US House Approves Over $300 Million For Science Agencies

sciencehabit notes that the US House of Representatives has allotted an additional $337.5 million in budget increases divided amongst four science agencies. NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Energy's Office of Science will each receive an additional $62.5 million, and the National Institutes of Health will receive $150 million. The money will help to offset the decision to reduce budget increases earlier this year. Early plans for the money include the training of new math and science teachers, and another reprieve for FermiLab's financial troubles.

Comments

$300 million sounds impressive

[Jonathan]

But it's not. I'm on grants totalling over $1 million myself. If we could avoid land wars in Asia (so presciently predicted by Wallace Shawn in _The_Princess_Bride_), we could have billions to spend on science.

Re:$300 million sounds impressive

[BWJones]

Yeah, when you consider that the DOD unclassified budget is around $408 Billion, appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan are another ~$170 Billion and DOD classified projects are another ~$35 Billion.... in comparison, $300 Million is a *tiny* drop in the bucket. But $300 million might help some labs to avoid closing down...

Re:$300 million sounds impressive

[Shikaku]

I would like to inquire exactly how you get these type of grants. I'm all ears. I'm a computer science major in college right now.

Re:$300 million sounds impressive

[sokoban]

I would like to inquire exactly how you get these type of grants. I'm all ears. I'm a computer science major in college right now.

Do something where you use that kind of money to do meaningful research. This past year for example I was working on a small molecule X-ray setup which cost over $500k just in equipment.

Also, writing grant proposals helps.

Re:$300 million sounds impressive

[FriendComputer]

The small company I work for goes through the http://www.sbir.gov/ program. It includes grant solicitations from DOD, NIH, and others. It can be pretty cutthroat but we've been doing okay funding R&D activities with it for almost 10 years.

Re:$300 million sounds impressive

[joocemann]

Yeah, when you consider that the DOD unclassified budget is around $408 Billion, appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan are another ~$170 Billion and DOD classified projects are another ~$35 Billion.... in comparison, $300 Million is a *tiny* drop in the bucket. But $300 million might help some labs to avoid closing down...

I think the results would be *AMAZING* to see if the opposite were true. Imagine even one year of spending where $800 billion goes to sciences and technology, and $300m goes to the DoD. Think about that... Think long and hard about what could change, what huge serious things we could actually accomplish when we focus on something other than war.

Yes, its hard to imagine not killing others for some reason or another; we can do it. Seriously think about just chilling back and watching huge amounts of your cash go somewhere productive.

Re:$300 million sounds impressive

[Jonathan]

I would like to inquire exactly how you get these type of grants. I'm all ears. I'm a computer science major in college right now.

Basically you go to the web site of a relevant funding agency like the NSF and look at their current "call for proposals". Once you find one that is relevant to what you want to do, you write a proposal detailing what you want to do, how much it will cost, and why it is important. In practice you should either have a doctorate in a relevant field or be well on the way to getting one before writing a grant. Also, it helps if you are working at university or research institute because such places have grants offices that can give you advice on how much things are likely to cost. This is important because an unreasonably high or low budget is likely to doom a grant proposal.

Re:$300 million sounds impressive

[Anpheus]

Except we don't need it. It's mostly for show. We have enough nuclear firepower to wipe the floor with any real nation that decided to oppose us. Are you seriously suggesting that if we engaged in a war where aircraft carriers were truly necessary and -under threat- that we would hold off on the nukes? We'd have to face an actual military foe for that.

As nice as it is that we can just roll over whatever dinky (or even not-so-dinky) country in the world because our military spending is through the roof, it isn't even necessary. We don't need more soldiers, we need smarter, better ones. We need soldiers that understand the role they are in, and commanders that are going to lead them by example in doing so. I mean no slight to our armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in other conflicts past and current. Rather, the enemy has changed, and our military has not. We still have overwhelming firepower, for what? We don't need to take out a city, we need to find the -one guy- who wants revenge, who has some political or religious vendetta against us.

Instead we send boys off to their death, to risk life and limb against an uncertain adversary. And for what? They're so terrified out there because they well and truly never know when their life will end abruptly that they are close to snapping. We have soldiers coming out and bravely admitting some of the criminal activities that are occurring with the complicit support of their commanders. Drop weapons are placed on the bodies of innocent civilians to hide the fact that they were killed merely because they appeared threatening. Mosques are shot at out of revenge, not because of apparent threat. These boys and girls we are sending are ill-prepared to deal with the fact that people around them are dying for no reason whatsoever in a pointless ground conflict that has no apparent end.

I'd be terrified too. I'd probably want revenge too if some faceless Arab took my friend's life suddenly and with the utmost cowardice through the use of something like an IED. Every single day I'd have to decide whether or not I think that guy walking towards me might be wearing an explosive belt. Every day I'd have to live with the fact that I don't know the people around me, I can't understand them, and that my target is going to look exactly like a civilian.

Offense is not what we need, we need strategic and tactical advantage. We don't have it. We're fighting Joe Arab.

Re:$300 million sounds impressive

[khallow]

Except we don't need it. It's mostly for show. We have enough nuclear firepower to wipe the floor with any real nation that decided to oppose us. Are you seriously suggesting that if we engaged in a war where aircraft carriers were truly necessary and -under threat- that we would hold off on the nukes? We'd have to face an actual military foe for that.

You didn't ask me, but yes, the US would hold off on the nukes when we're fighting someone with similar nuclear weapon firepower. 20 years ago the USSR had that power. 20 years from now there probably be other nuclear powers. It's not static.

I'd be terrified too. I'd probably want revenge too if some faceless Arab took my friend's life suddenly and with the utmost cowardice through the use of something like an IED. Every single day I'd have to decide whether or not I think that guy walking towards me might be wearing an explosive belt. Every day I'd have to live with the fact that I don't know the people around me, I can't understand them, and that my target is going to look exactly like a civilian.

The classic projection argument. Pretend it's something you'd do, and that somehow makes the argument true. Then again, maybe you would do this, which means that it's a good thing you aren't serving in the US military.

Re:$300 million sounds impressive

[TamCaP]

No way! I am a scientist myself (not even an armchair scientist) and I know that if NSF of NIH got suddenly, lets say, extra 100 billions - there would be no way to spend it!

It's not like there is a machine where you put money it and it outputs scientific truths on the other side. Science is not about throwing lots of money at once - it's a long distance thing. You need skilled manpower, you need equipment (that has to be produced) etc. etc.

DO increase the budget, use billions to do that, but don't expect that the year you throw 100 billions on science you will suddenly cure cancer. However, a promise of extra 5 billions, guaranteed and inflation adjusted for the next 20 years, would FOR SURE make a difference.

Of course, if you decide to give science extra 100 billions for the next 20 years, I won't protest either :)

Re:$300 million sounds impressive

[The Spoonman]

Imagine even one year of spending where $800 billion goes to sciences and technology

Extrapolating...extrapolating...okay, we've jumped from 20% efficiency of solar cells to over 40% in the last 5 years or so with just a couple of million dollars being spent by companies in research. I'd say we could easily hit the "magic" 80% mark with just a fraction of that money, which would completely eliminate the need for any other kind of energy source AND have enough money left over to rebuild the infrastructure to implement it. This would eviscerate the monetary stockpiles of our "friends" the Saudis who are funding a large portion of the terrorism and spark a new age of financial independence for the US. We might even be able to build artificial lakes with palm tree islands and indoor ski resorts in our own deserts with the money saved!

Naah, I think I'm happier sending kids off to their death to protect some rich white guy's shares in the oil industry. That seems more American to me. I mean, just think...if the kids manage to come home alive with most of their limbs, they'll be able to afford a community college education with their GI Bill money and thus earn a subsistence wage in a cubicle until they die.

Re:$300 million sounds impressive

[mako1138]

Go talk to a professor about doing research. They would be the ones to know. Even as an undergrad, you might be able to draw a salary working on a grant project.

Re:$300 million sounds impressive

[Yvanhoe]

Aaah yes, that old one. Everybody knows that the best defense is a good offense... since when ? When did we ever actually prove this ? This is a quote from Napoleon Bonaparte

Re:$300 million sounds impressive

[Yvanhoe]

Who was a famous general and dictator.

Re:$300 million sounds impressive

[timeOday]

The big problem with the WWII analogy is that we are now the other side. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because they needed oil. The difference is they were trying to break up the oil embargo we imposed on them, whereas Iraq was not imposing an oil embargo on us. And obviously Japan didn't invade Texas and take the oil to "repay" Japan for the cost of the invasion. So, yeah, the problem is political. You can't win when there are is no reason to be there and no criteria for victory, and your losses are already more than you could possibly gain.

Re:$300 million sounds impressive

[hey!]

This is the kind of thinking that gets us into trouble.

Imagine that funding is like water, and it flows through various pipes. Now imagine users of funding for some particular purpose are hooked up through those pipes through small diameters hookups, because they are organized around the assumption that they have to make do with, say, 100 gallons/day. Their interior plumbing is all designed around using on that order of water a day.

Now, you tell them, "I'm going to give you 10,000 gallons per day, for the next month." They don't have time to reorganize their water usage; they can barely use more than 120 gallons per day, and even that would be a challenge in the short run. Even if they could reorganize to use 10,000 gallons per day, by the time they were close to finished they'd be back down to 100. So they rush to put safety releases that throw away 9,890 gallons. They realize that it's a shame that 9890 gallons are being wasted, but that way they at least get ten extra gallons to do something productive with. In truth, they'd be more productive if you offered them 120 gallons instead of 10,000 gallons, and they'll be lucky to get as much good done as if you'd left them alone.

Lest you think this is some kind of theoretical model, let me assure you I've been part of this kind of scenario, as a vendor working with low levels of government groups where the rubber meets the road, and having that work suddenly become a political priority.

Most of the groups saw no money, because it would have taken too long to figure out how to get it to them. Where they did, they couldn't use it to extend their programs, because it was a one time windfall, so they went on a buying spree, going for more expensive equipment even if less expensive would have served them better. Probably 95% of the money was diverted at higher levels where it was funneled to vendors who didn't have any specific domain expertise, but were equipped to absorb large amounts of federal funding rapidly. In some cases mid level organizations, unable to get the funding onto the ground fast enough, spent money on support systems for the lower level. This wasn't a bad strategy, but the people didn't know how much the things they were buying should cost, and didn't have time to find out. The results were sad, but predictable.

Even if getting 10x the work done costs 10x as much (which it may or may not), you can't get 10x the work done by spending 10x as much, much less 100x as much.

It would make more sense to take that 10x money and put it in escrow, dolling it out in a bell shaped curve over five years or so, peaking in year 3. If you had 100x the money, it would make sense to take it and create an endowment that ensured more money would be spent annually.

I'm a political liberal. I think the government should spend money on all kinds of important public priorities, such as public health, scientific research and so on. However, since supporting these priorities is important to me, I'm keenly aware that there isn't enough money to do everything we'd want. Every penny wasted on something, even if that thing is itself important, deprives another priority of a penny. Sometimes the priority starved can even be the priority on which the penny was spent.

The Federal Budget should be organized into an operational budget and a capital budget, and operational costs should be paid for out of current revenues. Capital expenses can be paid for out of deficit spending, but crash programs on capital expenses should be discouraged by limiting growth in any capital category to a fixed percentage, say 20%.

Re:$300 million sounds impressive

[The Spoonman]

Now we use "smart bombs" and are affraid of "collateral damage."

Yes, because we've come to realize that simply attacking and destroying the military bases without hitting the schools next to them is just as effective as blowing up everyone and letting "god" sort 'em out.

4000 or so (i haven't been keeping up) in Iraq in 5 years, and people think that's an unacceptably high loss.

One is an unacceptable loss in this war since we're only doing it so Gee, Dubya can finally feel like he's earned his father's approval after being a loser fuckup all of his life.

It's also nice that it;s not important enough for you to "keep up with", but important enough for you to try and justify. Perhaps if your family contained one of the 4415 (the last known name we have is a 21 year old kid named Jason Cox from Elyria, OH) soldiers, 435 contractors or the unknown tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of Iraqis killed you'd pay more attention?

The problem in Iraq isn't military, its political, and its not in Iraq, its on the cable news.

No, it's that we let the clueless and ignorant vote and we end up with people like Gee, Dubya.

Re:$300 million sounds impressive

[sunhou]

Go talk to a professor about doing research. They would be the ones to know. Even as an undergrad, you might be able to draw a salary working on a grant project.

Definitely. I'm a prof. in a math dept, my work is in mathematical biology (population ecology and epidemiology, a combination of mathematical models and computer simulation models), and I've had about 10 undergrads working with me this past year. It'll probably be going up to about 15 students, thanks to another grant I just got.

If you are a motivated undergrad, you should seek out such opportunities. When I was a student, I knocked on a lot of prof's doors looking for work. One project led to the next. Once you get a good reputation, faculty will look for ways to support you.

Math and Science teachers?

[sokoban]

Shouldn't that be the Department of Education's concern?

As far as I can tell, the problem with math and science teachers is that almost all of them can make more money in another profession. Teaching is crappy pay when you consider all that a science or math major has to go through to get their degree.

Re:Math and Science teachers?

[REJOSU]

I won't post with the audacity to state such an incredible stereotype, but...

In America, the quality of math and science teachers is decreasing overall because of this fact. Why take a job paying such a pittance when you could take a potential lab or research job that would pay more?

This leaves us with the students who were the worst in their studies teaching. Obviously this isn't true of all teachers, it does however, seem to be a trend that is developing.

I have friends who in college had aspirations to become doctors and engineers, however after they couldn't cut it, changed their majors to education.

Two are biology teachers, one is a chemistry teacher, and the four are social studies of some variety or another.

Re:Math and Science teachers?

[jim_deane]

Why take a job paying such a pittance when you could take a potential lab or research job that would pay more? I have both bachelor's and master's degrees in physics, and toward the end of my master's degree I decided to go into teaching.

I had other options, and I have since had other offers for higher pay, but there are tangible benefits to teaching for someone who genuinely loves the subject or loves learning.

1. You continue to study and increase mastery of the fundamental concepts in your discipline.
   
2. Developing courses and course materials is a rigorous academic exercise.
   
3. You are encouraged to continue to study and take coursework of interest to you.
   
4. You have the opportunity to interact with others from your discipline and other disciplines at all academic levels.
   
5. Teaching, as a profession, allows for some independent decision-making and self-guidance at a level not usually found in research positions unless you are a principal investigator.
   
6. Aside from coursework, you have two to three months during the summer to do research, write, collaborate with others, work, travel, or pursue other intellectual endeavors.
   

If money is your only concern, then obviously education is not a good career choice. However, teachers are not (as a rule) starving, and the pay is sufficient in most areas to maintain a decent lower middle-class lifestyle.

And forcing creationism with the other hand...

[Cathoderoytube]

If the US government gave a rats ass about Science they'd crush creationism once and for all. It seems like a hypocritical gesture to dole out hundreds of millions of dollars for science R&D and allowing creationism to be taught in science classes. Which is effectively sabotaging the next generation of scientists. Teach the controversy and all that crap. Isn't the expanding earth theory a viable alternative to gravity? Crystals work better for treating cancer than Chemo Therapy, sin causes Aids. It's all valid when you don't think about it.

Re:And forcing creationism with the other hand...

[horatiocain]

Well you can't really attest to anything before you were born.

If that's the case, I guess we can throw away the fields of history, astronomy, geology, and so on. Hardly; we have plenty of evidence that the world existed long before any one of us. That evidence (stuff like documents, fossils, etc) is what makes it science. If tomorrow we find evidence that suggests that dinosaurs wrote the constitution, historians and biologists alike will be wrestling each other to be the firsts to document that and turn our knowledge base upside down. And that right there is the difference - science is based on facts, not faith.

Re:And forcing creationism with the other hand...

[Pvt. Cthulhu]

im a staunch athiest, yay 6 billion or so year old earth and such. but i still believe in government impartiality when it comes to these things. im not for creationism being taught in schools, but isnt that the individual school districts right to make it available? belief in the bible (torah, koran, etc) is very serious to some people, and the stories of creation are the foundation of man's place on earth, and the closest thing many people have to true introspection, but its 3am and i digress. My point is that the government cannot take sides in a religious/secular debate, just as it cannot take sides in a purely religious one. Yes, science funding is important and should be increased whenever there is cash, because America has much to gain from it, but we have little to gain from killing its competition .

Re:And forcing creationism with the other hand...

[Cathoderoytube]

What an asinine comment "In the creation/evolution debate both require faith" Faith is believing in something despite lack of evidence. There's more than enough evidence to support evolution. There is absolutely none supporting creationism. "Ultimately the creation/evolution debate need not be answered. Our educational system need only focus on teaching skills. Creation and evolution are not skills we can directly control" We should teach our children to write but not actually make them read Shakespeare?

Re:And forcing creationism with the other hand...

[uuxququex]

I don't think we do ourselves any favours by trying to get things banned from teaching.

There is a lot we don't teach children. We don't teach them that the sun revolves around the earth. We don't teach them 2 + 2 = 5. We should also not teach them the fairytales of a few deranged retards that creationism is.

Science is based heavily on faith,,

It isn't. Don't fool yourself. What you might think is faith, is the gap between a model of reality and reality itself. Simplified it goes like this:

1. Observe a phenomenon that you can't explain with current theory;
2. Think what could/should be changed about the current model of reality (the theory) to make this fit;
3. With this new model, predict some other phenomena;
4. Experiment to check this;
5. If there is experimental evidence, hooray! You now have a better theory! If not, go to step 2.

With this, you end up with a better theory, a better model of reality. And YES, scientist KNOW that this is not the truth, that everyday a rival theory could explain reality better, simpler or more complete. This is the scientific method. No faith required.

There are always bits of evidence that don't fit our theories or models, and we have to be honest about that.

Yes, these gaps are what make good scientist go "hmmm, I wonder if...", right before they go off to do science.

Evolution isn't as obvious as people like to claim. If it is, then why did it take until 1859 for The Origin of Species to be published, which was more than 100 years after Linneaus described the systematic nature of biology?

The fact that the earth revolves around the sun isn't as obvious as people like to claim, If it is, why did it take until Galileo, which was more than thousands of years after the Greek had access to math?

The single most important handbrake on the development of human intellect has always been religion.

Re:And forcing creationism with the other hand...

[Gibsnag]

Because they want it taught in science lessons. If you're going to teach science, then teach science don't teach something that hasn't gone through the wringer that is the scientific community and that has had to use the legal system to try and get into classrooms.

If these school boards want to teach their ridiculous creation myths then teach it in a religious education class, where major world religions are explained and discussed. If they don't want to teach valid scientific theories in their science classes then quit with the intellectual dishonesty and stop teaching science altogether. There is some equally insane "alternative" to every scientific theory which I'm sure someone would like to be taught:

Astronomy -> Astrology
Chemistry -> Alchemy
Biology -> Creation Studies (The Christian one, obviously)
Etc, etc...

Re:And forcing creationism with the other hand...

[mrchaotica]

Whether you view it as science or not, what is so wrong about teaching creationism so that people get both sides of the debate instead of being spoon fed what a minority believes?

First of all, you can't dismiss the issue of whether it's viewed as science or not; that's the very crux of the problem! If all the creationists wanted was to have Christian mythology taught in the same context as Greek, Norse, and whatever other kind of mythology, then we wouldn't have a problem. But they don't. They want it to be taught as if it were (literally) the Gospel Truth, as part of (or rather, a replacement for) science class.

And that's what's wrong: whether creationism is True or not is irrelevant, because science isn't concerned with Truth. Science is concerned with rigor and proof instead. Science is nothing more or less than the application of the Scientific Method. Period. That's all.

In contrast, creationist arguments (including "Intelligent Design") explicitly reject the Scientific Method, choosing to instead assume that "because we don't know this, it must be unknowable and therefore God did it." Including such bullshit in science class would completely undermine it (which is exactly what the proponents of "Intelligent Design" want, of course), which is intolerable. Essentially, what the teachers would have to say is something like "Okay, so here's the Scientific Method, which is the fundamental basis of all science and which all scientific theories follow, except this theory (i.e., "ID") that doesn't but which the state says I have to claim is science anyway." I mean really, WTF?!

I had a room mate that became a highschool science

[msimm]

teacher. For the chicks I think.

And ya, that's creepy.

Re:Spending that in Iraq every day?

[jlarocco]

In other news, $162 billion was just approved for the war in Iraq. Oh, and a few more billion for some congress people's pet projects.

<sarcasm>Good to see we have our priorities straight. Also good to see the democrats following through on their promise to stop funding the "war" now that they're the majority. I'd hate to think democrats and republicans were both equally useless.</sarcasm>

Re:Criticisms

[stranger_to_himself]

NIH: A bunch of self-serving PhDs that make policies about public health then go on to corporations that benefit from those policies. The NIH has yet to do a scientific study on weight loss. (Note: combining diet /and/ exercise in a study is not scientific, as you can't tell if it was diet or exercise that produced the result.)

That's quite a bizarre statement. The NIH does really run any studies, it's a funding body. The have an entire center dedicated to funding obesity research. Here's an example of an NIH funded diet and weight loss study.

Obviously any trial of say diet and weight loss has to involve exercise as a factor to be held constant, otherwise you never will be able to separate the effects. Having said that since we know both diet and exercise affect obesity there isn't a lot of point studying them both separately any more. What is now needed and what the NIH is currently funding a lot of are studies to find ways to actually get people to eat properly and to exercise more by making global lifestyle changes. Kind of life this one".

Re:Fiction

[Repossessed]

Bush is hardly a tightwad, keep in mind, with one exception (stem cell bill) he never vetoed a spending bill before the Democrats took control.

Wait a minute.

[Atario]

They're *offsetting* *reductions* of *increases*? Well, I guess that makes sense if the decreases in reversing the upticks in reduction rates have oh dear I've gone cross-eyed.

Re:ITER?

[mako1138]

No, not really.

The big losers would be researchers working on the U.S. team for ITER, the gigantic fusion reactor to be built in Cadarache, France (Science, 13 June, p. 1405). In December, Congress zeroed out the U.S.'s $149 million contribution to ITER this year. The Senate version of the supplemental included $55 million for fusion research, but the House bill doesn't mention the discipline. It also forbids DOE to spend any of the 2008 money on research until it has restored all the job cuts, meaning that ITER would have to make do with whatever is left.

Re:Criticisms

[gtall]

Hear, hear! Basic research is just that, basic and almost impossible to draw a straight from that to some widget the proles can enjoy. Should we fund Mathematics? Gee, I don't know, most modern industry is using the results of investment in Math. How about Logic? Ever hear of computers? Quantum theory? Maybe them chips were built by elves following plans supplied by the Spaghetti Monster.

Gerry