Politicizing the National Science Foundation, cont’d

From a young researcher who doesn’t ask the National Science Foundation for funding, but needs to publish in an industry where many others do:

I wanted to (anonymously!) add one thing to your recent thoughtful post about NSF funding: The point you make applies even to research not funded by the NSF. My research, like much else, sometimes reaches findings or uses methods that might make sitting politicians uncomfortable. In the last couple years I have received several peer reviews from the top journals in the discipline that have chastised me for potentially making politicians uncomfortable and therefore endangering NSF funding for others with my research. Thus even for those of us who have never used NSF funding and don’t plan to, this kind of politicization chills what we can publish and what we study because the interests of our discipline as a class appear in jeopardy.

Original post here. Here’s Rep. Jeff Flake’s response.