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SOPA Creator Now In Charge of NSF Grants
sl4shd0rk writes "Remember SOPA? If not, perhaps the name Lamar Smith will ring a bell. The U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology chose Smith to Chair as an overseer for the National Science Foundation's funding process. Smith is preparing a bill (PDF) which will require that every grant must benefit 'national defense,' be of 'utmost importance to society,' and not be 'duplicative of other research.' Duplicating research seems reasonable until you consider that this could also mean the NSF will not provide funding for research once someone has already provided results — manufactured or otherwise. A strange target since there is a process in place which makes an effort to limit duplicate funding already. The first and second requirements, even when read in context, still miss the point of basic research. If we were absolutely without-a-doubt-certain of the results, there would be little point in doing the research in the first place."
A certain set of Republican politicians are very opposed to the National Science Foundation, as far as I can tell for two reasons:
1. For some politicians (and grassroots conservatives), they oppose some of the actual research being done. For example, they do not want to fund global-warming research, do not want to fund studies of gun violence, and do not particularly want there to be social-science research into issues such as racism or economic inequality.
2. For other politicians, it's just a convenient source of material for people who want to pose as cutting government spending without having to propose serious cuts any of the programs that take up more significant parts of the budget, because those are either too popular and/or politically too well-connected. Instead they just try to make political hay out of finding a few programs in the single-digit millions which they can attack as "frivolous". So, for example, Tom Coburn compiles an annual list of NSF-funded research projects he considers frivolous. You know, frivolous stuff like robotics research.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Science is nothing without replication. If you are building an experimental approach based on some result, you have to replicate it before building on this result any further, otherwise your method might be flawed.
To make this clear - let's say some lab produced a result that chemical A is a carcinogen. And I want to test whether this depends on other factors, e.g. genetic background, immune system response, whatever. I will first replicate the result before going on, otherwise I don't have a method. It's that simple.
People in these positions have to be scientist, or at least have had a scientific training, this is a good example of why.
Serendipity is one of the most important forces in scientific progress. I think it would be awesome if slashdot readers could compile a list of their favorite transformative research projects that would never have been funded under the proposed bill. After a few days, we can compile them into a letter and send it to our representatives.
One could plausibly argue that, since citizens are represented by two Senators and a Representative to the House, that half of the Senate and all of the House are duplicative and can be eliminated. It would certainly reduce cost and improve efficiency.
Heh. Back in the day they encouraged pregnant women to smoke, it reduced the baby's weight and made deliveries easier. I'm glad we did more research on that topic...
This was addressed by Robert Wilson, the director of Fermilab, while addressing the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_R._Wilson)
It has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to make it worth defending.
Yada yada yada, science and religion incompatible, religion a heinous evil, science the hope of mankind, etc, etc.
At different periods of time and in different places, religion and science have had different relationships. At the time when the Arabs conquered India and absorbed the Arabic-Hindu numeral system, they were heavily Islamic. Likewise, Alhazen's optics, and Sina's work on medicine were performed while their political system was dominated by Islam.
Likewise, in Europe, much early scientific work was done by clerics (as they were most likely to be literate). Much of their work was predicated on the notion that the world was rational and organised - a philosophy that flowed from their religious belief (that God was a god of order, and thus the universe itself must be ordered). Their investigations were into exploring the order God had created.
Even now, pretty much everywhere apart from the USA, there's little conflict. It's the USA that's birthed both southern baptists and the new atheist movement. Your religion, politics and science have become so intertwined, that there's almost no issue that isn't considered to touch on all three. But everywhere else in the Western world, you don't see these issues: other countries don't have court cases over whether or not to teach evolution; they just teach it.
You're right in that there's a decline in science when secular power is held by people who are threatened by the truth - but that's not necessarily a religion problem. Both religious and secular leaders have opposed scientific conclusions, because it undermined their authority, or ran counter to their own interests (this philosophy implies that I, the king, do not have a divine mandate to rule - suppress it! This science implies that my oil tycoon buddies are screwing up the world - suppress it!). The common element is always political power, not religion. If you're looking for an enemy for science, politics is a much more suitable target than religion.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face