Futurism⁠93%

Scientists Forced to Go on OnlyFans After Their Funding Was Cut ⁠59%

By Frank Landymore⁠83%

8/1/2026, 9:01:00 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 24 faulty reasoning types, including Biased Writer Voice, Confirmation Bias, and Appeal to Authority, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 15.5% saturation with 91 hits. Analysis detected 796 faulty-reasoning hits from 587 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 47.2% and a BS Rank of ⁠59% (12,470 of 29,795 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 58.10% of the article peer group.

When you’re a scientist relying on government funding to conduct your research, and that government suddenly yoinks all your money in the name of “efficiency,” you have to get creative to keep the lights on. 
Such has been the experience of Daniel Blumstein, a biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, renowned for his work on studying the ground-dwelling rodents known as marmots. 
After the Trump administration cancelled billions of dollars in federal research grants last year, he and his colleagues decided to start creating content dedicated to the charming mammals — on OnlyFans. 
As SFGate reports , their account, called “OnlyMarms,” promises near-daily “unfiltered yellow-bellied marmot content from the Rockies.” 
Subscribing is free, but users can leave tips on the cute photos and videos they post, which goes towards funding the research. 
It’s a win for everyone: shy gooners have a convenient explanation for all the OnlyFans transactions in their bank accounts, and the scientists get to keep doing the work they’re doing. 
Thank you, marmots, for being so adorable. 
“Sometimes I’m just posting the videos I think will get the most ‘aws,'” Emily Renkey, a student in Blumstein’s lab who started the account, told SFGate . 
“But my favorite is when I find footage of a particular behavior and I can use that to வீடியோ to educate people.” 
The Trump administration’s cost-cutting regime has crippled scientific research in the US. 
In efforts led by Elon Musk’s now defunct Department of Government Efficiency, it cancelled more than 1,700 grants worth some $1.4 billion at the National Science Foundation in 2025. 
In 2026, the NSF has so far awarded just a fraction of the $9 billion grant money it has typically distributed in recent years, and the White House has proposed slashing its budget by nearly half for the 2027 fiscal year. 
Many of the grant cancellations were clearly politically motivated, targeting research into climate change — and even research that simply contains the word “climate” — something Trump has called a “hoax.” 
Even more flagrantly, the administration recently admitted in court documents that it canceled research grants in certain states “based solely” on whether they supported Trump in the 2024 election. 
Why marmot research ended up in the administration’s crosshairs is anyone’s guess, but it’s invaluable work. 
Blumstein and his colleagues have spent years closely tracking the charming rodents, forming what is one of the longest-running studies of free-living mammals in the world, according to SFGate . 
These long-term projects ask “some of the most important questions in our time,” Blumstein said, providing our best window into studying evolution in real-time. 
But their value may not be immediately obvious to the people in charge of crunching the numbers. 
Historically, this hasn’t been a problem for Blumstein, as his program had received funding from the NSF for over a decade. 
But now, under the new regime, he’s applied to renew the grant three times, before the agency told him to stop applying at all. 
“After the third time, our program officer told my colleague… that they will never fund us because they think we have too much data,” Blumstein told SFGate . 
“I don’t even know how to parse that sentence. 
It’s nuts.” 
Blumstein’s marmot program, as it stands, is running on fumes. 
OnlyMarms has only brought in a few hundred dollars, and the lab is looking for more traditional sources of funding, too. 
More on science funding: Trump Orders Construction of Powerful Quantum Computer 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 9.9%Frank Landymore: 4.1%Futurism: 5.7%Confirmation Bias9.9%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.9%Futurism: 1.3%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 2.0%Frank Landymore: 4.9%Futurism: 5.3%Availability Heuristic2.0%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 1.2%Futurism: 1.3%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.5%Futurism: 0.5%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 1.6%Futurism: 2.2%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 5.3%Frank Landymore: 9.1%Futurism: 10.1%Framing Effect5.3%This article: 1.7%Frank Landymore: 0.5%Futurism: 1.0%Loss Aversion1.7%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.5%Futurism: 0.6%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 4.1%Frank Landymore: 0.1%Futurism: 0.2%Sunk Cost Effect4.1%This article: 5.3%Frank Landymore: 1.4%Futurism: 1.9%Optimism Bias5.3%This article: 2.7%Frank Landymore: 2.5%Futurism: 3.8%Pessimism Bias2.7%This article: 15.5%Frank Landymore: 18.0%Futurism: 19.7%Negativity Bias15.5%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 1.0%Futurism: 1.3%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 5.3%Frank Landymore: 1.7%Futurism: 1.3%Fundamental Attribution Error5.3%This article: 2.9%Frank Landymore: 0.1%Futurism: 0.1%Actor-Observer Bias2.9%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.3%Futurism: 0.5%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.3%Futurism: 0.4%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 4.1%Frank Landymore: 0.7%Futurism: 0.8%Halo Effect4.1%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.8%Futurism: 0.5%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.0%Futurism: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 8.9%Frank Landymore: 2.0%Futurism: 2.0%Recency Bias8.9%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.2%Futurism: 0.3%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.1%Futurism: 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 1.4%Futurism: 1.4%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.2%Futurism: 0.6%Straw Man0.0%This article: 9.4%Frank Landymore: 4.8%Futurism: 5.3%Appeal to Authority9.4%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 2.3%Futurism: 2.2%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 1.0%Futurism: 1.9%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.1%Futurism: 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 8.5%Frank Landymore: 8.0%Futurism: 8.9%Hasty Generalization8.5%This article: 4.6%Frank Landymore: 0.8%Futurism: 0.8%Red Herring4.6%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.9%Futurism: 0.9%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 5.6%Frank Landymore: 7.4%Futurism: 8.1%Appeal to Emotion5.6%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.8%Futurism: 1.2%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 5.3%Frank Landymore: 3.9%Futurism: 3.6%Post Hoc (False Cause)5.3%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.5%Futurism: 0.2%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 2.9%Frank Landymore: 0.9%Futurism: 1.0%Burden of Proof2.9%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.4%Futurism: 0.3%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.3%Futurism: 0.3%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 4.4%Futurism: 3.6%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.0%Futurism: 0.1%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 4.8%Frank Landymore: 2.6%Futurism: 2.3%Ambiguity (Equivocation)4.8%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.0%Futurism: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.0%Futurism: 0.2%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 1.5%Frank Landymore: 0.1%Futurism: 0.1%Personal Incredulity1.5%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.1%Futurism: 0.2%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.2%Futurism: 0.2%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 5.3%Frank Landymore: 3.8%Futurism: 3.1%Unattributed Quote5.3%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 1.8%Futurism: 2.1%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 13.5%Frank Landymore: 15.1%Futurism: 18.4%Biased Writer Voice13.5%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 1.5%Futurism: 1.8%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 2.9%Frank Landymore: 0.9%Futurism: 2.6%Politically Left Leaning Bias2.9%This article: 0.0%Frank Landymore: 0.0%Futurism: 0.3%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 3.7%Frank Landymore: 0.9%Futurism: 1.2%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…3.7%

587 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers19%attributed speech475writer words
Selected voice

Blumstein

100%flagged-word coverage
63 attributed words56% of attributed speech73% writer coverage
0%10.0%20.0%Biased Writer Voice-16.6 ptsWriter: 16.6%Blumstein: 0.0%0.0%Unattributed Quote-6.5 ptsWriter: 6.5%Blumstein: 0.0%0.0%Attempt to Sell a Product -4.6 ptsWriter: 4.6%Blumstein: 0.0%0.0%Politically Left Leaning B-3.6 ptsWriter: 3.6%Blumstein: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.