michael_nielsen

Okay. But that's simply not how "academic freedom" is usually construed.

If you want to make this argument, then you're also making the argument that grant agencies have long violated academic freedom by exercising veto rights over what researchers investigate.

Yes, I think there are issues with funders/governments overly directing what research takes place.

To be clear: you're saying that grant agencies violate researchers' academic freedom because they evaluate what questions the researchers propose to work on?

No, I am saying that governments have been seeking too much control over the research process. It is a difficult path to tread and get the balance right. But the nightmare scenario is Lysenkoism. How much control do you want the Trump administration to have over science?

Your argument was that (a) academic freedom means freedom to choose where to publish; and (b) grant agencies are threatening that. I pointed out that (c) academic freedom certainly means freedom to choose what to work on, but that people commonly interpret that to mean...

... freedom in the context of their employment, not that grant agencies have a duty to fund them. And so too in the context of freedom of where to publish.

Not sure why non-standard interpretation of academic freedom. I was not saying grant agencies have duty to fund researchers. Researchers should be employed & paid by universities. Don't know about US, but in UK now researchers' job depends on getting government/industry grants.