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A good deal? The vast majority more like. The one variable here is that the private market does what it wants. So if government 'takes' a larger proportion of

A good deal? The vast majority more like. The one variable here is that the private market does what it wants. So if government 'takes' a larger proportion of the funding 'market' it really means the private market chose. Now, making private research illegal...

sandwall 8y ago
That's getting deep... Industry has specific problems, scientific findings are often ancillary to other work, i.e. problem solving. Can't tell people to stop solving problems and making discoveries. Or can you???
- sokoloff 8y ago
  If you setup payout structures such that research becomes obviously uneconomical, you can dramatically curtail private research. Examples might include: eliminating pharma patents or capping pharma prices to 2x the raw materials and manufacturing costs.
rgbrenner 8y ago
"A good deal? The vast majority more like." That just isn't true. The federal government funds no where near the majority of r&d, not even the majority of basic research. Data from ongoing surveys by the National Science Foundation (NSF) show that federal agencies provided only 44% of the $86 billion spent on basic research in 2015. ... Basic research comprises only about one-sixth of the country’s spending on all types of R&D, which totaled $499 billion in 2015. Applied makes up another one-sixth, whereas the majority, some $316 billion, is development. Almost all of that is funded by industry and done inhouse, as companies try to convert basic research into new drugs, products, and technologies that they hope will generate profits. Those private sector efforts are now the dominant form of research activity in the United States, with business spending $3 on research for every $1 invested by the U.S. government. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/data-check-us-government-share-basic-research-funding-falls-below-50 http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/data-check-us-governm...
- tertius 8y ago
  Some good data. I guess I was talking about funding research, not actually doing it. Research that is privately funded but published, as an example. Most of the research we're talking about from your data I assume is not published. I.e. not really research... (If I can go that far.) And I'm not trying to argue a technicality here to win an argument.

sandwall 8y ago

That's getting deep... Industry has specific problems, scientific findings are often ancillary to other work, i.e. problem solving. Can't tell people to stop solving problems and making discoveries. Or can you???

sokoloff 8y ago
If you setup payout structures such that research becomes obviously uneconomical, you can dramatically curtail private research. Examples might include: eliminating pharma patents or capping pharma prices to 2x the raw materials and manufacturing costs.

rgbrenner 8y ago

"A good deal? The vast majority more like." That just isn't true. The federal government funds no where near the majority of r&d, not even the majority of basic research. Data from ongoing surveys by the National Science Foundation (NSF) show that federal agencies provided only 44% of the $86 billion spent on basic research in 2015. ... Basic research comprises only about one-sixth of the country’s spending on all types of R&D, which totaled $499 billion in 2015. Applied makes up another one-sixth, whereas the majority, some $316 billion, is development. Almost all of that is funded by industry and done inhouse, as companies try to convert basic research into new drugs, products, and technologies that they hope will generate profits. Those private sector efforts are now the dominant form of research activity in the United States, with business spending $3 on research for every $1 invested by the U.S. government. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/data-check-us-government-share-basic-research-funding-falls-below-50 http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/data-check-us-governm...

tertius 8y ago
Some good data. I guess I was talking about funding research, not actually doing it. Research that is privately funded but published, as an example. Most of the research we're talking about from your data I assume is not published. I.e. not really research... (If I can go that far.) And I'm not trying to argue a technicality here to win an argument.