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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?"
I'd say just go with what the Science Advisor says, unless we need something specific like Iron Working for Swordsmen or Democracy for the trade bonus.
I don't think it is the governments responsibility todo "General" research with my money.
... both parties are guilty of pushing forth the agenda to help their own pet projects.
If the research represents technology for defense, or security... 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.
Spending in the US is completely out of control. We need someone to clamp down on this insane tax and spend matra
Civ II experience says...
First get your government going, and get the basics of living working. Done that.
Next, democracy, by way of a monarchy. Done that.
Finally, 20% luxeries, 30% taxes, and 50% research. Also, turn any excess population into scientists, except as necessary in certain cities. Placate the masses with temples and cathedrals and coliseums, as necessary.
As my experience in Civ II shows, this is an easy way to first make numerous advances, and then kick everybody else's butts as you expand your empire - err, democracy - across the globe.
...in my bank account.
:)
Now, you didn't specify I had to have any enlightening goal.
I believe gov't spending is best focused on areas that while important do not perform well enough in the market to attract private funding. Many long-term projects and pure research fit this description. Concrete examples are space exploration (I favor astronomy and probes over manned flight, on a bang-for-the-buck rationale), basic biological research (genome project, medical research, niche or long-shot vaccines & medicines, etc.), big-capital-investment projects (supercolliders and such).
There, is that vague enough? Seriously, good gov't funding can provide benefits from boosting young researchers to providing the massive infrastructure for the big ticket labs.
Of course, the gov't's involvement in national research is already huge; the NSF is down the street from me, and NIH/NIMH not far away; look at their websites for an idea of what they are underwriting. Every researcher I can remember seemed to be preparing grant proposals for the gov't. I hope that the short-term shift in administration priorities to what it views as immediate goals does not cause too much long-term loss. I think the administration is mostly sincere in its belief about what is important, but that it is short-sighted. (My 2.)
Finally, I don't suggest research should be socialized. Government spending is complimentary to private spending, not its substitute.
This is good news the government should not be doing basic research there are plenty of university people that are in the proper enviroment for basic reseach and have a large amount of slave^h^h^h^h^h er, er I mean undergraduate/graduate assistants. If the government wants to feed some money to university and research institutes its a much better use of money. Government labs should only be dealing with real nation issues, weapons, food (agriculture) and even in those areas it should be supervising outside researchers, the government has no clue an only makes things more difficult (US or any other country) your research friends would probably be a lot happier in a university or other research lab anyway.
Since Bush has been in office, funding meetings for these labs with the DOE (Dept. of Energy) in Washington have turned up dry.
;-)
Maybe it's just the timing here. What if Gore had been in office when 9/11 happened? Well, besides the fact that we would have still been talking about doing something, as opposed to actually doing it I mean. Perhaps the funding has dried up simply because the funds have been redirected to other areas, such as defense.
Priorities have to be made, and someone has to suffer a lack of resources. If it's Lawrence Livermore they work for, then maybe if they stopped losing $1 million plus worth of equipment, they could get budget for an airplane trip to DC.
If this article confuses you, don't worry. It was posted yesterday in a much clearer fashion.
Don't you know that there is no legitimate role for Government in the marketplace? Advances in Science and Technology come from the heroic vision of lone entrepreneurs, willing to risk all they have.
The market always provides the solutions to the problems that they persuade us we have.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I'd fund only stuff that is likely to eventually make a profit.
--"get in on the ground floor" of the biggest most technologically advanced surveillance AND command AND control over it's own citizens endeavor ever attempted in the history of the planet.
Ohh boy.
You, sir, suck.
Remember this el geek-o, as you count your pieces of silver and relish your leetness, the nuhremberg defense *doesn't work*. What goes around, comes around.
I don't think it is the governments responsibility todo "General" research with my money.
One of the problems with your post is that you never really define what you mean by "General" research. You follow this sentence with the following statement:
If the research represents technology for defense, or security... 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.
Using this as a reference, I'll assume you mean the government should only fund research that has immediate application to "important" areas such as defense. There are a lot of problems with this viewpoint. First, is how to draw the line between "general" research and "applied" research. Almost every scientist can do some wordsmithing to claim that their research has some concrete benefit now or in the future. So one could place a time barrier and state that only research that will pay off in new technological improvements within the next N years should be funded. The problem with this is that long-range research never gets funded. Another problem is that estimates of how long it will take the basic research to generate improved technology will always be wrong and scientists will give overly optimistic estimates so they can get their funding. There's also the big problem of identifying what research that seems pretty "pure", "general", "theoretical", whathaveyou, will produce useful "applied" results. I can't imagine the snide comments that mathematician George Boole must have endured when he developed an algebra assuming only two digits: 0 and 1. But today Boolean Algebra, as it is known today, is very applied stuff. Fourier faced similiar problems when no one recognized the practical importance of Fourier series and transforms when he introduced it.
Your statements also indicate that you are really upset at government research assistance for commerical technologies. The problem is that American companies are very short sighted. Their stockholders demand that they not engage in risky, long-range R&D developments. Without government seed money, most American companies wouldn't tackle the "big problems". Other governments, however, are more than willing to use their resources to give their companies an edge. The MagLev train is an obvious example. This idea was developed at MIT and they went so far as to develop a minature prototype. However, funding went dry. The governments of Japan and Germany saw the potential and began developing the technology in cooperation with their native hi-tech companies and they quickly leapt ahead of the US in the development of viable technology. The US is starting to gain back some of the ground now, but if the US government had funded this thing throughout, the US would be a lock for the first nation to bring this technology to the worldwide market.
GMD
watch this
Yes, Celera did do a genome. But the public consortium also did one which is equivalent or better in most scientific terms and vastly superior in one important respect: it is public domain.
While non-profit researchers can obtain free access to Celera's genome data, it is a pain in the ass to deal with their legal department, and the data is viewable in a sub-optimal interface. The public genome is easily and readily available to anyone and everyone with a web browser.
I had nothing to do with the public human genome project, but I use their data every day in my research as do thousands of other researchers. To suggest that the government pissed away money on that project is simply wrong.
It seems clear to me that everyone benefits from the public genome project in particular, and public science in general. Why should we enrich a private company for basic scientific information which is needed by all researchers (both for-profit and non-profit)?
Much good has come from gov't funded pure research. Much good could still come from it. Too bad Bush has his head up his ass. I do agree with one of the previous posts that having gov't funded research go into the pockets of private companies is crap.
I don't see any companies funding much research that is going to benifit society at large instead of their pocketbooks. And they shouldn't. That is part of what gov't is for. There are too many people who profess a belief in capitalism and have had no contact with Adam Smith.
If the research is in the area of high energy physics, then I can see why there may be a lack of interest in funding.
While R&D based on pure intellectual curiosity is wonderful, it also seems to me that one can satisfy curiosity AND work in a field like biochemistry that has a much larger chance to benefit society.
This puts my political views in conflict with my professional views.
Politically speaking, I don't think the government should be paying for anything that isn't directly related to protecting the country and enforcing the laws. It's the job of corporations and universities to do this research.
On the other hand, as a physicist, I know that corporations and universities can't or won't pay for all the research that is currently done. One could argue that most of it is useless; however, one never knows what research is going to pay off. If we did, it wouldn't be research.
Simply put, if we want things like cheap, clean energy, real cures to cancer, and profitable space technology, the government is going to have to lay down some cash to get things going. You might point at all the companies doing research in those areas (such as General Atomics, Armadillo/John Carmack, and countless biotechs), but they are all using technology that was originally poineered through support of the government. Consider environmental research, which most private sources have very little economic reason to support, but the government has very real political and economic reasons to support.
Ideally, these things would all be done with private money, AND they would be done in an open manner. Science is no good if everyone doesn't have access to it. Once science is done purely with private money, science could end up "closed source". Some areas, like computer research and health care, alreay are.
Look at what is discussed on this site regarding the control companies want to have over the research they have done in these areas. Do we want everything to end up like that? Imagine if the government started funding more open source software research. Would that NOT lead to some great things?
Private donations might work for the Ivy leages, but for most research universities, government support allows us to take the risks that lead to the really big payoffs, without completely screwing the students with tuition.
I'm obviously biased, but in my opinion, there are very few ways money could be better spent than on basic research. For those who say the government shouldn't be paying for this stuff, I agree with your principles, but from a utilitarian point of view, it needs to happen.
Perhaps the funding has dried up simply because the funds have been redirected to other areas, such as defense.
Perhaps? That seems like a certaintly. We have just boosted that budget by better than 10% and are something like double the rest of NATO combined. That's a hell of a lot of money.
*I* think maybe we should cut it in half, fund basic research and, orthogonally, quite shoving our culture and will down the collective throats of every nation that doesn't have a white, male, christian leader. Then *both* problems are solved! (and, sadly, I'm only half joking).
on more guns and bombs and tanks and planes so that idiots like you have the freedom to whine on Slashdot about how there's not enough of my money being spent on 'basic research', instead of being too busy praying to Mecca five times daily - in between your duties as Chief Eunuch in the sultan's harem - to have much time for anything else, even if it were allowed by the religious police.
then maybe if they stopped losing $1 million plus worth of equipment, they could get budget for an airplane trip to DC. ;-)
You mean like the FBI got its funding cut for losing all those laptops & guns? Yeah, right. ;-P
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
From after WWII through the 80's, things were different: there was a lot of money - usually government money - going into nuclear and then particle physics research. There were lots of new academic positions being created in physics departments, and most of these were basic research.
In the 90's things started swinging the other way. The Superconducting Supercollider was canceled. New nuclear physics positions completely dissapeared early in the decade, and by the end of the decade a lot of particle physics positions were being cut back. Some schools eliminated their physics department entirely. Suddenly physicists that always had ample research funding from the government were looking at other areas of research. In retrospect, it became obvious that the post-war boom was not "normal", it was the exception.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
So, according to this, it seems providing for the common defence comes before promoting the general Welfare. Now, I'm all for the general Welfare (as opposed to welfare ;) but given a limited pool of resources, my views are the same as the Preamble's.
Actually you sir, don't know what the hell you are talking about. It's the Veteran's Administration and like Abrix, and Kaiser-Permanente, and other medical recordkeeping organizations, they have a moral and now legal obligation to keep their patients' information private and protected but still allow access to the patients themselves. There was one group allowing web access to records so that people could work from home; and you know what platform it was being run on so it was full of gaping holes until they moved it to a proprietary [electronic] document repository.
You, sir, need to read more carefully before spouting off like an ignorant fuck. I was just trying to maintain some meager semblance of anonymity. No wonder people complain about the blatant negative attitudes prevalent in society as of late.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
And one more thing you fanatic freak... if you don't like your government DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Don't just sit their and whine about your 'privacy' or your 'freedoms' if you won't affect POSITIVE CHANGE in your community and your state first; then vote for your Federal officials or take their damn office from them by running yourself. I don't like privacy violations any more than you may -- or are you just upset that *whiny voice* big brother */whiny voice* is stepping on your toesie-woesies some more? Put that PlayStation controller down, brush the cheese doodles off your haX0r t-shirt and participate in society instead of trying to come at right angles to it.
You can blame that barrage on Dr. Laura; but if you want to be a biznatch I'll bring the bitch slap.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
And I said information security, not collection, dimwit. You have no clue what conditions I work and live under and any silver I may be handing over to my wife was harder earned than any gold you may have hanging from your ear.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
I've worked for two different government funded labs, so I'm a bit biased, but I think that government funded research is vital for the long term health of our country.
The great thing about working in government funded research is that you have the ability to fail. Failure can be good. Unfortunately, in the commercial world, failure is bad, and must be avoided at all costs- if you fail, you go out of business. But if you don't fail sometimes, you're not pushing the envelope hard enough, not taking any risks. Unfortunately, there has been much movement in the government to divert resources to private industry- to people looking for short term profit.
Private industry looks for short term gains- long term is 5 years, 10 years (or more) out is just too far. The government can afford to look that far out, or farther. That is where the neat stuff happens.
Someday, I'll be back there, back to making cool stuff, and trying to avoid the politics as much as possible.
--I'm most likely quite a bit older than you, well maybe not, but I ain't a kid, been active in politics since the 64 election, do quite a bit of activism,the latest "outside a norm" was when I was the only person in my county to file a complaint about closed source no accountability computer touch screen voting that was foisted on us, and I don't play ANY video games, don't even own a joystick, don't eat cheese doodles, and this so called "government" just ruled that they don't have to provide medical care to world war two or korean vets anymore if they don't feel like it, once again proving more or less what lying SOB's they are in most cases. If they are doing something positive for them, great! good luck, well done! Hope ya get the job and do well!
Besides that, I truly am sorry I assumed it was that new darpa information agency you were talking about,with the ridiculous goon illuminatiesque cult symbol abomination they have, my mistake, and I apologize. I shouldn't have assumed, but that was the biggee lately in the news that they are planning on spending tons of money and hiring lotsa IT guys and etc, if you can see that. Hoestly thought that was what you were talking about, given the 'crypto" nature of the wording of the post. Got to be 20 or 50 to 1 or more lately on that coverage over the vet hospital stuff. If I had known it was to provide services to vets I wouldn't have said squat. Vets get screwed all the time.
I apologize too. It was late; and I was in the mood for a scrap [which is why I *did* go and play a MMORPG game until my wife and boxer dog came to get me a little after midnight]. You are probably a bit older than me and I made a wrong assumption too (not that I'm 20, mind you; and I don't hold anything negative for being older). I shouldn't have spouted off either. I do get peeved when people think it is ego, not satisfaction at a job well done.
*Some* of us younger generation do have concerns for those less fortunate than us; and have a lot of respect and admiration for those that have come before us. Not that everyone believes me all the time because I try and spoil my [second, even] wife and kids.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
Also; I live where a lot of these places get built without the locals being involved - there are FWS, OPM, ATF, IRS, Coast Guard and other facilities around here and several more I will never know about because they keep hush hush and I'm the first to not approve - partly because they never bring in anyone locally they bring people from the DC metro area in to widen the economic gap between the average worker here and the Lexus (c'mon... Lexus!?!?) SUV driving types - and these aren't all IT people you have to realize. I am no fan of Big Brother-style behavior; but I also contradict myself because I do believe in our government and military -- if they do what we want them to do and that is serve and protect.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.