> Yours is an "ends justify the means" argument, but are you comfortable with the way these cuts were done?

Generally no. But I also think that certain classes of keyword filtering were probably a good idea. Filtering for any grants with "structural determinants of health" and reviewing them intensively with the goal of defunding 99%, for example, is probably a good idea.

> Would you approve so robustly of your own research being cut with a keyword search for government-unapproved terms?

I mean, there's zero chance my research would have fallen afoul of any such terms, but let me put it this way: my field was completely up-ended by DeepMind. They not only won a Nobel for that work in record time, but used an approach so severely out of fashion that it couldn't really get any attention.

I guess I'm saying: I don't think it would have been so bad to cut most of it, if it meant that we got more actual diversity in the field.