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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."
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...
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.
I agree with you, but I think the timing of the US's scientific stagnation is also uncanny. It's been several generations since the last influx of extremely bright and educated scientists (and philosophers) from conquered lands. Iraq, I have to say, hasn't netted anything of the sort (with all due respect to Iraqis).
Is there a problem with the handing on of scientific knowledge in the US? Or is this a reflection of American cultural shortcomings? It seems to me that US culture is too shallow to recognize the importance of free & fair education 'for all'. If you don't provide equal opportunity to every child to excel and prove themselves in academia, then the chances of plucking the brightest from the far reaches of the bell curve diminish.
I say this knowing full well I'm going to be modded a troll or flaimbait or something.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
Democracy? Since when is America a democracy?
The problem is that America is not a democracy, and is nothing close. It is virtually guaranteed that:
So, because of this "republic" two-party system, we're screwed. We have no real voice.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
The government shouldn't fund it because the government isn't a charity. The money the congress spends is not theirs to give to causes, no matter how good the cause or how altruistic the motive.
If the American people don't value basic research enough to donate to it voluntarily, then they should have that choice. Basic research may be valuable to all as you say, but it is not essential (unless it's specifically for national defense). Money shouldn't be taken from people by force to fund luxuries.
An article in an Australian newspaper pointed out that it's costing us more to build a new ticketing system for public transport in Melbourne than it cost to send the Pheonix Lander to mars.
Quite amusing, really!
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?
What's going to happen is that there will be a severe wealth gap (gini coefficient) developing between those who do science and those who don't (aka. the shallow culture). This is already happening (as evidenced by the creative class: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0205.florida.html
and the geek class:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/23/opinion/23brooks.html
and it will just get worse. There's not really too much to fear if you have a Science degree and a bit of business sense, but if you don't, watch out.
No amount of whining on slashdot, or politician concern will change it. It's a culture that has to change.
Look at the US Congress. 60% lawyers, 20% lifetime politicians, 1% scientists and engineers.
compared to who?
I mean, I know they *complain* a lot about their pay, but here is some pay scales here in maine: http://www.teacher-world.com/teacher-salary/maine.html
not huge, but be aware of the median values in the state: http://www.state.me.us/spo/economics/economic/householdincome.htm
I'll save you the math, statewide the average income is 34.5k/year for an entire family.
So, a teacher with NO experience can walk into a teaching job and start earning almost as much as most households in maine.
and they get 3 months off a year plus vacations.
Really, my heart bleeds.
The teacher's union cares nothing for education. Standing in the way of vouchers proves it. any place in north america that has experimented with parent choice as a motivator for schools and assignment of funding has seen dramatic success, yet, the teacher's union won't hear of it. really, read up. harlem is looking to switch wholesale..
I love teachers and have several as close friends. and the union is a horrible monstrosity that shows that wild un-unionized labor is horribly exploitable, so is a system with a heavily entrenched union, just by different people.
Perhaps it's time the legislation was put in place to ensure that government actually is representative of the people. Like jury service, onyl better paid, so people actually want to do it.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
But making it free would make libertarians and wannabe economists cry out: "Socialism ! Bad ! Why should my tax money support anything, you communist swine ? Free market ! Free market ! Free market !"
It's politically better to have a wasteful payment system than to give the appearance of being anything but ultra-rightwing free market fundamentalist.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Some times mass transit systems can actually increase revenue by lowering prices. The real question is capacity, prices are used as a rationing tool, raise the price to keep people off in accord with capacity, I think mass transit systems should lower prices and try to maximize ridership.
The US education system has a lot wrong with it, but those things have a WHOLE lot less to do with the amount of money spent or the cultural importance, than say, the state of union agreements or the burden of proof in situations where the school tries to do something someone somewhere finds objectionable.
Denmark for instance has a spectacular school system, and they use something very close to school vouchers, which get all the touchy-feely my-heart-will-go-on I-love-the-children people in this country on the verge of a heart attack. For some reason, amking schools *earn* the ability to retain students is *really* bad for students, even though history proves otherwise.
FanFictionRecs.net
Actually, the Bush administration requested more money for basic science than the Democratic controlled congress ended up allocating.
I understand that not many here caught that... not everyone has their salaries paid through this process.
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.
You're probably right. Most of modern science (Mathematics, quantum mechanics, relativity theory etc) was founded in Europe and reached its high point just around WWII, during which time many of the scientists migrated to America. Europe lost much of its religiosity at the same time as the great scienfic discoveries were made, whereas America has always held on to religion. Education has certainly played a major part in this, but I think there is a fundamental difference in how intellectual pursuits are viewed in general. In Europe much of the culture was shaped by an elite that held intellectuals in hig esteem - kings and princes had their court astronomers, alchemists, poets, musicians etc, the upper classes followed suit by supporting the same things, so being intellectual was a high status thing.
America, on the other hand, has never had kings and has always had their misgivings about that very thing; so by association intellectuals have always been seen as suspicious, not least because they also tend to be irreligious or atheists. And now that the big stars of science, Einstein, Bohr etc, have all died, people are much more willing to let their schools turn into Christian madrasas. Of course it doesn't really help that things are taking a turn for the worse in the West, especially in America, I suppose - in the 50es and 60es our lives got constantly better "because of science", so people loved it, but now people feel disappointed that "science" doesn't seem to come up with more improvements to solve the problems, never mind that actual science still is our only hope for warding off the climate and energy crisis we've landed ourselves in. So it is only natural that they turn away from science, perhaps, and try religion.
I like to kill your couch. HE DIED HARD! MOO.
I've argued this before. Double the salary, halve the term limit of every elected office and make political office a cumpulsory lottery system for every american over 30 with a HS diploma. This would reduce the power of lobbyists as they wouldnt be able to gradually buy a politician over the span of a career and it would limit the damage any an official could do.
The counter argument to this was that it would increase the power of the beurocracy and all non elected governmental positions and any lobbiing would shift focus to them.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
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.
The problem isn't with handing on scientific knowledge. It's with handing on middle management, who inevitably evolve to maintain their fiefdoms, and whose purpose is organization itself, not the goal of the organization's charter or funding. The best engineers, and the best leaders for those engineers, accomplish their work in spite of this. But NASA has become overwhelmed by this bureaucratic group, and it actively impedes work that is not on the montly 'employee goals' or the 'quarterly plan'.
Good point. As a former scientist myself, I left the academic world for a number of reasons:
1) Being poorly paid, commensurate to the qualifications, experience, and quality/scale of work. If I did what I did for a company, I would have been a senior executive on a large bonus. As it was, we got no performance pay to increase motivation, no bonuses whatsoever, few holidays, and we were packed into a cramped office fighting over crumbling PCs). Did I mention that HR considered it a good days work to start us off on the bottom of the pay scale regardless of experience, talent or qualifications.
2) Spending half of my research time applying for grants and maybe 10-15% of what was left to complete mystifying administration work (hint: perhaps the admin staff could help us out by doing something useful rather than just giving leaflets out or showing presentations).
3) Ethics committees being too PC and panicking any time we approached the public. I had to submit a 52 page questionnaire before I could issue a paper-based survey to people even if I just asked them anonymously what their favourite colour was.
4) Low status - "rock star" professors are all well and good, but plain researchers get relegated to the bottom of the heap beneath administration in terms of resources if you can believe it. I once requisitioned a pair of headphones for an experiment. 18 months later, I had finished my thesis and still had no headphones. You guessed it - I had bought my own because it was easier).
5) Little chance of advancement regardless of talent or accomplishments.
6) Bad security - researchers live on temporary contracts and a permanent one is extremely rare. The problem is that with a family, I need a place to live etc and at least some idea that I might be able to stay in the same place for a few years rather than just 6 months.
7) Having senior staff with inferior knowledge of methods tell you to change your design to one that is compromised. Admittedly this is rare, but annoying nonetheless.
The points about lack of advancement, lack of pay, poor conditions etc, all seem to stem from management cocking it up. Because we didn't produce anything with a price tag on it, we couldn't demonstrate our worth in terms that they can understand. Instead, I left academia with my ideas and training and I am going to make them work for me. I tried the university's business start-up service, but they wanted a large percentage, control over how everything was run (if it's anything like the university then be prepared for another SCO), but they weren't interested because I was just a research fellow and therefore unimportant. Once they realised what my position was, they didn't even ask me what the idea was.
The business isn't properly started yet, but we're getting there; and it's a very big market. We're just hoping to scrape by until the product begins to get momentum.
In case you're interested, this was a UK university.
bang goes my karma... again...
Supposedly, much of Fermilab's current budget problems can be blamed on the retirement of Dennis Hastert. Haster's seniority and clout was a huge benefit for Fermilab. Apparently the timing of his retirement didn't help either, timed around the time that the budgets were being formulated and voted on. The actual budget vote that slashed Fermilab's funding didn't even get a vote from that district.
I don't know, maybe this just highlights how screwed up the congressional seniority system really is.
Looking from Europe, your laws on public appearance of boobs already has something ridiculous, and DOES prevent the spread of some cultural items. Your practice of death penalty also looks like an anachronism.
But with Sarkozy as a president, I am taunting you while I can, I fear that in 4 years we will be on the declining slope while hopefully, USA will be rising again as a cultural and ethical power.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Well, they don't make you take a test before they put the "fundamentalist" label on you, or before you claim that label for yourself.
In fact, the way words like "fundamentalist" and "evangelical" are used as if they were synonyms, which they are not. Also, some of the ideas of Pentecostalism are associated with Fundamentalism, and indeed many individuals these days practice a mix of both, but they are really different (and somewhat antithetical) things.
Usually, when we hear "fundamentalist", it is used to refer to somebody who is a conservative, evangelical Christian who believes in Biblical literalism and practices an ecstatic form of worship in a large, media driven community.
In fact, this is something of a recent mish-mash of distinctive and sometimes opposing American religious groups. For example, up until the mid twentieth century, Christian fundamentalists were antagonistic to the kind of mystical worship practiced by Pentecostalism. That is because the Christian Fundamentalist movement is essentially pseudo-rational in nature.
"Creation Science" is quintessential Christian Fundamentalism in its historic form. Fundamentalists of this sort don't see themselves as anti-science. They see themselves as pro-science, but against an intellectually corrupt scientific establishment. It is therefore quite practical for a "fundamentalist" to pursue a scientific career, provided it is in a field that either has a well established fundamentalist counter-movement, like biology, or one in which Biblical issues don't arise very often, for example solid state physics. You won't find many "Fundamentalists" in scholarly fields like Near Eastern languages or Biblical Archeology -- not for long at any rate.
There is a lot more diversity in religious belief than our labels allow for. The right wing Christian movement has laid claim to a number of American religious traditions, sometimes conflicting traditions. They're even flirting with Catholicism, which was long seen by native Protestants of all stripes as alien and wicked. Bringing these traditions under a single terminological roof is about institutional and political power. We sometimes call that roof "Evangelicalism" and sometimes "Fundamentalism", even though these are again two different historical phenomenon. The two words serve complementary political purposes: to unite those under the roof, and to stand them against those outside.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Regarding the evolution link you posted, all of the countries surveyed except the United States and Turkey are located in Europe. And, all of the countries surveyed that were not the US nor Turkey show higher acceptance of evolution.
:)
The data in the survey only gives information on evolution acceptance in the US relative to Europe, and that's a misleading statistic, is it not?
Note that I am a strong skeptic and scientist-in-training
As a parent having to take time off from my own work to accommodate teachers who then teach my children the wrong information, I'll disagree that it's a bad thing. That's not to say that all teachers are bad, or that forcing them to do stuff "on their own time" is a good thing, but in general, I'd highly disagree that the quality of teaching is better now than 20 years ago.
Begging supplies or offering them out of their own pocket has always been fairly standard for teachers, but it's more noticeable now because it's more organized. Parent "teacher assistants" used to bring in supplies more often to supplement what teachers provided themselves, now schools just send home a list of "classroom" supplies with each student the first day of school.
You're right, the good teachers are still spending more time, but I have friends who complain that they have to actually teach 3 or 4 classes a day and they "don't have enough time" to grade the papers in the other 3-4 hours they have a day to do planning and grading. Then they also complain that they don't make enough money. I understand they have to deal with helicopter parents and absent parents and parents who expect them to be teaching the children discipline, but don't complain to me about a 7 hour day of which you only do your actual job (teaching) half of it.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
It is very common in the US for people to vote against their own interests, because it is a two-party system. As you point out,The use of wedge issues (gay marriage, abortion rights, etc) by the party of the wealthy has led to tens of millions of people voting against their own interests because they place their vote based upon issues unrelated to their interests.
I agree with you that this has not come about from a purely organic evolution of culture -- it is documented that this is a planned strategy employed by the Republican party in the 80s and 90s -- and I'm pretty sure the Democratic party has operated the same way.
The deeper issue, of course, is that the American public does not have the ability to, or is not motivated to, see through the BS and analyze the issues critically. We are happy to be spoonfed soundbites and trite promises of little import.
I know I'm rehashing some of what you posted... but critical thinking has always been a skill not practiced by most people. So why has the lack of critical thinking become such a problem wrt the American electorate?
I would pose the following:
1. Mass media -- it has become very easy for those with money to brand themselves and issue marketing material
2. The scope and power of the US government is greater than ever before, meaning that the powers that be can wield more influence than ever before
3. The collusion between business and government is greater than ever before (with the possible exception of the period from 1900-1920). As Eisenhower said, beware the military-industrial complex -- except now, we have the military-industrial complex and the legislative-commercial complex.
This post is getting way too long, I'm sure there are other reasons why the American public is so susceptible to PR/BS from politicos. Offhand, I'd also mention that politics is a taboo subject in the US, which leads to even weaker understanding of the issues.
At any rate, I think you'd really enjoy the book "What's the Matter with Kansas" by Thomas Frank -- while it focuses on the Republicans' ability to manipulate the populace, I think the same theories apply to Democrats.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Plato made some interesting comments on that. Essentially, he argued, democracy is only viable if the population is reasonably intelligent and well-educated. If it is poorly educated or stupid, it is far too easy to manipulate and becomes a dictatorship by proxy. If we follow this line of reasoning, then the second step would be to have a jury pool democracy, but have a first step of massively investing in education, mental health programs, brain-stretching initiatives, and the like, coupled with massively investing in research institutes, schools, universities and research infrastructure. It would also seem advisable to encourage individuals into the fields of blue-sky and early-adopting research, much as the British "Prince of Wales Award for Invention and Innovation" attempts to do in England, albeit on a far smaller scale than you'd actually need.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)