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How Important is Research Funding?
slowtonejoe75 asks: "I have friends and family working as physicists for the government at national laboratories funded by your tax dollars. Since Bush has been in office, funding meetings for these labs with the DOE (Dept. of Energy) in Washington have turned up dry. The Bush administration is clearly not interested in hardcore research unless it has to do with missles, bio-chemistry, and security. I understand that there are some priorities in life but I see this whole focus shift with respect to funding to be a real step backwards as far as the advancement of science. I want to know where the Slashdot community would place funding if they had their way?"
If the research represents technology for defense, or security
that's the stuff that pisses *me* off.
I am for it, but just pork barrelling our dollars into random research projects, that then get sold into private industry so that I can buy back the result of the research I funded pisses me off.
We'll see if you think that next time you're in a PET scanner trying to get a cancer diagnosed or something. A machine that would not have been produced except for the "pork barrel, random research" projects a few decades ago.
No doubt this is the hardest part of the problem though. How can a scientist asking for money explain that the work *does* have value, it's just that it isn't known what the value will be until it is done. The scientific community needs to get much much better at pointing out the results of the "random research" so that the uneducated masses can better understand the value.
I clearly couldn't be more opposite of you on this one. IMO the *only* research the government should be doing is the "random" stuff that won't get done otherwise because there is no profit motive. It's this research, however, that keeps the US at the forefront and allows the directly applicable stuff to be done later.
Rauum pretty much covered what I would have said, except to as "Nyahh!" He knows more about it than I do.
The two genome projects were complementary -- Celera did "decide to share the credit" whatever that means -- and the competition spurred them along. The press did not report on the competition in any depth; for them, the "race" was the story.
They said there wasn't private funding in 1990? They were right! Celera came along eight years later, and had the benefit of the tech boom when just about anything could get funding. Moreover, the Celera founder Venter was a genome project alumni; he left because he thought he could a better job, which is great, but if he hadn't started out in the project would he have taken the same course? Also, Celera's desire to patent and profit from its work is in the interest of its shareholders but not necessarily science. I know I benefitted from several public domain projects run by bright people where you could simply take what you needed and add your own. Like the internet, there is a tremendous value in seeded something private industry does not see the potential in or can't afford to jumpstart without assurance of profit.
As for medical research, I speak from experience. There have been no end of studies funded by gov't grants and institutions. Just read the credits on a few hundred journal articles! Also, few people know the HUGE role Medicare has in financing medical education and teaching hospitals.
Not every project pans out, but that's true of private industry. Government efficiency must be measured in terms of industry efficiency -- there's a reason "Dilbert" resonates with so many people. Sure, we should try to do better, and not every program I mentioned is necessarily a wise one, but no risk, no gain.
This is correct -- Celera used government funded results to jumpstart their reconstruction, so they do belong giving back something to the public. Had they kept everything to themselves, it would be a perfect example of what was described earlier: the public being billed twice.
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