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Private Donor Saves Fermilab
sciencehabit writes "In what has to be an embarrasment for the U.S. Department of Energy, an anonymous donor has ponied up $5 million to keep the country's only remaining particle physics laboratory operating efficiently."
is that it's probably no embarrassment at all.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
It's not an embarrassment for the DoE, it's an embarrassment for the Bush Administration and the Republican party in general- despite driving this country's yearly deficit deeper and deeper and pushing our total debt to record levels, they can't even fund worthwhile projects with it.
Of course, the Republican party's low appraisal of science probably has a lot to do with it- after all, what good is science that might change peoples' minds about something (FLIP FLOP FLIP FLOP) when there's Muslims to kill?
Care about privacy? Read this!
Thank god for rich people
You can direct your appreciation towards me. Yes, me, Anonymous Coward. I sent the 5 million dollars.
at least there are some people (who have lots of money) left in this country who care about science
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Is there any practical application of particle physics research whatsoever? Yeah, I thought not.
I'm just not that into government using my tax dollars for such esoteric stuff. If someone in the private sector wants to donate or support that's fine, but the government should stay out out such trivial issues. There are many other useful and urgent things they should fund instead.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
I'm posting AC on purpose, but i'm a karma-whoring regular.
... overwhelmed and humbled by this gift. A couple people almost cried. It's ... well, it's a real morale booster and at the same time it's humbling. did i mention humbling? wow.
I work at Fermilab, and everyone i know (and that's a lot of people) is
Thanks a million (x5!) mysterious friend!
now back to the antimatter and neutrinos...
Particle physics is the key to penis enlargement.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Seriously, how much sympathy can you garner for an institution that can't stay solvent with a $320 million budget and damn near 2000 employees? $5 million is about 1.5% of their total annual budget, and this is what keeps them running? That's not a sign of poor support from the government, that's a sign of serious mis-management. Yes, it's probably very expensive to run a place like Fermilab, but you can't bitch when you're getting a third of a billion dollars straight from the pockets of the taxpayers every year.
It's an unfortunate reality that taxpayer funded institutions are often horribly inefficient, and pay little attention to keeping their costs down. Why should an organization that has proven that it's incapable of setting its books right, an institution that has a budget of over $160,000 per employee, play on our heart strings when they let people go? Sharpen up the operation, and then come cry when you run out of cash.
Mr. Wayne.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
his funding sources -- largely fundamentalist Christians -- don't give a hoot about particle physics. After all, "science" already contradicts Truth as they know it... or as it was re-written... or something like that. The literal word of God, only (mis)translated 3 or 4 times over the years...
Ignoring for a moment the argument about whether or not the government should be funding this lets just talk about the full article v.s. your post... From the full article "Fermilab's financial crisis began in December, when the U.S. Congress passed a last-minute budget for the 2008 fiscal year (ScienceNOW, 19 December 2007). Legislators whacked Fermilab's budget from the $372 million requested by the Department of Energy (DOE) to $320 million, $22 million less than the lab had received in 2007. To balance the books, lab officials said they would have to cut about 200 of the lab's then-1950 employees." You have gotten so used to bashing Republicans that you really are missing the point that both parties are corrupt and extending government beyond the constitutionally defined limits. Then each side argues about how they don't like the cuts and/or spending that was pushed from the other side and we all end up so worked up that we miss the point that the government should not be doing any of this stuff.
--- Liberty in our Lifetime
Assuming the donor was a US citizen, this shows what's great about the US. Someone who valued the research freely decided to fund the research. The government did not need to forcibly confiscate the $5 million dollars from innocent taxpayers against their will.
Gifts freely given enrich both the giver and the recipient. The people of the US excel in individual generosity.
Democrats will make donations to any major science facility over $50 illeagel just like they did with campains(spelling purposeful)
-- (this is a sig) My Computer Programming Forumhttp://www.programers.co.nr/
I really hope Fermilab can continue to do great research for the better of us all with this grant.
Isn't this just a reflection of the style of government in the US? There seems to be a strong emphasis on small government, and then relying on private philanthropy to keep other things running.
Hmm, government has basically always funded basic science research, whether that be a strong central government or the local lord. There isn't a huge amount of incentive for businesses to fund basic science research as it infrequently leads to a positive ROI in the nearterm. That doesn't mean that there isn't a societal good from basic science research, the last 100 years of technological advances are proof to the contrary, but the private sector just doesn't have the right conditions to do it so the only place left are private foundations and government and private foundations don't have nearly the resources to do it (I guess you can argue that the foundations would have more resources if the government took less but I don't buy it).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
You are thinking of the Babar experiment. Unfortunately, that has stopped taking data due to funding cuts. Scientists are slowly going through the last of the results, and are leaving SLAC for greener pastures.
SLAC will no longer be doing high energy experimental physics, and is being turned into a enormous synchrotron source. Whilst this will result in good science, I think it is somewhat sad that the once world leader of high energy physics is no more.
The US government decided not to support the international linear collider. That marked the end of high energy science in this country. Discovering the workings of the universe is just too expensive compared to spending our money fighting for part-ownership in some hydrocarbons buried under a far-off desert.
It wasn't too long ago when a group led by hedge fund manager Jim Simons donated $13 million to account for a budget shortfall that would have stopped the operations of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
> If the Democrats in Congress really wanted to end the war in Iraq, they could do
> it tomorrow by revoking its funding. But why would they end it, when it's their
> best polling issue?
Gas and food prices in addition to the current state of the struggling USA economy has superseded the country's current involvment in Iraq.
Perhaps not efficient enough if they need $5 million to keep going?
Move it to Las Vegas and have Tevatron double as the world's largest roulette wheel?
Base the entire center around games of chance - with a scientific twist.
In a year or two, US government will be asking Fermi Lab and Casino Inc. for money, not the other way around.
Don't thank me... Thank Tom and Jerry.
Got the idea for a Big F-in roulette wheel from them.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
OK, 3 finger the thing. Reboot, apply patches, etc.
Whatever.
The Constitution was designed for this kind of problem.
Deal with it.
So since the elders of an 18th century agrarian society somehow failed to specifically envisage the important technological advances that high energy physics could provide for a nation, then the government must abstain from all involvement in that area. Maybe some private business would pick up the slack and build a big particle accelerator for basic research. Maybe they could fund it by painting Taco Bell ads on the ring.
Few other countries would worry about such strict constructionist issues, however. They'd just go ahead and leave us in the dust as a technology backwater.
Bush proposes a budget & Congress can approve it. While some might gripe with some of Bush's funding choices, one of the most significant issues is that Congress has not passed the funding he has proposed. Instead, we are left with continuing resolutions where science is often left under funded.
Did anyone get those hex numbers in the middle to come out to 5 Meg?
You may not realize this, but a great many of us abandoned Bush a while back (somewhere around 2006), because it was clear that, if you care about morals, you can't permit an amoral leader. And at that point, it was pretty much undeniable that Bush lied to get us into the war (the recent memoir only confirms the propaganda campaign he waged).
So I wouldn't be so quick to cast blame, especially when it has very little to do with this story.
Yes, and universities would never have an incentive to invest in such research to attract the best and brightest students and faculty... oh wait, universities flock to such projects. No, no, clearly we must continue demanding the funding at gunpoint from our own citizenry. I'm sure if we voluntarily asked the public for donations they would be too greedy to fork over a cent!
"Saved" Fermilab? Give me a break.
They might have had to lay off 200 employees. Out of TWO THOUSAND. Because their budget was "slashed" by just 22M (less than 10% of the budget.) Christ. It's not embarrassing, and the lab was in no danger of being "lost."
Please help metamoderate.
Although I do not know how.
I just searched the charity list at www.networkforgood.com and there is a "FERMILAB FRIENDS FOR SCIENCE EDUCATION". But I don't see that you can just donate money to the lab directly.
If there was an easy, tax deductible way to do it... well ten bucks a pop times a million geeks starts to add up into some money.
You can sort of understand cutting funding to things like behavioral sciences or research on frogs or something. Their benefits are not always obvious to the layman.
You can also, given their ideology, understand why they want to de-fund climate research. That sort of thing leads to uncomfortable implications about John and Jane Doe's lifestyle in the exurbs.
But de-fund particle physics? Really? The successors to the folks who brought you the wonders of the atom bomb and who do all kinds of cool death-ray and weapons-applicable research (roughly)? To put it in terms even Bush and Congress should understand, "You like the boom-boom? They make the boom-boom."
How is it they cannot grasp that de-funding these facilities leads directly and quickly to the loss of our technological and military edge?
It's bad enough that they killed the supercollider. But killing the last of our first-rate physics labs is just plain nuts.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Gee, if only the 18th century elders had considered the fact that the constitution might need to change..Oh wait, they did.
I can think of three techniques off the top of my head that one can only do at a lab like Fermilab:
ARPES, Muon spin spectroscopy and neutron scattering. Materials scientists live and die by these techniques - and they investigate things like improved materials for hard drive read heads, new steel alloys, materials for solar cells, everything.
The sad thing is that if this money hadn't come along, it could have completely destroyed Fermilab. People think research produces papers which anyone can read and become an expert. How many people became great Java programmers after reading one book or a few papers? None - it takes practice, and many years at that. If you have to fire any of these guys and gals, they will never come back, and that knowledge is very expensive to lose. You can hire someone and train them, but it takes time, and many of the little secrets never make it into the published literature.
And just where do you think that universities get the money for basic research like this?
I wonder if there are enough slashdot users that we could keep fermilab going by each of us donating a cent. That way fermilab could keep making discoveries that make good slashdot stories. It's a win win relationship.
You're right. Ideally, we'd amend the constitution to specifically state that the government has the authority to do what needs to be done in a modern industrial civilization. But the end result would still be the same as what we have now: federal funding of large basic research laboratories.
There is also the CEBAF. However, there is apparently a difference between particle physics and atomic physics, which I hope someone more knowledgeable than myself can explain, 'cause i'm not sure exactly what it is...
Jefferson Lab is apparently doing some hardronic experiments, but the 12GeV upgrade still isn't done -- and it was started around ~2001? I know it was in early phases when I interned there in 2002, while we were upgrading the FEL from 1KW to 10KW.
This isn't a Republican or Democratic issue, it is a societal one. Year after year, administration after administration, we as a society have been saying "we don't really consider science/education/research all that important."
Just look at the trends: companies are increasingly seeking out technical professionals overseas because they're churning out greater and greater number of graduates with science/engineering degrees with China pushing out 600,000 such graduates compared to the US' 70,000 per year; and how can we compete in biotech when the majority of our citizens can't grasp genetics nor do they even believe in evolution (we beat Turkey though!)?
With the way we've been funding education and paying our teachers, we collectively give educators the big middle finger tipped with stinky poo every year. We're making these choices as individuals so we all have a hand in this appalling state of affairs.
Fermilab is barred from proposing and receiving science funding from the NSF or DOE on its own. Any high energy physics or computing project at Fermilab that gets funded has to be at least co-lead by a University professor. Over the last twenty years or so, as the universities became more and more aggressive about protecting their turf, more and more projects left the lab. When I left there six years ago, the writing was already on the wall. Smaller experiments were slashed in favor of the mega collaborations DZero and CDF, computing was shifted to the "Grid", and both trends were very efficient at shifting power and projects out of the lab. Except for operations, there was very little being done at the lab. One wonders if it was planned that way.
Jim Oberweis. He wanted Bill Foster to go back to his old job before November.
That comment was not a troll. To a Christian, if the knowledge gained at facilities such as Fermilab is not in the Bible, it is unnecessary. If the knowledge is in the Bible, it is redundant. Either way, basic research funding is a very low priority.
As someone who works at the collider at Brookhaven National Lab, I'm curious what standard they use to call it 'the country's only remaining particle physics laboratory'.
Wealthy individuals donating huge amounts to science? It's an embarassment for Google.
Congress controls the nation's purse strings. They had their chance on the Iraq war too. Not long after the election when the Democrats took a majority, it was time to vote in Iraq funding. It's not a perpetual thing, it periodically has to be re-approved by congress. So what this means is that if they failed to pass a bill that granted funding, it would be cut off. There wasn't the ability for the president to veto, since no bill = no funds.
Many people hoped that they'd use this opportunity to put a limit on the Iraq war. The bill could be worded to say you get funding, but only if a withdrawal date is agreed to or the like. That was indeed what was talked about and the president was not happy. Looked like a showdown was coming, but the president had no power. He could veto a bill he didn't like but lacking a funding bill, the money would run out and it'd be over by default.
So what happened? Congress sold out. They wanted their own pet projects. Chief among them is a minimum wage increase (which may sound good, but is proving problematic in areas of the country with low wages and cost of living) but others as well. They said "Ok you give us our pet projects, we'll support your pet war." Done and done, funding was passed and we are where we are.
So this as well is not a presidential issue. The president doesn't get to write laws. If the president doesn't like a bill, he can veto it, but that's all. However in terms of funding bills, continual vetos means the budget will go away by default.
People need to stop scapegoating all the nation's problem on the president. This idea that when Bush goes away, everything gets better is bogus. He has no small share of responsibility for the problems we face, but he is not at all alone. Congress is also heavily at fault. So hold your representatives accountable, don't just whine about the presidency. Blame where blame is due.
Thank God for you sir. The world needs more people who are cognizant of the value of research.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So when you are building your world view as to what a good career choice might be, and see the way some of the most dedicated and highly trained scientists and engineers are having to work at Fermilab, what are you going to take away from this?
When Congress cuts the budget, there's nothing the administration can do. This is patently wrong, as anyone who uses DOE funded national labs knows due to the weekly emails from lab personnel asking us to lobby lawmakers on their behalf. You're probably expecting me to say that it was Bush's fault, but I won't say that, either. Here's what happened:
1) Congress decided to increase funding to natural sciences. Republicans and Democrats agreed on it. The Bush administration (which does have heavy, heavy influence in the Republican-sponsored budgets in congress) agreed with Congress. Things looked good.
2) Democrats in Congress and the Republican Congress/Presidential administration started fighting about funding for veteran-benefits (D's wanted more, R's wanted less), the war (D's wanted a timeline for withdrawal, R's didn't), and several other issues. They needed to compromise, as usual.
3) The compromise they reached ended up cutting the funding increase that they ALL had supported, and which was already being spent. Instead, funding for natural sciences was cut. This is why the DOE, NSF, etc. are in their current situations.
Why did the politicians cut something they all agreed was worthwhile? I'm going to speculate that it was because they didn't really care about it much one way or another, and also because research funding is such a tiny part of the budget with virtually no lobbyist support that our esteemed leaders essentially forgot about it.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Umm, both houses are (D)
Not exactly. More precisely, both houses have a slim Democratic majority, and they're more or less pressured to continue budgeting for policy recently created and executed by the R's.
Without the momentum of those policies -- especially without certain high-profile foreign military adventures -- it's pretty clear the budget picture would look pretty different. Heck, just by introducing competitive bidding on Iraqi reconstruction contracts, it's plausible to suggest the budget picture would look at least $5 mil different. And all that's to say nothing of the Bush tax cuts.
I'll still agree that this makes the Democrats somewhat complicit. Congress does have the authority to simply refuse to fund the war -- or to provide only limited funding for it, opting instead to fund other things, at least in theory.
But in practice, it's pretty obvious where that was going to go.
And it's always important to remember that for the most part, legislation doesn't happen without executive influence while the houses of congress are this closely split.
we all end up so worked up that we miss the point that the government should not be doing any of this stuff.
I don't agree. It's certainly an easy out -- you definitely don't have to worry about public accountability or effective government anymore if you simply say the government shouldn't be doing/funding anything -- but in so doing, you effectively throw out one of a somewhat limited array of societal tools for getting things done.
Tweet, tweet.
And energize your collisions! The next time your hadron is traveling into the tube, it can be twice, yes twice as powerful!just five million dollars, donate today!
They are around but you can't really tell at a glance can you? The few I know are NOT happy with the destruction of their country, despite their dislike of Sadam, and neither should you be. If there are fewer immigrants from Iraq in the future than there were in the past or from other countries in the past it's because in the past we liberated people and today we do the opposite.
There was also the CLEO particle detector at the Cornell synchrotron, which was ended prematurely by the same budget cuts.
As with SLAC, the accelerator will now just be a giant x-ray source.
Whatever you think all those ';'s in the USC are for, congress can't provide for either the common defense or the general welfare without supporting science. The technological lead we currently enjoy was built by massive government investment in the sciences during the 50s, 60s and 70s, and we can lose it just as 'easily' as we gained it -both the Europeans and the Chinese are getting set to eat the US for breakfast technologically - by massive centrally managed investment in ..... science.
When the country falls into chaos, politicians talk about 'patriotism'. Lao-Tzu
OMG PONIED!
(I gave up my mod points for that little gem.)
I feel sorry for fermilab employees, for one it is run by the DOE (department of entropy), one the the most incompetent departments in the US gov. Look what has happened to the other DOE labs, like LLNL which has been completely F***ed by the DOE and the contractor they have running the facility. If I was a Fermilab employee I would be trying to get the hell out of there as fast as I could!
No, no, clearly we must continue demanding the funding at gunpoint from our own citizenry.
Saying we "demand funding at gunpoint from our own citizenry" is like saying we demand compliance with traffic law or *any* at gunpoint. I suppose there are some people out there who comply for *no other reason* other than that they might be shot or imprisoned (and those people are the reason why you need that stuff in the first place). The vast majority comply because they know it's part of a system that more or less works -- and that there are better ways to change it than puerile comparisons between taxation and theft.
Tweet, tweet.
Yep, its easy to rate something "troll" but what about a real answer? I wonder exactly the same thing. Anyone?
The US Federal Government has always provided some level of financial support for scientific research, even back in Jefferson's day. This Libertarian/Anarchist mindset from the parent would still have us all in log cabins and illiterate, had it been in power back in the day. Fortunately, the Founding Fathers did not intend for or conceive a government that did jack shit.
Luke, help me take this mask off
perhaps the first million could go on decoding that cryptic note!
You know, this wouldn't have happened if there was a "No physicists left behind" bill.
I dream in binary.
if they don't have 2/3rd's approval..
you forgot to mention that part dickface
feedlots, madrasas or homeschooling. After the Archdiocese of Detroit blew six figures of tax-free church money funding the passage of anti-gay laws in Michigan, I'm absolutely against public money going to any organization that has even a passing association with religion. But the quality and quantity of actual instruction in public school is appalling, mostly due to unrealistic demands from self-serving, clueless parents abdicating their parental duties.
The best choice is not to have kids at all, but parents don't want their children to even hear that it's possible. Yeah, we're fscked.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
Sometimes, the most important work is the one that shows what doesn't work. Just keep that in mind when judging the work that's done in a field you don't understand.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
You know everyone here is blaming Bush for slashing science, with the implicit thought that only the supposedly erudite liberals are the ones that ever fund science. Yet, if these people actually had 1/10th of the curious mind that George Bush has, they might have actually gone and compared Fermilab's 2000 Budget of 277 million dollars versus the currently requested Fermilab budget of 377 million dollars and realized the Bush has asked for significantly more money for Fermilab. Then, instead of moaning about the Republican approach to science, we might observe that is in fact DEMOCRATS who control the Congress, and DEMOCRATS who cut the Fermilab budget.
The fact of the matter is, DEMOCRATS are the ones, right now, who are slashing science spending. DEMOCRATS are the ones who want to put a stop to manned space exploration, curtail unmanned space exploration, already killed an unmanned mission to look for life on Europa and nuclear powered spacecraft. Everyone bashes Bush on energy research, but Clinton didn't do jack shit for 8 years on alternative energy. In contrast, Bush has massively funded every sort of bio-energy science that there is, and put the subsidies in place to speed adoption, and now, it's actually -working-.
Yeah, some REpublicans might be a bit goofy about evolution. Big deal. Evolution doesn't make any consumer products and information complexity theory is a better foundation for biology than evolution is anyway. But, Democrats are way more goofy about government as a redistribution of wealth vehicle and about fighting technological progress so that they can create more manual jobs. Yeah, Democrats can go on about how much they love science, but they never want to actually PAY FOR IT. You can bash Republicans as much as you want, when it comes to every major technology initiative over the last three decades, its been your friendly neighborhood warmongering right wing lunatics that have laid the conceptual framework for the Internet, funded all sorts of applied physics and chemistry, funded pretty much anything that looks like it would be a good consumer product, and the numbers -prove it-.
Seriously, just go get spreadsheets, and compare Clinton's science budgets, with Bush's, Carter's science budgets with Reagan's, and even Nixon's science budgets with Johnson's, and you will find that for the most part, Republicans spend far more on research and development than scientists do.
And finally, yes, every major university should be kissing Republican ass because it was Republicans that allowed private universities to become cash cows by filing for patents on research paid for by federal dollars.
My prediction is thus: Barrack Obama pulls the plug entirely on NASA, if he is elected. Yeah, Democrats are all in favor of science, they just don't want to ever actually do it.
Frauds.
This is my sig.
Yes, and yes. The USA has been largely taken over by religious fundamentalists. To the extent that they don't rule outright, their influence is still pervasive, and moves the entire country in that cultural direction. Science and scientists are openly held in amused contempt by about half of Americans, if not more.
They respect engineers and people who can make stuff, but science for science's sake seems pointless. As Ronald Reagan, the official saint of the Right Wing, said, "Why should we fund intellectual curiosity?" That's not a gaffe--that's a normal right-wing attitude towards intellectual curiosity, i.e. basic science.
You can make an argument that Christianity itself isn't inimical to science. I won't agree with you, but I acknowledge that you can make a case for that. You can't, however, make a case that religious fundamentalism isn't harmful to science. The hostile relationship between fundamentalism and science is glaringly obvious, and there just isn't much to talk about here. As long as fundamentalists are running our culture, our downward spiral regarding science education will continue.
We'll still be on top for a while, but only because our initial lead was so great and we still have so much more money. I don't think they'll turn us into Afghanistan anytime soon, but they're going to keep trying.
In other countries there are typically four or five parties that have to come to some sort of consensus to get anything done, and that encourages a wider variety of viewpoints in government what tension is resolved more often by eliminating points of contention instead of horse-trading them. But in the US, election law doesn't allow for that sort of cross-pollination and the people most capable of bringing about that kind of change stand to lose too much from it.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
While science institutions must be fully funded, they are also not very productive. There is a lot of redundancies in labs like this and Universities.
The problem is not with the actual brains, but with administration, janitorial staff, support staff. Their productivity tends to be below par. But when lab needs to make cuts, it ends up with cutting science not streamlining the non-science bits.
What labs like this need is a bottom-line no-nonsense manager to deal with the support staff and for administration to realize that the scientists are their money making assets. Scientists must be the last to go. But in reality, science is first to be cut and administration covers its asses.
MOD PARENT UP. There are MASSIVE spillover benefits to basic research. Economics guarantees that goods with spillover benefits will be underproduced by a free market. It is of critical importance that the government fund basic research.
I think you mean Science!
In all fairness, maybe people would care about science more people would stop using "science" to make poor public policy decisions (such as the RDA on sodium, or the endangered species act). Science can be useful, but it's often used by politicians to push a separate agenda. That is to the detriment of science. It doesn't help that you have liberal nut-job groups like the "Union of Concerned Scientists" who put the word in their fucking name, even though they have nothing to do with science.
You would not believe how hard it is to convince fellow Christians to pursue scientific endeavors. They all fear the discrimination and ostracism they will face in the field. Honestly, I can only stand it because I'm really arrogant and I like to argue.
Bush gave a funding ultimatum to Congress. Basically, we would have faced a guaranteed full year of a stubborn president shooting down everything coming out of Congress.
Congress countered by slashing budgets on programs that the current executive branch clearly doesn't care about.
You can blame the Democrats, or you can blame the Republicans. Ultimately they both share some of the blame here. Most politicians are useless things that only look out for themselves.
But it is likely some of your descendants will live on Mars thanks to these missions.
Opps, this is slashdot, so forget about the descendants.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Only a complete moron would believe that the Democrats are fully responsible for the significant funding cuts to science this year.
BOTH parties are to blame. If you really dislike this, write letters to your Congressmen! Don't sit around in slashdot blaming one party or the other, THEY BOTH SCREWED UP.
The Democrats are barely in control, and you have to remember that a few of the Congressmen wear a (D) in name only. If you know anything about politics you'd already know that... politicians are all two-faced.
Every field of science gives back to society in one way or another.
We've built 26km of superconductor for the first time thanks to the engineering teams at CERN.
People like you are ignorant. You fail to realize that science for the sake of science often brings more benefits to society than focused research.
Medical imaging devices
Cancer treatments
ANYTHING that uses lasers
Instruments that go to higher precision than ever before in EVERY field
High energy physics experiments have given us numerous benefits beyond answering basic scientific questions.
If people like you were always in charge, we'd still be in the dark ages.
$320 million is a drop in the bucket for the US govt. You DO know that we're talking about less than 0.3% of the budget, right?
Their books are kept fairly tight. I can assure you this, having dealt with Fermilab in the past. It costs a lot of money to run scientific laboratories. And it's worth every penny.
That is EXACTLY why we should be funding places like Fermilab! If we took the money required to build a single F-22 and increased Fermilab's budget, everyone in the US (and the world) would see a far greater return on that investment. (A single F-22 costs $138 billion FYI)
The government isn't a charity. You are correct. This is why we should stop letting corrupt agencies like DARPA go delinquent on contracts and rip us off all the time. If anything, we should be cutting the Department of Defense's budget! Their book keeping is the worst in the history of any government on Earth!
Why should we bother funding research when very soon the Christ will "come again" and we will have the final battle in Isreal, I mean really, we should save our money to spend on important projects like getting soldiers killed in Iraq so that they can rise again in the final battle.
How can you be so blinded to that fact?
1) The Democrats have a very, very slim majority. This is usually not enough to get anything done because the party is full of people who wear a (D) but are truly (R) in spirit.
2) Many of the Democrats opposed the science budget cuts. Many Republicans supported it. Both parties share blame here. You should actually investigate this for yourself. Do some research before you open your mouth next time.
3) The funding cut was a purely political move. Both sides wanted it because it makes BOTH sides look bad. This wasn't done by the Democrats, it was done by DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS!
4) Most PhD holders (ie the physicists working in these labs) are themselves DEMOCRATS. More Democrats see the good in doing scientific research. More Democrats support it.
Politicians - working together to better screw you.
Placing the blame on a single party is meaningless and stupid. It makes you look like a moron.
My GF is a teacher and she works much harder than I (a software geek) do on a regular bases. Sure I have the customer emergencies and tight schedules, but her workload is unrelenting. Lesson planning, grading, and harassing parents to try to get them to actually parent.
The whole "once they have tenure" complaint may have some merit, but good luck surviving long enough to get tenure anymore.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
Make public transport free and it'll cost less to run - setting up and running ticketing systems costs so much $$$ and don't cover the costs anyway - dispense with them and you can run the whole system for less.
http://pbs.org/cringely
I guess there won't be any more races between Fermilab and the CERN, since the CERN doesn't seem to have such funding issues.
:p
Europe wins
Brookhaven received a donation $13 million so that the 2006 RHIC run could go for 20 weeks, vs 12. (The summary to the contrary, I would say that BNL is a particle physics lab.)
http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/PR_display.asp?prID=06-X2
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=328
This year though, the budget process is such that there may not be a RHIC run at all!
Compared to IRAQ, pretty much everything is free.
They should be spending those trillions on energy research, not on "stabilizing" the price of oil.
No sig today...
Though, there is variation in any population, so I suppose you do have the choice to turn your back on about 2 million years of human evolutionary success and just be a selfish git. ;p
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
OK, somebody pucker up and tell me why BNL is not a particle physics laboratory. How many others are there really?
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Hmm these guys can spend 700.000.000.000 dollars a year on troops fighting an invisible enemy abroad but they won't fund the research on invisible elements at home? No wonder they're going down.
If it were only embarrassing, we could get over it in short order. It isn't a social faux pas, though. It is a disaster for the researchers involved now, and its consequences for and all of us will take years to unfold.
Boom-and bust layoffs and hirings of researchers are at least as damaging to the research as layoffs and hirings of people doing routine factory work -- and that doesn't cover the damage done to the finances of the researchers and the lives of their families.
Unstable funding does terrible damage to basic research, for a simple reason: it discourages the next generation from entering the field, because they can't count on the government keeping its share of the bargain that makes life as a researcher livable.
It used to be that in the U.S.A., the young researcher with talent could count on a simple bargain: pay lower than that offered in private industry in return for stability of funding and tenure at a given research institution (a university or an independent lab), with the opportunity for recognition from peers for work that moved the field forward. The results of the research would belong to the public, who funded the research.
The gain for the public: people with extraordinary talent worked harder than they would in any private industry for less than private industry would have paid them, and then shared the results of their work. The gain for the researcher: conditions allowed the researcher to focus obsessively on the research, with the opportunity for recognition from peers and the public.
There were safeguards against bringing dolts into the field and further ones that helped prevent funding undeserving work. It was not easy to enter the field -- barriers included the difficulty of the work itself as well as peer review -- of Master's Thesis, of Doctoral Thesis. People who passed those barriers had to obtain funding through application for a grant; the application was reviewed by senior people in the field. Work taking more than a few years was subject to a "sunshine law" of sorts -- the initial funding lasted a limited time, and the researcher had to apply for another grant every few years, which was also reviewed by senior people.
This system of funding worked well, in that it selected for people devoted to a field and paid for work that would move the field forward. Public funding for public knowledge provided an arena for research that was not of immediate interest to private industry -- pharmaceutical companies, manufacturing firms. We all benefitted from the results of this work.
Anyone who wishes to enter such a field must have the promise of stability. Without that promise, the prospect is for life without a family, and perhaps for changes of job and location every couple of years, for life. Sane people look at such a prospect and leave the country for another that is willing to honor the required bargain, or choose private industry, or avoid research entirely.
The consequences of this? Research funded by the public for the public benefit will suffer a brain drain. U.S. citizens will benefit less in future from the fruits of irreplaceable labor offered at cut rates.
Business and Gov't partner or play chicken all the time (depending on your perspective) and often to the benefit of business (though it's sometimes debatable in research areas). Whether it's research funding or development subsidies, if business can get away with it, they'll push costs (especially long-term costs) to gov't whenever they can. However, in cases of gov't budget crunch, a smart gov't manager will have an incentive to push back and defund items that _are most likely to get private funding/donations/grants_.
I don't know if that's the case here, but in general that's the game (actually it's not intentional, it's more about pressure). This sort of thing is most clear in places like california where voters have to approve just about everything, so issues that voters care about (schools, libraries, potholes) perpetually appear on the ballot for funding. Sucks for reform though, cause there's less pressure for mgmt improvement.
Compared to IRAQ, pretty much everything is free. They should be spending those trillions on energy research, not on "stabilizing" the price of oil.
Yes, but, but... TERRISTS!!! er, um EVERWHERE!!!!!! and , eh, BE A-FEARED!!!! cause, ah, THEY'S GONNA GIT YA!!! and , oh hell, BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Here's a fact...those support personnel keep the place running. Without them the accelerator would be down regularly. Because of an introduction of a control system on a system wide scale that allows monitoring of the vast majority of the facilities..they have been able to eliminate unscheduled downtimes and save millions in unscheduled downtime costs. The engineers who maintain the control systems down to the mechanics that fix and replace broken/malfunctioning equipment before it affects the accelerator operation (they know about problems before they become major problems as a result of the control systems), are the people to thank at the facility for keeping the place running. Without them there would be no science. The situation at the lab is actually just the opposite of what you are describing. There have been rumors of the entire maintenance department getting axed in the coming years, but do they talk about cutting the physicists? No, they need to keep the brainpower there just in case they get good research projects. The facility is run by the scientists, they are the ones who decide policy.
Not only that, a $22 million dollar cut might be painful, but I am positive there are opportunities for the Lab to run more efficiently to make-up the shortfall. Playing the "layoff card" is much easier to an organization than for it to truly assess that it needs to become smarter about its operations. When an organization's management seems like their only play is workforce reduction, it means they have either not managed personnel supply and demand effectively over time, or they are too lazy or defensive to examine the fundamentals of how things are done operationally.
How do you resolve the situation where we as a society (or as individuals if you like) want basic research to be performed, but the ROI isn't enough for a business to resolve it?
Please do not make the individualist checkbook argument, or I'll find you and eat your children.
There are valid answers to this question, but they're difficult to achieve. I think Libertarians and Constitutionalists need to focus on ways of achieving those answers before they start demanding an end to public funding. This cold-turkey mentality is frightening and stupid, and it makes me very, very angry.
The beating science has taken since July 21, 1969 after "we beat those dirty commie bastards" has been astonishing. Every year I keep thinking that the pendulum is going to swing back, and every year I'm surprised at how far away we swing from center.
Clearly, Fermilab lost out funding over much more worthy initiatives. These include:
$7,556,660 for grape and wine research.
$22,716,664 for 18 projects by Senate appropriator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), including $1,574,400 for a cooperative agreement between the Department of Energy and Inyo County and $107,256 for long term sediment management at Humbolt Bay.
$787,200 by House appropriator Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) for advanced green design at the Museum of Natural History in Minneapolis.
$19,942,000 for four projects funding presidential libraries.
$50,000,000 for REAL ID grants.
$16,833,240 for eight projects by Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee member Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), including: $3,937,600 for the Tongass Timber Supply Pipeline; $3,937,600 for the United States Geological Survey Volcano Observatory; $2,953,200 for the Alaska Conveyance Program; and $492,200 for the Craig Recreation land transfer.
$5,906,400 by Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) for Great Smokey National Park, North Shore Road Settlement.
$6,700,000 for two projects funding fitness centers at two military facilities.
$14,878,000 added by the House for the International Fund for Ireland (IFI).
$33,005,420 for 35 projects by Senate appropriator Christopher (Kit) Bond (R-Mo.), including: $1,470,000 for statewide bus and bus facilities; $551,250 for the Heart of America Bicycle/Pedestrian Bridge; $367,500 for improvements to Downtown Square Street in Grant City; $367,500 for redevelopment of the 11th and Grand neighborhood in Kansas City; and $183,750 for restoration of the Poplar Bluff Historic Depot.
$18,071,200 for 17 projects by House appropriator John Olver (D-Mass.), including: $5,880,000 for development and construction of the MBTA Fitchburg to Boston Rail Corridor Project; $1,470,000 for downtown streetscape in Pittsfield; $784,000 for the Franklin Regional Transit Center; $735,000 for MART bus and commuter facilities; $269,500 for the Barrington Stage Company for the renovation and buildout of the Berkshire Music Hall and Octagon House in Pittsfield; and $196,000 for the Massachusetts Landscape Connectivity Study.
Others can be found at http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reports_pigbook2008.
The little guy just ain't getting it, is he?
Yeah, those 6 nobel prizes in physics from Bell Labs weren't anything worthwhile for anyone.
hahahahahaha! what a raving moron. thanks for the laughs.
Is the NCNR not a particle physics lab? Sure it's only cold neutrons... none of this fancy schmancy high energy mumbo jumbo, but they're still particles right? Last time I checked it was still in operation; expanding to a new guide hall if I heard correctly.
Compared to the 309 total US Nobel's in science from 1951-2000 it is but a small drop in the bucket.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Perhaps they are "both corrupt", but that's neither here nor there with respect to this issue.
What is going here is an instance of "Eating your seed corn." People do that when they are too stupid to look to the future, or too focused on the short term.
In this case, we're focused on the short term because we're up to our eyeballs in deficits. We went on a spending spree while cutting taxes at the same time. The results were predictable, and by some, desirable. It was called the "starving the beast" theory, and it was used by those who were supposedly against Federal spending as a justification for doing more Federal spending. This is exactly the result which the advocates of "starving the beast" were striving for: to make it financially impossible to sustain spending on things that aren't in their view "essential".
I agree, it makes no difference which party was responsible for the budget in question. The damage was already done.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The DOE Office of Science has multiples sub-offices, including Fusion, Basic Energy Sciences, High Energy Physics and Nuclear Physics. Fusion: The 2008 Omnibus spending bill cut all US funding for ITER, the International Tokamak Experimental Reactor. Basic Energy Sciences: mostly funds small university groups and the accelerator "light sources" and particle sources those groups use. It didn't suffer too badly. Most of SLAC's funding now comes from BES. There are still some groups at SLAC working on high energy physics in connection with Fermilab and CERN (LHC). High Energy Physics - Fermilab is the only high energy physics lab left in the US. As was mentioned above, the last high energy experiment at SLAC was shut down prematurely as a result of the 2008 budget. The Tevatron at Fermilab will be shut down at the end of either FY09 or FY10, depending on budgets and the progress of LHC. Nuclear Physics - Funds the CEBAF accelerator at Jefferson Lab, the RHIC accelerator at Brookhaven, and the university groups which do research at either. These people look at nuclei - how they hang together, how the particles within each proton or neutron behave in a nucleus rather than when they're all "alone" as in a high energy experiment, etc.
That isn't a straw man, but a battle over epistemology and the nature of rationality. ID advocates want to redefine science to include the supernatural.
I'm not sure which science you're referring to. The global warming issue is mainstream consensus in the climatalogical community. The only people who are saying "it's been politicized" are right-wing naysayers, which is the same thing they say about everything they don't like. That's a garden-variety right wing attack that attempts to discredit something by alleging bias but not by addressing the actual arguments made.
Trying to discredit science by saying "it's been politicized" every time it doesn't agree with the Republican platform IS politicizing science--they're creating the problem, then pointing to the problem as a reason why we should trust, say, Rush Limbaugh over, say, Carl Sagan. Who do you think we should trust--Limbaugh, or Sagan?
Aren't we all so glad now that those "anti-science" republicans were replaced by "pro-science" democrats in congress two years ago? The truth is that there are pro-science republicans and pro-science democrats. There are also republicans AND democrats who have concerns about moral and ethical boundries (which does NOT make them anti-science) and there are republicans AND democrats who are hostile to science. When democrat leaders use science to appeal to another voting block by claiming that democrats are pro-science and republicans are anti-science, serious people should remember things like this and see the rhetoric for what it is...BULL. If Pelosi, Reid & company were truly "pro-science", this would never happen, NIH & NASA would be properly funded, etc.
Yes, the left is more socialistic. I'd be glad to respond to an argument as to why that might be a bad thing, but I'm afraid that "goofy" doesn't quite suffice.
Socialism doesn't work for two reasons. Public ownership is a myth and trading rationing for scarcity is not really an improvement.
Public ownership is a myth. Someone does own the property that is made public and that is the institutions that administrate it. They use that property to dole out favors and powers and so it creates a tremendous abuse in the allocation of resources, which, is generally what we see in countries that have gone socialist.
Both socialism and capitalism try to deal with the fundamental problem of scarcity. Capitalism says that whoever has the most money gets the resource, that is, prices go up on it. We see this in America today - the price of oil goes up as the commodity becomes scarce. Socialism, by contrast, takes the same finite resource and merely redistributes based on some idea of fairness as determined by the bureaucracy.
What happens, though, is that, because there is no price incentive, there tends not to be any reason to solve the problems of that shortage of the resource. That there is a bureacracy means that advancement is political and is disconnected from solving the economic problems at hand. So what you get in socialism is a lot of finger pointing, a reduction in the amount of the available resource, then dishonesty and finally some increasing degree of repression as the government must crush anyone who dissents from their world view.
history has shown, again and again, that socialism fails, so, its not even about the bile distaste for those who are like the idea of ceding one's economic freedom to a "like minded" bureaucrat. It simply doesn't work.
This is my sig.
I have an 8 year old son and a 6 year old daughter. They are receiving said "free" public education.
I have little hope of getting them to go into science or technology. While reading is stressed in their curriculum, math is only covered to the extent necessary to pass the standardized tests. Their science curriculum consists of weather and ecology, all geared towards propagandizing them into being good "green" citizens (not a bad goal, but exclusively?).
My son excels at math (my daughter, in kindergarten, is just getting the basics, so too early to tell). He tries his best to hide his abilities from his peers; it's not socially acceptable to be good at math. Looking forward at what both kids are likely to get in the remainder of elementary, middle, and high school, they'll get heavy doses of the liberal arts, and almost nothing in the sciences.
Cultural change indeed. I see nothing that makes me think it'll happen any time soon.
Could be Gates, Alan, or maybe Woz?
I used to work in D0 at Fermilab and of all of the places that I've worked since, Fermi was the best place for an engineer like me. I was actually able to do real engineering work while still a student and work that mattered. Also, the environment is casual yet everyone is a complete professional. It is also a very beautiful place to work because of the entire preserve around it and the area in general. I hope Fermilab never shuts down.
The mysterious donor was identified as:
EMPLOYEE NUMBER BASSE SIXTEEN
http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/ Take a look at the right-hand side of the page. It lists several links to both papers and press releases describing discoveries made during the last couple of years. And these are only those analyses that were deemed "press" worthy. Most get published in journals which you probably wouldn't ever bother to investigate before trolling here.
And that's just CDF. There are several other ongoing experiments at Fermilab, which I don't know as much about.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
If this is off topic, please mod it as such.
....?
What scares me about America's lack of priorities in spending money on useful science research and development is that it seems the Republican strategy is thus:
1) Run up an insurmountable debt.
2) Let a Democrat come in and fix their mess over 8 years
3) Bring another Republican back in to screw America's budget and priorities back up
4)
5) Profit! at every step.
At the rate we're going, we will need forward-thinking presidents for at least 4 full terms to get meaningful change.
By that time I will be 45 years old. This thought makes me feel both helpless and sad.
The only alternative I see is to have someone with balls say "We're going to continue to run up Amerca's debt at the rate we did for Iraq, but we're going to put it toward science, education, and infrastructure" in the boldest ballsy move since the New Deal.
I can hope, can't I?
-
And yes, I would also agree the best chance of actually passing a bill would be to tie funds to troop withdrawals ... too bad the Dems are (apparently) unable to vote their (professed) consciences. They're also way behind on the other important legislative items of the day - do you suppose it's due to the need to run for reelection/higher office? (Yeah, I am abso-goddamm-lutely looking at you, Barack & Hillary, & John too, how about you get your butts back to Washington and do the job you were hired for!)
And finally, yes, I really do think that all politicians are liars. I've done tech support for city & state governments, and spent time with a number of federal-level pols as well, and every single one of them uses the 'calculus of greatest effect' to make their decisions. You may make a perfect pitch for your special need (say, more funds for libraries) and they may tell you (and actually believe it) that they will make it happen, but 5 minutes later they will be saying the same things to the next constituent/lobbyist/newshack/whoever. The politician's stock-in-trade is their ability to make people believe they care about your problems. It doesn't mean that they are bad people, but it does mean you should never believe they will follow-thru until you actually see it happen.
As the saying goes, an honest politician is one who stays bought. True enough for government work, no?
Hmmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
At the basis of all of this, we've lost track of what science really is. We have far too large a tendency to confuse science with "ooh! shiny!" and other trappings of technology. (see my sig) If I wanted to sum science up in one sentence:
Be prepared to be astounded by nature and the universe, and perhaps have your beliefs overturned.
If you're not prepared to accept the latter, you're not doing science.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I think that our politicians want to keep their serfs ignorant and stupid so that they re-elect them.
Because a strong argument can be made that investing in public transit is cheaper than continuing to expand and maintain the existing road infrastructure to accomodate increasing population?
Gas/vehicle taxes don't even come close to the cost of constructing and maintaining roadways, at least in the United States.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
I hope he was wrong, because 'smart' is such a moving target. I read recently that in some standardized intelligence assessment the most common answer to a specific demographic (call it a 10-year old boy, but I'm just making that up) to the question, "What do a dog and a rabbit have in common?" the answer one hundred years ago was, "You use a dog to hunt a rabbit", but now the answer is expected/commonly, "they're both mammals".
I think the world is getting harder, and some part of the upper sigmas of the curve are up to the challenge, and will continue tobe, but to be smart enough to plan a society is really hard, and getting the maximal area under the curve there is even harder. I hope Plato's view is simply the pre-ox world view of Galton, and that we really are a smart race, in general.
Rather than try to get everybody to be smart and then plan out how the world should look, I think we do better to ensure that Government isn't powerful to maim, kill, and rob everybody blind, and then allow small pockets of society to do what they're best at, as specialists.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
There isn't a huge amount of incentive for businesses to fund basic science research as it infrequently leads to a positive ROI in the nearterm.
How easily we forget the very foundations of our geek society, UNIX and the C programming language, were created at Bell Labs.
Making fun of dumb people since 2009
AC, try to keep up ... humour was intended ... you laughed ... who is a raving moron the fool that laughs or the prophet that made him laugh. Dark/sick humour works, because of the truth/reality connected to the seemingly insane rant.
... Governor to Mayor), feeble and pitiable ... Bush&Cheney are just the flavour of the sickness today. BinLadin and the Pope are no different from the other ugly evil little actors on the modern global stage ... we all get buried eventually, but these clowns may take it all to a new level ... from slaves to slaughtered to extermination to genocide to suicidal-species extinction is a real possibility for our species.
At least half the voting USA public has proved themselves to be morons in the past few national elections. I suspect, the next election to reflect more of the same moronic behaviour.
Stupidity breeds contempt, most USA politicians find their constituents contemptible. I find the condition of the USA today, thanks to the past few sets of politicians (POTUS to Congress
Anyway, as Mr. Gump would say, raving morons are as raving morons do.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
My fantasy is to independently get myself to Mars and do research, develop technology, etc. without all the bureaucracy, IP issues and utter stupidity you have to deal with on Earth to get anything done in science. While I'd love to detail all my super-cool ideas of technologies I'd make, the point is that you know its a sad time when geek space-faring fantasies rule out NASA.
My webcomic
Congress voted on the "war" (which, in fact, it is not) before the Democrats were in charge. So you comments are totally off-base. That was done when the Republicans controlled the Whitehouse and Congress as well.
I don't care if you call Democrats dastards -- they are, almost as much as Republicans are -- but don't blame them for voting for the "war"!!! Replubicans were in pretty much total control at the time.
You must think readers here are idiots.