A shifting mode

Posted by on December 2, 2009; This entry is filed under Uncategorized.
Share on FacebookShare on Google+Email this to someoneTweet about this on Twitter

Here’s the source. The fact that there’s been so much change since 1990 is what is striking to me.

Labels:

12 Comments

  1. Eric Johnson December 3rd, 2009 at 4:47 am

    This is despite conscious attempts to shift it youngward. Thats the case recently, at least.

  2. Orion December 3rd, 2009 at 6:28 am

    Mightn’t this just have to do with the demographic aging of the American population? The average age of researchers must also be increasing, not just those who get NIH grants. Part of the trend may be a growing preference among funding bodies for established researchers though, like the trend for older ministers for defence that was discussed a while back.

  3. gabriel December 3rd, 2009 at 6:29 am

    wow, there’s almost a ten year shift in the mode over ten years. i would describe this as, beginning in 1990, a birth cohort (or rather, cohort distribution) is monopolizing NIH grants

  4. AG December 3rd, 2009 at 7:26 am

    Either few new graduate students or old proffessors with delayed retirement?

  5. fred December 3rd, 2009 at 7:44 am

    I would think that a great deal of that is just bureaucracy behaving normally. Once someone has mastered the art of filling in the application and providing the results in the proper format his subsequent chances for success are magnified. 
     
    The same thing applies to government contracting (which I have done). You see the same players over and over, only in this case the players are aging individuals.

  6. sn December 3rd, 2009 at 7:58 am

    the baby boomers hang on? 
     
    hilarious clip on peer review 
     
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VRBWLpYCPY

  7. agnostic December 3rd, 2009 at 9:38 am

    It would be more informative to see the distribution not based on individuals but on grants. Right now it says, “Of all people who received a grant, what percent were of age X?” If the y-axis label means what it seems to mean. But we really want to know, “Of all grants given out, what percent went to someone who was of age X?” 
     
    The ministers of defence example is actually from my pay blog, but thanks for the plug! 
     
    So what does the NIH shift mean? It could mean that grants are given to a different style of research — one that older people are better at. Perhaps in 1980, hotheaded risky pie-in-the-sky research was more rewarded than now, while now the NIH rewards research that requires having a lot more experience to think up and carry out. 
     
    Or it could be related to changing demography, as the population was youngest somewhere around 1980. (Off the top of my head, that’s when the 15-24 group was the largest % of the pop.) If so, it says the NIH isn’t rewarding based on merit but based on political clout, which is an increasing function of your cohort size as a % of the whole population. 
     
    It’s not as though the superstar sports players used to be 27 in 1980 but are now 37. There, it is based on merit, so a large aging cohort can’t use its political influence to get more recognition. (Although maybe they would try to poo-poo the sports where younger people excel and lobby for greater prestige of golf.) 
     
    And it’s not as though the average Miss America used to be 23 in 1980 but is now 33 (though there is a secular trend upward in many similar cases, just not *that* big). Again it’s based on merit — women from a large aging cohort (like Sharon Stone) will try to lobby for greater attention to cougars, but beauty contests are based on merit. Hard to misjudge beauty. 
     
    I can’t say how much support there is for the first hypothesis about grants shifting to different styles of research per se, where older people would naturally have a leg up on the whippersnappers. But given that the NIH, NSF, etc., are government bureaucracies, the hypothesis I’d go with is the second one — that they reward based on political influence more than merit (not to say that merit isn’t involved at all obviously).

  8. lol December 3rd, 2009 at 11:25 am

    let’s assume that’s a graph of the age of RO1 recipients, not all NIH funding. 
     
    what it indicates is (among many things) that RO1s go to profs, not post-docs or grad students; that the age of becoming a prof is increasing as post docs lengthen; that the amount of time after becoming a prof before getting a grant is increasing; that the amount of data you need to support a grant application is increasing; etc. 
     
    this trend has serious consequences for creativity in science.

  9. bioIgnoramus December 3rd, 2009 at 5:00 pm

    Evidence that a “Team” attitude isn’t confined to the Global Warming scam? 
     
    It’s also evidence for my long held belief that part of the grant pot should be distributed by lottery amongst people reckoned to be valid applicants.

  10. toto December 4th, 2009 at 2:46 am

    What if the age distribution simply follows that of the scientist population at large? I.e. what if it is simply a result of the scientists becoming older – just like the whole US population?

  11. Steve Sailer December 6th, 2009 at 3:01 am

    Us Baby Boomers sure are obnoxious. 
     
    But, you’ll miss us when we’re gone.

  12. Anton December 6th, 2009 at 1:07 pm

    BioIgnormaus: “It’s also evidence for my long held belief that part of the grant pot should be distributed by lottery amongst people reckoned to be valid applicants.” 
     
    And I thought I was the only one relentlessly pushing this idea. My colleagues uniformly look at me like I’m crazy. But….why not?

a