6 ms·

The Myth That Without Gov't Subsidies, Discoveries Will Be Hidden By Secrets

28 points by fexl 16y ago

rauljara 16y ago
The problem I have with this sort of line of reasoning is that it views research in an entirely economic light. It opens with a quote about how scientific research is not a public good, and a suggestion that publicly funded research might harm economic growth. But what about research that does not have a direct impact on the economy? What about the Hubble, or supercolliders? What private company would fund those? Or, the best example I can think of, is about a therapy for panic disorder (a psychological disorder). There is a remarkable effective talk therapy for panic disorder which cures 80+% of the people who have it, and those people stay cured years after they complete the therapy (and there is no evidence it ever returns). The most effective drug treatments cure much fewer than half of the people, and once those people stop taking the drugs, the panic tends to return. The studies comparing drugs and talk therapy are incredibly expensive, and almost all of them come out of England, paid for by the government. What private company would ever want to fund that sort of research? They have an highly profitable drug treatment, which is effectively addictive (if you stop it, the panic returns)? Why would they spend their own money to research a course of therapy that lasts 8-12 weeks and is then done? I don't think private research is a bad thing at all. But private research is profit driven, and there are some really important problems out there that don't have a big financial payoff once they're solved. Economically speaking, finding a more effective to regrow hair in bald men would probably be a lot more profitable than finding a cheap cure for any number of diseases ravaging Africa. Doesn't mean it's more important.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  The studies comparing drugs and talk therapy are incredibly expensive, and almost all of them come out of England, paid for by the government. What private company would ever want to fund that sort of research? Evidence that psychotherapy beats drugs would benefit these guys: http://www.americanpsychotherapy.com/ http://www.americanpsychotherapy.com/ These guys would probably like to know which method of treatment is not worth paying for: http://www.ahip.org/ http://www.ahip.org/ [Edit: kinda curious why I'm being downmodded for this.]
- kiba 16y ago
  Economically speaking, finding a more effective to regrow hair in bald men would probably be a lot more profitable than finding a cheap cure for any number of diseases ravaging Africa. Doesn't mean it's more important. In the long run, there are far more values in curing ravaging diseases in Africa than there are values in curing bald hair men, at least to me.(Less disease ravaging means more time for educations, which might mean economic growth, which might mean bigger markets) For a corporation, it might make more sense to cure bald men instead of people in Africa. But it doesn't make sense for a charity organization to cure bald men instead of people in Africa because of their different aim. Private research doesn't have to be profit...err money driven, but it can be done for err..noble reasons. What to prevent billionaire from spending money on non...errr..profit research. Indeed, you would expect millionaires and billionaires to donate money to causes that seriously affect their life, whether it is themselves or a love one. So what if it is viewed in economic lights? You're only looking at it in one perspective, which is how to make a lot of money. What you did forget is the true motivations why humans pursue money, like being able to live longer, have fun, being curious, have sex, etc.
  - abstractbill 16y ago
    What['s] to prevent billionaire from spending money on non...errr..profit research... Nothing, of course. But I would rather not rely on the generosity of billionaires to cure the diseases that ravage Africa.
    - gaius 16y ago
      Instead you would "rely" on a politician taxing his voters. Which he will be doing because his notion of "profit" is not measured in dollars but in votes. At least the billionaire's motives are transparent. Here in England we are cutting budgets left, right and centre after the last government nearly bankrupted us. The foreign aid budget is ringfenced. The LibCons have come under a lot of flak for this - but they would have if they'd cut it too - it's simple maths at the end of the day. Remember - the money has to come from somewhere.
      - 16y ago
- shasta 16y ago
  The way this should work out in capitalistic theory is that those affected by panic disorder should fund the research into its cure. > Economically speaking, finding a more effective to regrow hair in bald men would probably be a lot more profitable than finding a cheap cure for any number of diseases ravaging Africa. Doesn't mean it's more important. The problem with this line of reasoning is the implicit assumption that it's your job to decide what's important. (BTW, you could probably send the money you spend on internet access each month to Africa, and save a child/mo. Be sure to reconcile that fact with your world view) Many of the problems with pure capitalism stem from the fact that in practice, things don't work out as well as in theory, often because people aren't rational and information isn't symmetric. You should still try to understand how it's supposed to work.
  - joe_the_user 16y ago
    "The way this should work out in capitalistic theory is that those affected by panic disorder should fund the research into its cure." But even if they found promising lines of research, they might be too nervous to provide enough funding...
    - shasta 16y ago
      Usually the way you mitigate risk is by pooling it. That can be done voluntarily, you know.
- nazgulnarsil 16y ago
  What about the Hubble, or supercolliders? what about them? the billions invested in them could have given us some tangible benefits in saving lives, directly or indirectly.
  - abstractbill 16y ago
    Pure basic research has a very interesting habit of turning out to be useful in the long run.
known 16y ago
Socialism is preventing race to the bottom. Capitalism is promoting race to the top. Communists willfully ignore this fact.
- ovi256 16y ago
  You are promoting simplistic views. Also, communism and socialism is, by far, not the same thing.
  - known 16y ago
    "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction." -- Einstein
kelnage 16y ago
An interesting article. That said, I disagree with their arguments relating to public research. Most areas with active public sponsored research are also areas that require degrees to start working in. Thus, interesting research should be comprehensible by those who have studied the subject at degree level and thereby making it accessible to their employer. For example, at work I frequently make use of papers from the ACM. Of course I wouldn't expect the average Joe to understand the papers - but why exactly should they?
- kiba 16y ago
  I am not sure what arguments you're making. I think the point of the article is that it is not easy at some level to just use some new discoveries and then incorporate them into technologies because of the amount of expertise that is required.
  - kelnage 16y ago
    And that's (part of the reason) why we have degrees - to teach people how to understand research so they can turn it into reality. Yes - it's not easy and yes, it might be easier if someone has already done it - but a lot of the time that isn't true (or they aren't willing to share how they've done it with you). Obviously, in an optimal world, everyone would have equal access to all such knowledge - but there will always be barriers on both sides.
    - kiba 16y ago
      If everyone knows how to conduct scientific research, they will be crowding out other fields such as musics, cooking, fine arts, and more. It's a tradeoff for giving everyone equal access to such knowledge. It's like saying that everyone should be a programmer, but people waste time trying to learn programs when they can hire a programmer to make a program for them. Then these people will do things that's worth their time such as making musics or cooking food.
abstractbill 16y ago
You can't access the science of others unless you're part of the game. It is only the molecular biologist who is publishing his own papers, getting invited to the conferences, having the discrete conversations with other fellow molecular biologists, who can capture the work of others. The problems of access to journals are real. My PhD supervisor and other researchers I knew were making a real effort to work around them by publishing a lot of papers on public online "e-print journals" like arxiv.org The problems of access to conferences on the other hand, I never saw. If fact, at every conference I went to while I was doing my PhD, there was always a handful of uninvited people who tagged along. Often they were nuts who believed they were close to a proof of something actually improvable and wanted to find a professor to show their work to. Occasionally they were just highly motivated amateur mathematicians. Either way, they were always at least tolerated from what I saw.
- contextfree 16y ago
  I've had the same experience at CS conferences, as one of the tolerated amateurs myself. Most of my idols in the field turned out to be pretty approachable.
Empact 16y ago
This reminds me of two other well-established area where government spending was assumed to the be the only way, but is/was preventing progress. Namely, those are aid to Africa, and NASA. In both cases, public monies realigned the efforts of those associated to seek and maintain the public monies first, which are not necessarily related to progress whatsoever. That is, building a army of bureaucrats for any space launch, in the case of NASA, and pulling would-be African entrepreneurs away from productive efforts and toward positions in the bureaucracies best-positioned to receive and distribute the aid within Africa. If African aid money can devastate Africa by pulling the best and brightest into unproductive bureaucratic positions, then it's certainly plausible that research aid can pull the best and brightest away from the most productive pursuits and toward whatever the distributors of public money happen to demand, productive or not.
- abstractbill 16y ago
  In the case of NASA at least, I think things are a little more nuanced. I don't believe we would have made it to the moon if only private enterprise had been involved, nor sent probes to the planets and the outer edges of the solar system. Those are very worthwhile accomplishments. But, yes, I do believe NASA's time is coming to an end. We do seem to be reaching a point where private concerns are ready to push space exploration to the next level, and that's very exciting! I think in general the way we fund things shouldn't necessarily be an either/or question. I can think of other examples where something needed to be publicly funded up to a certain point in its development, and then equally needed to be wrestled away from a public-funding model so that private businesses to keep it moving forward.
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  I don't think your choosing good or typical examples here. Both are relatively "applied". The "basic science" would be a bit harder to have funded - abstract math research, basic physics research, marine biological research. Now, I would actually say the government should be spending more on basic research and less on applied research but that's an entirely different question. Most basic research has payoff sooner or later. It's just fairly clear that the market isn't going to be financing things with a fifty years window.

28 points by fexl 16y ago

The problem I have with this sort of line of reasoning is that it views research in an entirely economic light. It opens with a quote about how scientific research is not a public good, and a suggestion that publicly funded research might harm economic growth. But what about research that does not have a direct impact on the economy? What about the Hubble, or supercolliders? What private company would fund those? Or, the best example I can think of, is about a therapy for panic disorder (a psychological disorder). There is a remarkable effective talk therapy for panic disorder which cures 80+% of the people who have it, and those people stay cured years after they complete the therapy (and there is no evidence it ever returns). The most effective drug treatments cure much fewer than half of the people, and once those people stop taking the drugs, the panic tends to return. The studies comparing drugs and talk therapy are incredibly expensive, and almost all of them come out of England, paid for by the government. What private company would ever want to fund that sort of research? They have an highly profitable drug treatment, which is effectively addictive (if you stop it, the panic returns)? Why would they spend their own money to research a course of therapy that lasts 8-12 weeks and is then done? I don't think private research is a bad thing at all. But private research is profit driven, and there are some really important problems out there that don't have a big financial payoff once they're solved. Economically speaking, finding a more effective to regrow hair in bald men would probably be a lot more profitable than finding a cheap cure for any number of diseases ravaging Africa. Doesn't mean it's more important.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
The studies comparing drugs and talk therapy are incredibly expensive, and almost all of them come out of England, paid for by the government. What private company would ever want to fund that sort of research? Evidence that psychotherapy beats drugs would benefit these guys: http://www.americanpsychotherapy.com/ http://www.americanpsychotherapy.com/ These guys would probably like to know which method of treatment is not worth paying for: http://www.ahip.org/ http://www.ahip.org/ [Edit: kinda curious why I'm being downmodded for this.]
kiba 16y ago
Economically speaking, finding a more effective to regrow hair in bald men would probably be a lot more profitable than finding a cheap cure for any number of diseases ravaging Africa. Doesn't mean it's more important. In the long run, there are far more values in curing ravaging diseases in Africa than there are values in curing bald hair men, at least to me.(Less disease ravaging means more time for educations, which might mean economic growth, which might mean bigger markets) For a corporation, it might make more sense to cure bald men instead of people in Africa. But it doesn't make sense for a charity organization to cure bald men instead of people in Africa because of their different aim. Private research doesn't have to be profit...err money driven, but it can be done for err..noble reasons. What to prevent billionaire from spending money on non...errr..profit research. Indeed, you would expect millionaires and billionaires to donate money to causes that seriously affect their life, whether it is themselves or a love one. So what if it is viewed in economic lights? You're only looking at it in one perspective, which is how to make a lot of money. What you did forget is the true motivations why humans pursue money, like being able to live longer, have fun, being curious, have sex, etc.
- abstractbill 16y ago
  What['s] to prevent billionaire from spending money on non...errr..profit research... Nothing, of course. But I would rather not rely on the generosity of billionaires to cure the diseases that ravage Africa.
  - gaius 16y ago
    Instead you would "rely" on a politician taxing his voters. Which he will be doing because his notion of "profit" is not measured in dollars but in votes. At least the billionaire's motives are transparent. Here in England we are cutting budgets left, right and centre after the last government nearly bankrupted us. The foreign aid budget is ringfenced. The LibCons have come under a lot of flak for this - but they would have if they'd cut it too - it's simple maths at the end of the day. Remember - the money has to come from somewhere.
    - 16y ago
shasta 16y ago
The way this should work out in capitalistic theory is that those affected by panic disorder should fund the research into its cure. > Economically speaking, finding a more effective to regrow hair in bald men would probably be a lot more profitable than finding a cheap cure for any number of diseases ravaging Africa. Doesn't mean it's more important. The problem with this line of reasoning is the implicit assumption that it's your job to decide what's important. (BTW, you could probably send the money you spend on internet access each month to Africa, and save a child/mo. Be sure to reconcile that fact with your world view) Many of the problems with pure capitalism stem from the fact that in practice, things don't work out as well as in theory, often because people aren't rational and information isn't symmetric. You should still try to understand how it's supposed to work.
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  "The way this should work out in capitalistic theory is that those affected by panic disorder should fund the research into its cure." But even if they found promising lines of research, they might be too nervous to provide enough funding...
  - shasta 16y ago
    Usually the way you mitigate risk is by pooling it. That can be done voluntarily, you know.
nazgulnarsil 16y ago
What about the Hubble, or supercolliders? what about them? the billions invested in them could have given us some tangible benefits in saving lives, directly or indirectly.
- abstractbill 16y ago
  Pure basic research has a very interesting habit of turning out to be useful in the long run.

known 16y ago

Socialism is preventing race to the bottom. Capitalism is promoting race to the top. Communists willfully ignore this fact.

ovi256 16y ago
You are promoting simplistic views. Also, communism and socialism is, by far, not the same thing.
- known 16y ago
  "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction." -- Einstein

kelnage 16y ago

An interesting article. That said, I disagree with their arguments relating to public research. Most areas with active public sponsored research are also areas that require degrees to start working in. Thus, interesting research should be comprehensible by those who have studied the subject at degree level and thereby making it accessible to their employer. For example, at work I frequently make use of papers from the ACM. Of course I wouldn't expect the average Joe to understand the papers - but why exactly should they?

kiba 16y ago
I am not sure what arguments you're making. I think the point of the article is that it is not easy at some level to just use some new discoveries and then incorporate them into technologies because of the amount of expertise that is required.
- kelnage 16y ago
  And that's (part of the reason) why we have degrees - to teach people how to understand research so they can turn it into reality. Yes - it's not easy and yes, it might be easier if someone has already done it - but a lot of the time that isn't true (or they aren't willing to share how they've done it with you). Obviously, in an optimal world, everyone would have equal access to all such knowledge - but there will always be barriers on both sides.
  - kiba 16y ago
    If everyone knows how to conduct scientific research, they will be crowding out other fields such as musics, cooking, fine arts, and more. It's a tradeoff for giving everyone equal access to such knowledge. It's like saying that everyone should be a programmer, but people waste time trying to learn programs when they can hire a programmer to make a program for them. Then these people will do things that's worth their time such as making musics or cooking food.

abstractbill 16y ago

You can't access the science of others unless you're part of the game. It is only the molecular biologist who is publishing his own papers, getting invited to the conferences, having the discrete conversations with other fellow molecular biologists, who can capture the work of others. The problems of access to journals are real. My PhD supervisor and other researchers I knew were making a real effort to work around them by publishing a lot of papers on public online "e-print journals" like arxiv.org The problems of access to conferences on the other hand, I never saw. If fact, at every conference I went to while I was doing my PhD, there was always a handful of uninvited people who tagged along. Often they were nuts who believed they were close to a proof of something actually improvable and wanted to find a professor to show their work to. Occasionally they were just highly motivated amateur mathematicians. Either way, they were always at least tolerated from what I saw.

contextfree 16y ago
I've had the same experience at CS conferences, as one of the tolerated amateurs myself. Most of my idols in the field turned out to be pretty approachable.

Empact 16y ago

This reminds me of two other well-established area where government spending was assumed to the be the only way, but is/was preventing progress. Namely, those are aid to Africa, and NASA. In both cases, public monies realigned the efforts of those associated to seek and maintain the public monies first, which are not necessarily related to progress whatsoever. That is, building a army of bureaucrats for any space launch, in the case of NASA, and pulling would-be African entrepreneurs away from productive efforts and toward positions in the bureaucracies best-positioned to receive and distribute the aid within Africa. If African aid money can devastate Africa by pulling the best and brightest into unproductive bureaucratic positions, then it's certainly plausible that research aid can pull the best and brightest away from the most productive pursuits and toward whatever the distributors of public money happen to demand, productive or not.

abstractbill 16y ago
In the case of NASA at least, I think things are a little more nuanced. I don't believe we would have made it to the moon if only private enterprise had been involved, nor sent probes to the planets and the outer edges of the solar system. Those are very worthwhile accomplishments. But, yes, I do believe NASA's time is coming to an end. We do seem to be reaching a point where private concerns are ready to push space exploration to the next level, and that's very exciting! I think in general the way we fund things shouldn't necessarily be an either/or question. I can think of other examples where something needed to be publicly funded up to a certain point in its development, and then equally needed to be wrestled away from a public-funding model so that private businesses to keep it moving forward.
joe_the_user 16y ago
I don't think your choosing good or typical examples here. Both are relatively "applied". The "basic science" would be a bit harder to have funded - abstract math research, basic physics research, marine biological research. Now, I would actually say the government should be spending more on basic research and less on applied research but that's an entirely different question. Most basic research has payoff sooner or later. It's just fairly clear that the market isn't going to be financing things with a fifty years window.