8 ms·

From Galileo to WW2, science progressed at an amazing pace with little and sporadic government support (mostly in the way of prizes). Then governments stepped i

by zeteo 13y ago

From Galileo to WW2, science progressed at an amazing pace with little and sporadic government support (mostly in the way of prizes). Then governments stepped in and started throwing insane amounts of money at research projects - who was going to say no? Now everyone's addicted to public funds, and waking up to the realization that who pays the piper calls the tune.

rayiner 13y ago
Through that entire time, the cost of every incremental discovery has increased exponentially. It's not that people are addicted to public research funds, it's that it's no longer possible to do experimentally-rigorous science without massive amounts of money. You see this phenomenon all over the place, and it's impact on industries. E.g. each generation of microprocessor fab is exponentially more expensive than the last, and the result has been that companies have been spinning off their fabs until only a handful have fab capability left.
- bhb916 13y ago
  I agree with the trend you're describing although I slightly disagree with the absolutism (i.e. "every incremental discovery" and "no longer possible"). Still, regardless of this increasing demand for funds, there are other ways to procure funding other than taxation.
- zeteo 13y ago
  There are several good reasons to reject the argument that costs make massive government intervention necessary. First, a good telescope in the days of Galileo or an electric generator in Tesla's were still pretty expensive high-tech toys. They got financed through private means anyway. Second, the number of subfields that truly demand massive capital investment is small, and mostly confined to physics. Many, if not most projects these days can be conducted with a few graduate students / postdocs, who are paid close to minumum wage and use existing equipment. Still, this kind of "cheap" research is nonetheless conducted overwhelmingly with government funds. Third, money doesn't guarantee quality. Major scientific advances of the past were achieved not so much by people who were very well funded, but rather who had leisure to think about their field in novel ways (Maxwell, Darwin, Mendel, Einstein etc.). The constraints, stress and uncertainty of the grant-award process are not conducive to a similar environment. Finally, increased costs are also a symptom of lack of innovation [1]. Maybe we're just on the final legs of existing logistic curves and have no new ones to latch on to? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations
  - astrodust 13y ago
    A "large hadron collider" funded by private industry would never have happened, or if it did, it would have a significantly different mandate. As far as we can tell, here's no money to be made with Higgs bosons. That is, there's no money to be made today in that. Eighty years in the future we might realize some commercial applications, just as how we're still mining theoretical research done eighty years ago when building new integrated circuits or optical switching technologies. There is an enormous amount of government funded work out there that, while not always glamorous or even practical, provides a huge boost to future initiatives that can leverage it. Developing commercial applications is made easier, more frictionless, because researchers don't have to do this work themselves. Increased costs are not a sign of a lack of innovation. It's a sign that people are compelled to tackle larger problems. All the easy stuff has already been done. A hundred and fifty years ago you could tinker around with random radioactive compounds in your garage and win a Nobel Prize. Today you'll have to work pretty hard to find something that hasn't already been experimented with.
  - tensor 13y ago
    Here is another data point for you. I went to grad school with public funding and obtained a PhD in CS. I'm one of these who worked for "close to minimum wage". Would I have done it if my research was to be used to further the profits of a corporation instead of being released free to the world? Not a chance. What if they were willing to pay 10x what I earned? Would I do it then? Maybe, though perhaps not even then. I'd sooner work for myself. I don't think I'm alone either. Among my peers, nobody wanted corporate grants. The sentiment was that they would rather just quite and get a job for full pay if a corporate grant where their research went to the corporation was the only option. Further, I'd argue that corporations today simply do not do any science at all. They do engineering, sure, but very little science. You might counter and point to drug companies, but the work they do is highly criticized as is with claims that they outright won't work on cures because cures don't make them ongoing profits. They also won't work on any disease that is not extremely common. The days of Bell Labs and Xerox Parc are largely over with few holdouts still doing interesting work that is released for the public good (Google, Microsoft). Public funding has yielded huge numbers of scientific and mathematical advances over the years. Many people here have given plenty of examples already, though there are a great many more too.
- nickff 13y ago
  If you think that these researchers require more money, why not convince others of this, and ask them to donate money voluntarily? I would be happy to donate money to research scientists, if my money was not being taken by the government, and used without my consent. I do not understand your point about microprocessor fabs at all. As the fixed costs of manufacturing silicon-based systems have increased, the industry has become less vertically integrated, and there are less companies focusing on manufacturing, and many more "fabless" companies. This is certainly different, but not necessarily better or worse.
  - nkassis 13y ago
    Government is much more efficient at distributing capital like this than having scientists, who are not marketing experts or salesmen/ running around asking for money. The government agencies that have the mandate to fund research do the work of judging proposal using people who are expert in the proposal's particular field and also audit to ensure that research is being conducted and funds are used appropriately. It's not perfect but it's something government is capable of doing well enough. And you do have a say in how this money is being handled. You have the ability to vote and influence your representative if you live in a democratic country. And obviously you might not have as much impact as you might which but that's the reality of democracies.
    - dnautics 13y ago
      "Government is much more efficient at distributing capital like this" [citation please] Do you actually understand how grant review boards work? It's really quite nasty cronyism going on. "And you do have a say in how this money is being handled through you ability to vote and influence your representative if you live in a democratic country." Not really. This stuff is handled by bureaucrats, who wield a high amount of unaccountable power. These sorts of issues get by through salutory neglect. How often do you think scientific fund mismanagement is going to be a "tipping point" vote changer, versus, say, torture in guantanamo, or prosecuting an illegal war, or voting to restrict [internet/abortion/economic] rights?
      - 13y ago
Daishiman 13y ago
The most important sailing expeditions to the New World were funded by European crowns. The atomic bomb was developed exclusively through government research. The vast majority of space program was developed through government funds, and what wasn't done by them was delegated and coordinated by them (and ultimately paid for as well). Public universities are the largest and most important institutions doing basic research, and doing a lot of the actual innovation in medical research. Fewer and fewer companies are still dedicated to that (witness HP and Xerox withdrawing from the field; IBM is pretty much the only giant still putting resources into that). The German and Chinese governments are subsidising solar energy research to the effect that its viability as an alternative power source has increased dramatically in the last decade. Tell me how many companies nowadays are actually spending real money into research programs where the expected outcomes will reach fruition in 20 years or more.
- caseysoftware 13y ago
  Most of the successful "government research" projects were to make money or engage in war better. Those sailing expeditions were to gain resources (make money) or conquer new lands (make money). The atomic bomb and space programs were built for military ends. The internet was built for military resiliency. GPS was for targeting and tracking. Basic research does require a long term view.. but I would suggest that even government doesn't have that as evidenced by the financial messes they've caused because the bills don't have to be paid until "later."
  - Daishiman 13y ago
    You're assuming that funding basic research has anything to do with budgetary deficit. It doesn't, because basic research is a very, very small section of all research budgets, and the returns on investment are massive on the long term.
- zeteo 13y ago
  Can some kinds of projects be conducted better with government support? Yes. Should almost all scientific research depend on the same support? Probably not. Projects that are not due to realize either great profits or publicity coups within a politician's expected term of office will find government a very fickle and small-minded master.

by zeteo 13y ago

rayiner 13y ago

Through that entire time, the cost of every incremental discovery has increased exponentially. It's not that people are addicted to public research funds, it's that it's no longer possible to do experimentally-rigorous science without massive amounts of money. You see this phenomenon all over the place, and it's impact on industries. E.g. each generation of microprocessor fab is exponentially more expensive than the last, and the result has been that companies have been spinning off their fabs until only a handful have fab capability left.

bhb916 13y ago
I agree with the trend you're describing although I slightly disagree with the absolutism (i.e. "every incremental discovery" and "no longer possible"). Still, regardless of this increasing demand for funds, there are other ways to procure funding other than taxation.
zeteo 13y ago
There are several good reasons to reject the argument that costs make massive government intervention necessary. First, a good telescope in the days of Galileo or an electric generator in Tesla's were still pretty expensive high-tech toys. They got financed through private means anyway. Second, the number of subfields that truly demand massive capital investment is small, and mostly confined to physics. Many, if not most projects these days can be conducted with a few graduate students / postdocs, who are paid close to minumum wage and use existing equipment. Still, this kind of "cheap" research is nonetheless conducted overwhelmingly with government funds. Third, money doesn't guarantee quality. Major scientific advances of the past were achieved not so much by people who were very well funded, but rather who had leisure to think about their field in novel ways (Maxwell, Darwin, Mendel, Einstein etc.). The constraints, stress and uncertainty of the grant-award process are not conducive to a similar environment. Finally, increased costs are also a symptom of lack of innovation [1]. Maybe we're just on the final legs of existing logistic curves and have no new ones to latch on to? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations
- astrodust 13y ago
  A "large hadron collider" funded by private industry would never have happened, or if it did, it would have a significantly different mandate. As far as we can tell, here's no money to be made with Higgs bosons. That is, there's no money to be made today in that. Eighty years in the future we might realize some commercial applications, just as how we're still mining theoretical research done eighty years ago when building new integrated circuits or optical switching technologies. There is an enormous amount of government funded work out there that, while not always glamorous or even practical, provides a huge boost to future initiatives that can leverage it. Developing commercial applications is made easier, more frictionless, because researchers don't have to do this work themselves. Increased costs are not a sign of a lack of innovation. It's a sign that people are compelled to tackle larger problems. All the easy stuff has already been done. A hundred and fifty years ago you could tinker around with random radioactive compounds in your garage and win a Nobel Prize. Today you'll have to work pretty hard to find something that hasn't already been experimented with.
- tensor 13y ago
  Here is another data point for you. I went to grad school with public funding and obtained a PhD in CS. I'm one of these who worked for "close to minimum wage". Would I have done it if my research was to be used to further the profits of a corporation instead of being released free to the world? Not a chance. What if they were willing to pay 10x what I earned? Would I do it then? Maybe, though perhaps not even then. I'd sooner work for myself. I don't think I'm alone either. Among my peers, nobody wanted corporate grants. The sentiment was that they would rather just quite and get a job for full pay if a corporate grant where their research went to the corporation was the only option. Further, I'd argue that corporations today simply do not do any science at all. They do engineering, sure, but very little science. You might counter and point to drug companies, but the work they do is highly criticized as is with claims that they outright won't work on cures because cures don't make them ongoing profits. They also won't work on any disease that is not extremely common. The days of Bell Labs and Xerox Parc are largely over with few holdouts still doing interesting work that is released for the public good (Google, Microsoft). Public funding has yielded huge numbers of scientific and mathematical advances over the years. Many people here have given plenty of examples already, though there are a great many more too.
nickff 13y ago
If you think that these researchers require more money, why not convince others of this, and ask them to donate money voluntarily? I would be happy to donate money to research scientists, if my money was not being taken by the government, and used without my consent. I do not understand your point about microprocessor fabs at all. As the fixed costs of manufacturing silicon-based systems have increased, the industry has become less vertically integrated, and there are less companies focusing on manufacturing, and many more "fabless" companies. This is certainly different, but not necessarily better or worse.
- nkassis 13y ago
  Government is much more efficient at distributing capital like this than having scientists, who are not marketing experts or salesmen/ running around asking for money. The government agencies that have the mandate to fund research do the work of judging proposal using people who are expert in the proposal's particular field and also audit to ensure that research is being conducted and funds are used appropriately. It's not perfect but it's something government is capable of doing well enough. And you do have a say in how this money is being handled. You have the ability to vote and influence your representative if you live in a democratic country. And obviously you might not have as much impact as you might which but that's the reality of democracies.
  - dnautics 13y ago
    "Government is much more efficient at distributing capital like this" [citation please] Do you actually understand how grant review boards work? It's really quite nasty cronyism going on. "And you do have a say in how this money is being handled through you ability to vote and influence your representative if you live in a democratic country." Not really. This stuff is handled by bureaucrats, who wield a high amount of unaccountable power. These sorts of issues get by through salutory neglect. How often do you think scientific fund mismanagement is going to be a "tipping point" vote changer, versus, say, torture in guantanamo, or prosecuting an illegal war, or voting to restrict [internet/abortion/economic] rights?
    - 13y ago

Daishiman 13y ago

The most important sailing expeditions to the New World were funded by European crowns. The atomic bomb was developed exclusively through government research. The vast majority of space program was developed through government funds, and what wasn't done by them was delegated and coordinated by them (and ultimately paid for as well). Public universities are the largest and most important institutions doing basic research, and doing a lot of the actual innovation in medical research. Fewer and fewer companies are still dedicated to that (witness HP and Xerox withdrawing from the field; IBM is pretty much the only giant still putting resources into that). The German and Chinese governments are subsidising solar energy research to the effect that its viability as an alternative power source has increased dramatically in the last decade. Tell me how many companies nowadays are actually spending real money into research programs where the expected outcomes will reach fruition in 20 years or more.

caseysoftware 13y ago
Most of the successful "government research" projects were to make money or engage in war better. Those sailing expeditions were to gain resources (make money) or conquer new lands (make money). The atomic bomb and space programs were built for military ends. The internet was built for military resiliency. GPS was for targeting and tracking. Basic research does require a long term view.. but I would suggest that even government doesn't have that as evidenced by the financial messes they've caused because the bills don't have to be paid until "later."
- Daishiman 13y ago
  You're assuming that funding basic research has anything to do with budgetary deficit. It doesn't, because basic research is a very, very small section of all research budgets, and the returns on investment are massive on the long term.
zeteo 13y ago
Can some kinds of projects be conducted better with government support? Yes. Should almost all scientific research depend on the same support? Probably not. Projects that are not due to realize either great profits or publicity coups within a politician's expected term of office will find government a very fickle and small-minded master.