3 ms·
The disease foundations and other charities are possibly a better model for this kind of funding, although there may be political and efficiency problems there
by aheilbut 14y ago
The disease foundations and other charities are possibly a better model for this kind of funding, although there may be political and efficiency problems there too.
I actually really like the kinds of science education and literacy projects featured on Microryza's homepage, and fun ecology projects involving pandas and lemurs. That kind of stuff is very underfunded, and the $20k can actually make those projects happen and make a difference, while getting the broader public excited about science in general. But it's a mistake to pretend that this is any sort of solution to problems with NIH funding.
- irollboozers 14y agoI strongly disagree with you, in that the big potential solution we offer is to simultaneously help small foundations and eat their lunch. The whole notion of someone at a desk stamping papers to identify what research to fund, when there is just not enough funding to go around anyways, is inefficient and wasteful. The real power of crowdfunding is that it allows people to really dictate what they want to care about, and not rely on some proxy to do that for them. There are information completeness problems, but those are technical (in my opinion) and very solvable.