preventing cervical cancer: “In women aged 20–24 years between 2020 and 2024, in whom vaccination coverage was around 88–90% at age 12–13 years, NO DEATHS OCCURRED, compared with 23.1 expected deaths based on historical rates” (all caps mine)

“the view that grantmaking should serve to advance the President’s political and policy preferences whether or not those align with congressional intent, the public good, or merit, wholly subject to the unreviewable and unaccountable whims of political actors in the executive branch.” Great piece 🧪

The Trump Administration Seeks to End Nonpartisan Grantmaking

A proposed rule would radically transform how grant award decisions are made, allowing them to be based on purely political calculations — including who receives funds, what is required of grantees, a...

cbpp.org

My daughter completely acing the Civil War/Reconstruction portion of the Virginia Studies SOL feels a bit like the passing of the torch on my very niche autistic special interest

Emotional Man Crying Proudly

ALT: Emotional Man Crying Proudly

static.klipy.com

I got the best birthday present this year: my official tenure letter!

I went to the zoo and everybody there knew me

As someone that has invoked Vannevar Bush more than my colleagues would like .... I appreciated this piece making the case that there are other figures we could reach for as touchstones amid all of the upheaval

Prof. Aviles@nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 3mo ago

My new piece in @issuesinst.bsky.social with @cyberlyra.bsky.social comes at an urgent moment in science policy. New OMB rules and EOs threaten to politicize science and strip it of the democratic norms, autonomy, and pluralism meant to protect science as and for democracy issues.org/merton-redux...

In 2025, the number of #NIH-funded investigators declined for the first time in a decade, with the steepest reductions among Black and Hispanic researchers and fellows. ja.ma/4ujDlzG

If you have applied or plan to apply for an NIH grant, if you have reviewed or want to review for an NIH panel, you must read this piece from @27unihted.bsky.social about the detrimental changes to NIH peer review. @jeremymberg.bsky.social @drugmonkey.bsky.social substack.com/inbox/post/2...

The Quiet Attack On Science: Subverting NIH Peer Review

Authored by anonymous current and former NIH workers with experience in peer review, this is an overview of all the changes to NIH's peer review over the last 18 months.

substack.com

My new piece in @issuesinst.bsky.social with @cyberlyra.bsky.social comes at an urgent moment in science policy. New OMB rules and EOs threaten to politicize science and strip it of the democratic norms, autonomy, and pluralism meant to protect science as and for democracy issues.org/merton-redux...

Merton Redux: Re-Confronting the Norms of Science in Democracy

The decimation of democratic processes that undergird state-sponsored research may be ultimately more consequential than funding cuts.

issues.org

And anyone who is interested in these issues should read @nataliebaviles.bsky.social EXCELLENT book about how NIH has been run through its history, “An Ungovernable Foe.” cup.columbia.edu/book/an-ungo...

An Ungovernable Foe | Columbia University Press

Winner, 2024 Choice Outstanding Academic TitleIn American politics, medical innovation is often considered the domain of the private sector. Yet some of the ... | CUP

cup.columbia.edu

Yesterday I spoke to @aniloza.bsky.social about the paper @nataliebaviles.bsky.social and I wrote on NIH governance history — and what kind of governance works for science (presidential control does not work!)

anil oza@aniloza.bsky.social · 3mo ago

new eo dropped last night: Trump outlines who his administration intends to move into schedule F, making them easier to fire At NIH, it includes the deputy directors of the agency and some branch chiefs/division directors www.statnews.com/2026/06/03/t...

Remember the current NIH director going on about protecting researchers from government censorship? Today his people called the police in to forcibly remove my colleagues from their own society meeting for sharing an editorial published in their flagship journal that was critical of him. Gift link

Police Remove Diabetes Experts From Conference for Distributing Critique of Trump Administration

nytimes.com

I spoke to @aniloza.bsky.social at STAT about how the latest executive order further presidentializes NIH. Schedule P/C undermines the fundamental philosophy of expert-led civil servant judgment that has made US science the envy of the world for 80+ years. www.statnews.com/2026/06/05/s...

What stripping civil service protections for thousands of federal workers will mean for HHS

Thousands of HHS staff who shape policy have had their employment status changed to a designation that makes it easier for them to be fired.

statnews.com

When admin scholars talk about the Court’s attack on functional government, we have in mind not just high profile cases like Cook and Slaughter, but rulings like today’s decision in FCC v ATT. Decisions like this and — what they reveal — are death by 1000 cuts. 1/8

Among those positions that will be converted to presidential appointees are the leaders of NIH’s extramural grants, intramural program, and policy. This in essence politicizes everything the agency’s mission touches.

anil oza@aniloza.bsky.social · 3mo ago

new eo dropped last night: Trump outlines who his administration intends to move into schedule F, making them easier to fire At NIH, it includes the deputy directors of the agency and some branch chiefs/division directors www.statnews.com/2026/06/03/t...

the supposedly "originalist" unitary executive theory has led us to a point where the president is claiming the sovereign authority to force all institutions, public or private, to bend to his will or suffer the consequences www.nytimes.com/2026/06/02/u...

White House Seeks to Impose Political Test on Billions in Federal Grants

nytimes.com

3/ The Vought White House, which has adopted UET on steroids, is extending this to the proposition that only the president can identify national priorities, even in the teeth of countervailing statutory language. That is personalist rule; it has nothing to do with rule by law.

The OMB’s proposed rule changes make concrete what @markhisted.org and I have called a model of “presidentialist governance” at Trump’s NIH. It replaces the previous approach that foregrounded pluralistic democratic deliberation among Congress and scientific advisors. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

How Congress can restore the independence of US science

Members must go beyond reinstating US government research spending and re-establish decentralized governance at the National Institutes of Health and other agencies.

nature.com