> He has no particular expertise whatsoever at deciding > whether project Y is more useful to society as a whole > than other possible uses of the money. In a

> He has no particular expertise whatsoever at deciding > whether project Y is more useful to society as a whole > than other possible uses of the money. In a democracy, > that decision is left up to our elected leaders. That is not and never has been how science is funded in the United States or in any other developed economy. In the case of the US, Congress provides funding to and defines the overall mission of various funding agencies. The beaurocracies of those agencies supply funding to researchers, usually on the advice and recommendation of peer review panels. It is no accident that every time Congress created a new funding agency, it followed that same basic model. NSF works that way. DOE works that way. NIH works that way. DOD works that way. The only case in which our elected leaders have a direct say in decisions of funding research are ear marks. In all other cases, Congress explicitly distanced itself from the quotidian chore of deciding on specific research programs. Your assertion of how decisions about specific research programs should be made in our democracy is not well supported either by history or by the actual structure of our government. It sounds, instead, like a statement of personal opinion. Indeed, that fine-grained control over the quotidian role of government is something Representative Cantor and his party have campaigned against in the form of ear marks. In any case, reforming 10^5 dollars worth of NSF funding in the presence of a 10^11 dolar budget deficit is clearly political grandstanding and not a sincere attempt to address structural budgetary problems.