There is a tremendous novel by Samanta Schweblin that consists of a very dark dialogue between two characters. One persistently says to the other: “Amanda, that is not important.” She repeats it with variations throughout the story. She gets impatient: “None of this is important. We are wasting our time.” She wants the other person to understand what is happening and to become aware of the seriousness of the case, since it compromises the fate of her daughter. That is the situation we are living in Argentina now. We must focus on what is important, without distractions. There is no time left, Amanda.
Among the various fronts opened by Javier Milei’s government is the attack on public science. Without beating around the bush, he has established his plan for that sector since before taking office: dismantle the system, transfer human capital abroad or to the business field, remove critical capacities and scientific sovereignty from the country.
The task plan has been impeccably carried out, combining smear campaigns with impoverishment and institutional breakdown. The latter is perhaps more difficult to see for those who do not work in the field. But those of us who are in it have seen all the steps of the anti-scientific policy: layoffs, interruption of funding, withdrawal of subsidies, reduction of scholarships, dismantling of entities.
The bulk of funding for infrastructure projects and subsidies, despite having already been allocated and available, has disappeared. What was previously the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (now downgraded to a Secretariat) executed only 8% of the reserved funds. The amount not executed is approximately equivalent to the increase transferred to the State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE). The total amount invested in research at the national level has fallen by more than 30% compared to 2023.
Recently, the Argentine Network of Authorities of Science and Technology Institutes (RAICyT)the most important of the federal networks that emerged as a result of the attack on Argentine science, has launched a petition to stop its destruction, in response to statements by the president of the National Agency for the Promotion of Research on the lack of funds to finance projects that have already been evaluated and approved. Another official spokesperson denied that there are no funds (“it’s not that there is no money,” he said) and added that they are going to censor the social sciences for their “political orientation” and that they will cut funding for literature, history and philosophy. Watch out, Amanda.
These last disciplines (letters, philosophy and history) are the three oldest in the faculty where I workand one of them, the literary career, places UBA close to the top 20 of international rankingsWithout scientific history, which requires hard and complex work, the past would be just plasticine for the whims of networks and opinion makers. Philosophy, a career declared strategic by the State, is not only a venerable discipline that gives us useful reflections on core concepts, such as freedom, good, victim, power or state. It is also a fundamental capacity to face current changes: ethics, for example, is a subdiscipline in demand daily in relation to AI and developments in biomedicine.
But this is not the important thing. We have to know it, it takes time to know it. But it is not the important thing, but a distraction. From the very beginning, the same technique has been used: insulting or belittling the human and social sciences to divide the system, get allies and, in the meantime, move forward with the destruction of the whole. It is evident that the social and human sciences, in addition to being internationally recognized and profitable, are those that produce the most knowledge at the lowest cost. Attacking them only deepens the general destruction. The important thing is to understand that science is produced interdisciplinarily today, and that the scale of investment it requires is greater than what existed before. All countries in the world that grow or want to grow invest in all areas of science and encourage the interdisciplinary approach to problems. For this reason, a bill was recently presented in the Chamber of Deputies to establish the emergence of the national system of science, technology and innovation and enforce the science funding law (Law 27.614).
We must not lose sight of this: while the scientific plan is moving forward, a bill for the Financing of National Universities has been introduced in the Senate, which has already received partial approval from the House of Representatives. This law will be an instrument to prevent the scientific-educational system from collapsing completely. We must not forget that a good part of national scientific research takes place in universities, which are workplaces for many researchers and which allow for virtuous articulation with teaching, extension and transfer. The bill is intended to function as a guarantee that universities have a budget, that workers’ salaries do not continue to lose out to inflation, that buildings do not become ruins and that research has a basis of normality. In the same sense, the University of Buenos Aires, this Wednesday, August 28, through its Superior Council, has declared a state of alert due to the situation of Argentine science.
Baitsprovocations, twists and turns, spurious calculations. None of that is important. Science is everywhere, not only in the machines that organize the city, that move the sowing and the harvesting, that support telecommunications. It is also in urban planning, in every classroom where classes are given, in the products of the cultural industry, in a nuclear power plant, in border territories, in buildings, in chatbots, dictionaries and translators, in care devices, in a satellite and in a vaccine, in people who speak.
And there’s almost no time left, Amanda.
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