Investing in Basic Science
A recent editorial in the New York Times by Nicholas Wade raises some interesting points about the nature of basic science research – primarily that its' risky. I follow science news reporting quite closely and this is a point that journalists, and the general public, do underappreciate (if they appreciate it at all).
As I have pointed out about the medical literature, researcher John Ioaniddis has explained why most published studies turn out in retrospect to be wrong. The same is true of most basic science research – and the underlying reason is the same. The world is complex, and most of our guesses about how it might work turn out to be either flat-out wrong, incomplete, or superficial. And so most of our probing and prodding of the natural world, looking for the path to the actual answer, turn out to miss the target.
In a way I liken such research to my philosophy about taking pictures – it doesn't matter how many bad pictures you take, only how many good ones. You can always delete the bad ones, or just let them sit on your hard drive, but the good ones you can frame and display. However this is not literally true because (unlike taking digital pictures) research costs considerable resources of time, space, money, opportunity, and people-hours. There may also be some risk involved (such as to subjects in the clinical trial). Further, negative studies are actually valuable (more so than terrible pictures). They still teach us something about the world – they teach us what is not true. At the very least this narrows the field of possibilities.
But the analogy holds in so far as the goal of scientific research is to improve our understanding of the world and to provide practical applications that make our lives better. Wade writes mostly about how we fund research, and this relates to our objectives. Most of the corporate research money is interested in the latter – practical (and profitable) applications. If this is your goal, than basic science research is a bad bet. Most investments will be losers, and for most companies this will not be offset by the big payoffs of the rare winners. So many companies will allow others to do the basic science (government, universities, start up companies) then raid the winners by using their resources to buy them out, and then bring them the final steps to a marketable application. There is nothing wrong or unethical about this. It's a good business model.
What, then, is the role of public (government) funding of research? Primarily, Wade argues (and I agree), to provide infrastructure for expensive research programs, such as building large colliders. Private companies cannot afford the big projects where there is no predictable payout. But the more the government invests in basic science and infrastructure, the more winners will emerge that private industry can then capitalize on. This is a good way to build a competitive dynamic economy.
But there is a pitfall – prematurely picking winners and losers. Wade give the example of California investing specifically into developing stem cell treatments. He argues that stem cells, while promising, do not hold a guarantee of eventual success, and perhaps there are other technologies that will work and are being neglected. The history of science and technology has clearly demonstrated that it is wickedly difficult to predict the future (and all those who try are destined to be mocked by future generations with the benefit of perfect hindsight). Prematurely committing to one technology therefore contains a high risk of wasting a great deal of limited resources, and missing other perhaps more fruitful opportunities.
As a side point, and while I agree with Wade's core point, I feel he is a it tough on stem cells in order to make his point. They have not provided the much-hyped cures yet, but it is too early to expect that they would have. The public's famously short attention span, and lack of appreciation for the nature of scientific research, leads to the expectation of short term applications emerging from long term basic science programs. We have not seen applications from the genome project or stem cell research yet. We cannot yet say what, if any, those applications will be. But it is important to note that it is also too early to expect such applications. Generally speaking, about 10-20 years have to be added to the public's expectation of when applications should emerge from basic science research (perhaps even more, in some cases). The public will forget about stem cells, and then 20 years from now real stem cell therapies (like the one's we have been promised) will emerge (maybe). The same goes for the genome project. Gene therapy? – hard to say. Maybe that will require 50 years, or some other technological developments not yet imagined.
The underlying concept is that science research is a long-term game. Many avenues of research will not pan out, and those that do will take time to inspire specific applications. The media, however, likes catchy headlines. That means when they are reporting on basic science research journalists ask themselves – why should people care? What is the application of this that the average person can relate to? This seems reasonable from a journalistic point of view, but with basic science reporting it leads to wild speculation about a distant possible future application. The public is then left with the impression that we are on the verge of curing the common cold or cancer, or developing invisibility cloaks or flying cars, or replacing organs and having household robot servants. When a few years go by and we don't have our personal android butlers, the public then thinks that the basic science was a bust, when in fact there was never a reasonable expectation that it would lead to a specific application anytime soon. But it still may be on track for interesting applications in a decade or two.
All of this also means that the government, generally, should not be in the game of picking winners an losers – putting their thumb on the scale, as it were. Rather, they will get the most bang for the research buck if they simply invest in science infrastructure, and also fund scientists in broad areas. If they want to support cancer research, then fund cancer and basic biology research – don't pick one possible approach as the answer and specifically fund that. Rather, the government should simply let the scientific community allocate resources according to merit. This is not a perfect process (people are people) but a panel of scientists have a better chance of determining promising research and researchers than do politicians.
The same is true of technology – don't pick winners and losers. The much-hyped “hydrogen economy” comes to mind. Let industry and the free market sort out what will work. If you have to invest in infrastructure before a technology is mature, then at least hedge your bets and keep funding flexible. Fund “alternative fuel” as a general category, and reassess on a regular basis how funds should be allocated. But don't get too specific.We may yet have a hydrogen economy – but who knows. There are still basic technological hurdles to overcome. Meanwhile, battery technology may turn out to be a better solution, or biofuels, or something else entirely.
Funding research but leaving the details to scientists may be optimal, but at times government seems to have a hard time letting go. The government can often be a control-freak, and when they control the purse strings they certainly have the right and ability to exert whatever level of control they wish. Hopefully, however, they will have the maturity and wisdom more often than not to content themselves with oversight, but not micromanage the research itself.
The scientific community can do their part by getting better at communicating with the media and the public. Try to avoid the temptation to overhype your own research, just because it is the most interesting thing in the world to you personally and you feel hype will help your funding. Don't make it easy for the media to sensationalize your research – you should be the ones trying to hold back the reigns. Perhaps this is too much to hope for – market forces conspire too much to promote sensationalism.
Prefacing I have no evidence, is it possible that many inadequate (or bogus) studies are purposely leaked so to capitalize on competitive Fed or private money, thereby keeping more research in solvency?
If true, this explains why the general public gets fickled on science: promising headlines and sound bites from premature conclusions.
The Nobel prizes in Chemistry, Physics, and Medicine are often awarded for some pretty obscure basic research conducted decades ago that has real applications now.
For example: “This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to Richard F. Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki for the development of palladium-catalyzed cross coupling… Palladium-catalyzed cross coupling is used in research worldwide, as well as in the commercial production of for example pharmaceuticals and molecules used in the electronics industry.”
I doubt that anyone knew the true potential of palladium-catalyzed cross coupling back when the basic research was conducted.
Has anyone read Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs by Morton Meyers M.D.?
The title says it all. A number of modern medical breakthroughs were not what the scientists originally set out to discover, but rather began as anomalies that the curious scientists decided to investigate.
Here’s a review of the book. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2627158/
Steve,
I hope medical guidelines and FDA approvals are much less likely to be wrong than individual published studies. Or are most medical guidelines wrong too? What percent of them do more harm than good?
Max – you are talking about clinical research, not basic research. FDA guidelines, for example, require multiple high quality clinical studies of a specific application of a specific intervention. You cannot compare this to extrapolating from some basic science factoid.
The show “Connections” and book “The Pinball Effect” really do a great job at illustrating the need for pure research. I think people tend to have an instant gratification mindset, as such, it’s difficult for people to get behind something that may not “pay-off” for them, or even their children, or maybe even their childrens, children. Of course, this doesn’t even address the intrinsic value of knowledge. (provisional or otherwise) I suppose we tend toward instrumental good, when assessing the value of a thing. I don’ think this can becstressed enough: science, math, and critical thinking, K through 12, and taught, excellently.
Maybe I should have paid more attention in English class, oooops!
It should not be the business of the federal government to provide any money, grants, funding, infrastructure, incentive, subsidy, etc. at all. The only exception I can see to this would be a legitimate emergency such as the Manhattan project in WW II or ongoing research intended to protect our country (which is a constitutional mandate). While I believe the states have fewer constitutional controls on what they do I also think it would be smart for the citizens of the individual states to write their own constitutional restrictions on state governments giving money or other forms of help to special interests to pursue research. I also think it should be criminal to borrow money (as California did for stem cell research) to give to private/public research. In fact I would favor making it unconstitutional for states and federal to borrow money for any reason (pretty clear that we wouldn’t be in trouble today if government couldn’t borrow money).
Yeah sure, investing too much (0.3% of GDP?) in basic research is the reason we’re in trouble.
Read this Joint Economic Committee report. http://www.faseb.org/portals/0/pdfs/opa/2008/nih_research_benefits.pdf
The federal government, mainly through the NIH, funds about 36% of all U.S. medical research. Most NIH-funded research focuses on basic science, which creates advances across many disease categories. Publicly funded research in general generates high rates of return to the economy, averaging 25 to 40 percent a year.
Of the 21 most important drugs introduced between 1965 and 1992, 15 were developed using knowledge and techniques from federally funded research. Of these, NIH research led to the development of 7 drugs used to treat patients with cancer, AIDS, hypertension, depression, herpes, and anemia.
Past advances have dramatically reduced health care costs for such illnesses as tuberculosis, polio, peptic ulcers, and schizophrenia. Future advances hold great promise of further reducing costs, such as with drug treatments that decrease hospital stays and invasive surgeries. One study found that, on average, a $1 increase in drug expenditures reduces hospital expenditures by about $3.65.
When someone wants to minimze billions of dollars they always compare it with the GDP of the worlds largest economy. When a drunk wants to minimze their drinking they refer to it as asix pack (or two) a night, no big deal. When a gambler wants to minimize their gambling it is pocket change or the money they would have spent on a six pack (or two). Our federal budget is enormous and it is made up of tens of thousands of multi-billion and multi-million dollar expenditures. We cannot afford it and have to borrow a trillion a year now. We are going down the crapper and the last words we will hear as it flushes you down is “it’s only 0.3% of GDP”…
The deficit this year is 10% of the GDP. But what percent of the GDP exists thanks to basic science research? I bet it’s more than 0.3 percent. I’ve seen some high estimates, but can’t find them now.
Here’s one
http://www.nist.gov/director/planning/upload/economic_impacts_of_technology.pdf
“One study that attempted to quantify the impact of R&D on economic growth found that increases in the level of research intensity in the U.S. and four other developed countries may have accounted for close to 50 percent of U.S. economic growth between 1950 and 1993.”
Jones, Charles I. 2002. “Sources of U.S. Economic Growth in a World of Ideas.” American Economic Review, vol. 92, no. 1 (March), pp. 220-239.
Sorry, wrong link. Use this.
http://www.aau.edu/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=10830
The NIST link is good too.
“The rate of return on basic science is about three times that of applied R&D, which, in turn, is about double the rate of return on physical capital (Griliches, 1995)”
“The rate of return from R&D is about four times that from physical capital, implying that R&D investment should be increased by a factor of four (Jones, C. and J. Williams, 1998, 2000)”
More from NIST
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsb0803/start.htm
1.Based on past experience, basic research can be expected to be a major driver in the future for innovations that result in new industries and new jobs, and that will enhance the Nation’s global competitiveness.
Recommendation: The Federal Government should take action to enhance the level of funding for, and the transformational nature of, basic research.
GWTW – What is your opinion based upon? What is wrong with government providing funding to get over the initial hurdles to research programs or developing technology? That is one of the things that governments can do very well, and definitely can have a long term positive impact on society and the economy.
No government funding – no large hadron collider.
“That is one thing that governments can do very well..” Wrong. “Government efficiency” is an oxymoron. Bureaucrats have no incentive to be efficient. Name one government program that has achieved a stated goal efficiently. Some like the Departments of Energy, Education, HHS and Agriculture have spent billions to fix a problem but, instead, made it worse.
There is plenty of private money to do basic research and develop technology. Government money corrupts whatever it touches. The corruption of climate scientists pushing global warming alarmism is a case in point.
I just had an article published in the journal Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine. It is on basic science research that uses sentient animals. It might cause some discussion. The article can be found at http://www.peh-med.com/content/pdf/1747-5341-5-14.pdf
10,000 deaths per year in the US alone are avoided with the use of RhoGAM. How many Rhesus monkeys is that worth, huh?
Singers view of unecessary pain and suffering, on sentient animals? Cosmetic testing is wrong, but from a utilitarian perspective, medical testing may be justified? I’m entering the Pract. Ethics grad. program, at Texas State. We’re doing bioethics, now. May I share your paper with my class?
Please feel free to share the paper with your class.
Excellent! Thank you. I think it will generate a lot of healthy debate.
Max, from a utilitarian perspective it’s a no brainer. You’re right, the monkies died so a greater good could be served for the greatest number, ala Bentham. But, if we’re looking at it from a different ethical perspective, say a deontological environmentalist, like Leopold, or maybe an Ethic of Care, or some other Feminist, or Virtue Ethic, then the taking of any sentient life may be argued to be unethical, no matter how good the outcome.
It’s always easier to think about these tricky questions in the abstract.The hard part is making a personal choice that affects you directly,such as “Would the sacrifice of an innocent animal to save my life or the life of my loved ones be ethical?” Most people would choose themselves and loved ones,EVEN if they thought it was unethical.Why?
Dunno’? Poor forethought, survival impulse over reason, compassion? The idea of us v them? The concept of Moral & Ethical Skepticism? Probably, different moral and ethical views, that tend to be Anthropocentric, or Divine Command based, although there is some overlap. The concept of humans as separate from “nature” probably has something to do with it, as far as abuse of the environment goes?
List the top ten “discoveries” that resulted from government funding of research for the last ten years. I’m betting before you get to the tenth one on the list you will be unable to show substantial “benefit” from this new discovery, technology or invention, etc. It’s not like we cured Aids or cancer. In fact if you only looked at the most important areas (arguably cancer qualifies) and looked at it over the previous 50 years there is very little that is new and significant. What little progress there has been is mainly using older technology more aggressively with minimal results. I can assure you that if you go to the doctors office complaining about pain and they discover lung cancer you WILL be dead within 18 months. Essentially this was exactly the same 50 years ago. Where they HAVE succeeded is that if you have no symptoms and the doctor requests a CT scan and “discovers” lung cancer your life expectancy skyrockets (LOL) to 4 years. Arguably the same cancer would have taken 2 1/2 years to show symptoms and then it would have killed you anyway after 18 months. So where is the progress? We have spent about $2 trillion on all research on all cancers in the last 50 years and there is very little to show from it other then full employment for 50,000 researchers over 50 years time. I have heard from authoritative sources that most of the cancer research money is wasted either in following dead ends that some senior researcher wants to pursue or in pure fraud and waste while at the same time promising leads are ignored because “they weren’t thought of here”.
Another example is in the area of alternative energy. PV cells have been available for over 60 years and they still are so expensive that they can never generate enough electricity to pay for themselves. If the federal and state government didn’t heavily subsidize it there would be little use for PV except for some specialized situations like satellites. Ethanol from corn is so inefficient that it is the poster boy for insane government funding. It takes about 30% more energy into the process then you get out of it and almost all that energy comes from fossil fuels. But each year the subsidy is increased. We build EV’s with batteries so expensive that the car becomes unaffordable and must be heavily subsidized by the taxpayers. A typical EV costs so much that over it’s lifetime it will cost more and use more total energy then a subcompact ICE vehicle would. Where are the great scientific advances in alternative energy?? If you tried to make a top ten list you would be staring at a blank sheet of paper. And certainly not from lack of funding. But what is the true purpose of the alternative energy industry? Is it to discover and develop an effective and sustainable alternative energy OR is it to harvest huge subsidies from the government???
Cancer survival has been steadily increasing for all age groups over recent decades. You are committing the fallacy of the perfect solution – anything short of a cure is worthless. We are making steady progress, due to a combination of basic science and clinical research. You are simply making up false information to support your point.
Yes – I agree that the government wastes money on bad investments because of politics – and corn subsidies are near the top of the list. The solution is not to abolish public funding, but to improves the process – we need evidence-based funding. We have to hold our politicians accountable. And – as I said above – the government should fund basic goals, like alternative energy or cancer research – and not specific means of achieving those goals – not pick winners and losers,like ethanol.
An investment in basic research takes longer than 10 years to really pay off. ARPANET didn’t turn into the Internet in 10 years. Bradford Parkinson’s GPS research didn’t turn into geotagging in 10 years.
In the 70’s, “Sydney Brenner used the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans to follow cell division under a microscope and to induce genetic mutations.” Could you guess back then that his work would underpin the Human Genome Project and be rewarded with a Nobel Prize in 2002?
Do you think that nobody will ever win a Nobel Prize for research done in the last 10 years?
No surprise you chose to focus on lung cancer, but see testicular cancer.
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/cancer_of_the_testicle/article_em.htm
“Because of its high cure rate, testicular cancer is considered the model of success for cancer treatment. In 1970, 90% of men with metastatic testicular cancer died of the disease. By 1990, that figure had almost reversed —nearly 90% of men with metastatic testicular cancer were cured.”
The NCI says widespread HPV vaccination could reduce cervical cancer deaths around the world by as much as two-thirds.
And no, we didn’t cure AIDS, we only increased survival by 4 to 12 years with HAART.
My disagreement with the federal government providing funding for research is based on two simple things.
1)The constitution doesn’t allow it.
2)We cannot afford it.
Our politicians buy votes with OUR money. The federal government should fund congress and federal courts, federal law enforcement and our military. They shouldn’t fund private businesses, grants and loans for college, welfare, subsidies for anything they think is good, etc. We are literally on the verge of going bankrupt while simultaneously taxing our citizens so heavily that we have caused a depression. We have borrowed trillions for welfare so that the lazy can sit at home pushing out babies and smoking dope. Our federal government probably spends 2/3rds of the budget on unconstitutional and unnecessary programs. And while they do this we are having record suffering, bankruptcies, mortgage defaults, people out of work more then 99 weeks, etc. The single biggest expense most Americans face is their taxes (all taxes). While our government grows ever larger doling out more and more trillions our citizens are under seige from the taxman.
Millions of people die every year long before they reach average life expectency from heart disease, cancer and strokes. Will the hadron collider cure them?? Millions of people file for bankruptcy every year, their lives turned upside down while at the same time our taxes skyrocket. Why should they pay for a hadron collider? I saved for for five months this year to pay my property taxes. The day I paid them I walked through the nice new city hall looking in meeting rooms at the nice highly paid government workers, I even used one of the nice new restorooms. I circled the block three times looking for a parking place while an entire city block was a parking lot reserved for city vehicles; nice brand new city vehicles. What I don’t understand is if I have to drive an old car and save for 5 months to pay property taxes why is the government wasting a single penny??? If they need a hadron collider to look at the micro-second after the big bang let the scientists pay for it. If they have so much money they can give it away to college professors to look at the sex lives of monkeys then give it back to the taxpayers.
Will the LHC lead to better cancer treatment? I dunno, do you realize that PET scans essentially use antimatter to diagnose cancer?
Hmmm… Which constitution did you read?
You are kind of stuck arguing about how basic science research doesn’t tie into the general welfare of the United States.
Our founding fathers had no idea of the perversion that is “welfare” today, When they wrote that phrase “provide for…general welfare” it meant that the federal government by fulfilling their constitutional mandate that it would allow all the citizens to benefit from the orderly society. It did not mean that congress had a right to give away our tax money in return for votes.
GWTW, why do you hate disenfranchised and marginalized people so much? What did they, as powerless as they are, ever do to make you so angry and unhappy in your pretty little parade of self-interest?
I love “disenfranchised and marginalized people” I even let one shine my shoes the other day.
Did you really think that sophomoric attempt to insult me would work? Why not simply address the issue. Give it your best shot, I’ll wait…
What is really terrible is the 2010 elections and that the “just say no” party now has control of the House of Representatives. Federal funding for basic scientific research is likely to be cut, by as much as 19% or more. If the Bible is inerrant, then why do science? Too many of the newly elected are far to the right and base their decisons on belief derived from 2000+ year old books rather than cutting edge science. Many thousands of lives have been extended by federally funded science and many billions have been saved by improvements in medical technology, highway safety and environmental safety. It is wrong and terribly shortsighted to say that we cannot afford basic research. If that is the case, then let us all return to the Neolithic age and die at an average age of 25.
Investing in infrastructure is not making us bankrupt – it is strengthening our economy and is really our only hope for the future. Investing in basic science and in a research infrastructure is probably the best thing we can do for our long term competitiveness world wide.
Infrastructure is investment. We cannot afford NOT to do it.
The constitutional argument seems dubious, but I would need specifics and would like to know what expert opinions are.
You are misstating the case. I certainly want to see basic research and I am whole-heartedly in favor of making decisions based on science and facts. But our federal government does not have the right (as in the constitutional right) to give our money to whomever they want. In fact, YOU, should agree with me because when the federal government provides grants for research for any particular research they have picked a winner and by so doing have deemed all competing ideas to be losers. So while you cite all the great “improvements in medical technology” what about all the promising research that failed because the researcher didn’t have a congressman in his pocket?? In addition to merely being unconstitutional federal funding of research is a two edged sword in that it prevents funding of promising research. My original challenege was to list the top ten GREAT discoveries over the last ten years because I knew that before anyone could get to the tenth one they would be rationalizing to “prove” their case. But in the last ten years I would imagne the federal government has funded in part or in total perhaps 10,000 sperate research efforts. So could a case be made that 9,990 of them weren’t even worthy?
Is it even worth it to debate someone who has paranoid delusions about how science funding works?
This is NOT investing in infrastructure!! You would have to be kidding. Have you ever looked at the list of incredibly stupid things we have funded under the name of research.
I won’t disagree that science and research is important. Where we clearly disagree is that BECAUSE it is funded by the federal government and BECAUSE it is a reward by a congressman for favors past and future we fund STUPID things and ignore important things. If funding was from the college endowment I think the decision about what to fund would be so much better. If funding was within a company (i.e. a pharmaceutical company) it would not waste money on things that were irrelevent or had no purpose. But because funding is based on who you know and not what you know we spend billions on research that is embarrasingly inane.
From this and your previous posts, it’s plain to see that you like to make a lot of assertions to support your positions. However, you never seem to have any actual evidence. Can you point to any actual evidence that research is only funded because someone has a member of congress in their pocket? (The musings of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, etc., do not constitute evidence.)
I never said ONLY. However I will say that most money from the government is asked for by someone who knows a congressman. Plenty of people ask for money and don’t get it because either they don’t know anyone important or have nothing to offer someone important. Do you really believe politicians decide to bequeth money because they believe in what you are doing???
Actually, I don’t believe all polititians – or even most – are bad people. I think most go into politics sincerely believing they can make a positive change in people’s lives. Surely, some get corrupted, but, thanks to our constitution, there’s a pretty good remedy for that: They can and should be voted out of office. No, I’m not Pollyanna. I have worked for many years in a field where I see the very, very dark side of human nature every day. However, I think I’m basically a good person and I think most other people are, too. (re: Anne Frank) I’m sorry for you that you can’t calm down and stop seeing the world as such an awful place. It’s really a pretty wonderful place.
I think most people are probably good people. But politicians run for office to accomplish something. If that “something” is contrary to what you believe in then it upsets you. If that something is unconstitutional, possibly illegal and bankrupts our country throwing us all into economic chaos it should upset everyone. My concern is that like Anne Frank, we are about to discover our wonderful world has been taken from us by the people we elected to do the people’s business. I suggest you purchase a blank diary while you can still afford it because thanks to our congress we will all have a story of deprivation and suffering to write about.
Yeah, like that stupid research on fruit flies that Sarah Palin ridiculed.
Now pharmaceutical companies, they spend their money wisely on basic research they can’t patent that benefits everyone including their competitors in the long run, not on bribing congressmen and influential doctors.
The quote was “fruit fly research in Paris France”. The context was cutting the budget by cutting earmarks.
So which is it? You favor our government funding research in another country or you favor earmarks? I don’t favor either one.
The context was that Palin was promising to fund programs for children with special needs by cutting pork projects that “really don’t make a whole lot of sense” and have “little or nothing to do with the public good … things like fruit fly research in Paris, France, I kid you not.”
Ironically, fruit fly research is crucial in the study of birth defects and genetic disorders suffered by children with special needs.
The point is that by cutting stoopid basic science research, you can end up hurting the very people you’re pretending to help.
The federal government shouldn’t be funding programs for children with special needs either. The federal government went of the rails decades ago but went over the cliff in the 60’s when they decided they could transfer massive amounts of money from the people who earned it to the people that would vote them back into congress. This is generations of theft and now it has finally reached a point from which we cannot recover. The country is on the verge of an unavoidable economic collapse and the leeches are fighting over a place to suck the last drop of blood from the body.
Adam_Y Are you really going to make the arguement that there is no politics in science funding? Really?
You keep on idiotically assuming that science grants are decided by congressmen. That is not how it works. Science grants are awarded based upon peer review. Now would you care to backtrack on your idiotic statement in that a lot of scientists have a congressman in their pocket.
You keep on idiotically assuming congress does NOT fund grants. 100% of the federal budget is controlled by congress. 100% of all federal grants are apporved by congress. There is no other possibility. Perhaps you were absent the day they covered that in High School civics.
Peer review! LOL! You’re kidding, right?
Anyway take a look at this: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-04-29-IHE-college-earmarks29_ST_N.htm
Titled: Analysis: Congressional earmarks to colleges $2 billion
SOMEONE had the congressman in their pockets. But “I’ll concede that once the college had the money they spent it based on some criteria that you euphemistically refer to as “Peer review” but we all know is based on politics. Sometimes it’s real obvious and other times it is less so.
So your response to your assertion that some Federal funding may be made that isn’t what you would approve of is to cut all Federal funding.
Interesting.
No! If you read the beginning of the thread you would see that I believe the federal government has no business granting, lending or subsidizing anything. They should fund congress, the federal justice system, the administration, federal law enforcement and the military. They shouldn’t be funding colleges, students, poor people or rich people, and they shouldn’t be allowed to borrow.
In case you haven’t noticed the federal government and most of the state governments are going bankrupt. We are going to have a crash and millions of people will suffer. Why? So we can fund someone’s special project, thesis or study!!
What you are advocating would cause the immediate default of the U.S. government on all of it’s debt,which would freeze all liquidity,causing most of business to not be able to make payroll,or do daily operations.Also,every bank account backstopped by the FDIC would be in immediate jeopardy.That means that if you played by the rules,worked hard,and saved for your future (not counting on Social Security),that you would most likely lose all of that in the inevitable collapse of the banking system.The pension plan and 401K systems that people count on would become worthless,there now would be no federal pension guarantee program,Social Security,Medicare,Medicaid.Companies(which survive) would no longer be able to afford healthcare insurance.
I would no longer feel safe to fly, (no FAA,no regulation of carriers)not that anyone could afford it anymore. I could go on,but I’m sure that you have a tidy,pat answer all ready for my scenario,so really what’s the point.
Wow! Thats a whole laundry list of scare tactics. But moatly incorrect. There are some functions the federal government performs that are worth saving and can be justified constitutionally. Most of the federal government should be eliminated but there would be some things that would remain intact. Social Security should be kept but removed from the hands of congress and reformed so that it was responsible under generally accepted accounting procedures. The same for Medicare. Both of these programs are paid for by the recipients in a targeted tax. Medicaid and welfare are pure giveaways of the people’s money and should be phased out over a very short time (6 months).
As for causing a default I think you have it backwards. The over-spending is causing a default crisis and I don’t think there is anything that can stop it. The only questions are: Will we continue to live like there is no tomorrow and thus destroy what little is left, and Will we change the way we budget and spend the people’s money in the future or will we continue to spend lavishly on things the constitution does not authorize.
Anyway you look at our current situation we are going to crash and it is going to be painful. The real question is can we reform ourselves?
I’ve never been a fan of deficit spending(I have no personal debt),and our political structure makes it difficult to undo.I think that everyone who supports reducing deficits,should be willing to openly state what they personally are willing to give up,rather than to point at someone else and say “cut that fellow behind the tree”. I don’t expect that to happen.
Sorry GWTW, I thought you were reading the thread!
I shall rephrase for you,
So your response to your assertion that some Federal funding for research may be made that isn’t what you approve of is to cut all Federal funding for research.
You don’t want Goverments to be able to borrow, this shows a poor understanding of economics in general- by borrowing to create infrastructure the Government is substatntially reducing the cost of the infrastructure, as opposed to saving to get it (as a side note how would most Americans feel knowing the Government was taxing them and putting the money away for a rainy day?).
Interesting how you all seem to complain about taxes etc, and welfare- in the U.S the top 1% of income earners controls 25% of the wealth and the bottom 40% controls 10% of the wealth (no link provided look it up). You have the most inequitable system in the western world.
I am an Australian, and one thing I have noticed is the almost bible like reverence you lot have for the constitution- it is a pretty good set of ideas written down by some well meaning, generally intelligent guys- but in 50 years time (if it isn’t happenning already) it will be cited as divine inspiration.
Get with the fact it was written in a different time and refers to a different set of issues, most of what it says is pretty good (not all) but don;t make it your bible.
I should point out- don’t make ANYTHING your bible
I will make two points from the target rich environment that you presented:
1) You said “by borrowing to create infrastructure the Government is substatntially reducing the cost of the infrastructure”. There clearly are times when borrowing makes sense but it never makes something less costly. But the problem is politicians seem to have no self control and to allow them to borrow is to allow them to bankrupt us. Our federal government has an incredibly poor track record on borrowing and we are on the verge of an economic collapse not because our people are non-productive, not because of lack of education but simply because our politicians cannot resist buying votes and paying off friends with our money. It may not have been clear to everyone 50 years ago that borrowing (and never paying back) money for day to day operations is a mistake. But you would have to be a fool to not know that today. The country will probably go bankrupt although it may not use that word the effect will be the same.
2)The Rich people in the U.S. pay MOST of the taxes and some people think even this is not enough. It does not matter to me how rich someone is as long as they obey the laws and pay their taxes. It shouldn’t matter to anyone. A rich person does not lock up their money away from society and the economy, they invest. Investment is what drives our economy and provides jobs, goods and services for all. If we try to punish the rich they will simply move their assets to places that will treat them more fairly. It would be a mistake to allow jealousy and greed blind us to the value of allowing people to keep most of what they work for. If you do not understand economics the best advice I can give you is that Keynesian economics is a fraud invented by a Marxist to co-opt economics for their purpose. The Australian School of economics is more realistic and pragmatic and it provides a more honest assessment of economic issues.
The rich cannot move to a place that treats them more “fairly” because it doesn’t exist.
You missed my point about borrowing for infrastructure being cheaper- it is because you have it operational sooner and you have created activity to create it. Your argument about the rich re-inserting and creating activity has been proven time and again to fail- Reaganomics lead to a recession- Bush tax cuts did not change things.
Governments tend to be cheaper and more efficient than people give them credit for- more often than not profitable institutions sold by governments tend to increase prices and decrease service as the business becomes greedier.
But hey you believe what you want- but you have no idea how ridiculous the U.S. appears from the outside especially in relation to Republican “economic” ideas.
“The Australian School of economics …”?
You call THAT a tax cut? THIS is a tax cut! ;)
That should have been Austrian not Australian.
The rich can physically move and there are indeed places that will tax them less. And they can move their assets to avoid paying taxes in the country where they live. This is a normal reaction to higher taxes.
I would disagree that there is an advantage in having infrastructure operational sooner if it costs you more and you have to borrow to pay for it. We are literally on the brink of collapse. The U.S. is not better off then Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal or Italy and they too are likely to have an economic collapse. What bridge, what highway, what building, what infrastructure was so important to have operational that it was worth going bankrupt. Deficit spending is a mistake but to practice deficit spending as a normal way to meet day to day expenses is a disaster. We have been stupid, we allowed our politicians to do what they want and we spent our time watching TV and drinking beer. Now our TV’s are going to be reposessed and we can’t afford any more beer. We need to reign in our government.
As a libertarian, I would strongly dispute this. While I’m sure it is a good business model, it is also a highly unethical one. It essentially amounts to using coercive taxation to force the public to pay to do the research, and then turning around and using coercive patent laws to force the public to pay monopoly rents for the use of ideas that they paid to develop in the first place. Like all aspects of capitalism, the general public ends up losing twice while the government provides massive benefits to a few well-connected corporate allies (who, in turn, provide massive kick-backs to a few well-connected politicians). If that isn’t unethical, then nothing is.
Do you beleive that capitalism somehow has a “moral” imperative? In other words, if you let the market work, it will not only do the greatest good for the greatest number, but it will also advantage the disadvantaged? I thin capitalism is a great system for creating wealth. I don’t think “it” is moral or immoral, it just is. I have trouble thinking that as a society we are going to have a great nation without government stepping in to help those that are disavantaged. Case in point, my new granddaughter who is hearing impaired. Goverment programs are great, insurance companies payinf for hearing aids so she can develop normally-“forget about it”.
Welcome one and all to the GWTW forum where everyone’s comments are, apparently, simply is wrong, wrong, wrong.
Whoops: eliminate that nasty “is” for sentence sense.
Certainly it is much more comfortable to see the world in black and white,right and wrong,good and bad,libertarian and socialist.Those little uncertainties,complexities and nuances of life,are just so unsettling.
I’m seeing a lot of mass generalization in these comments. Do some people get funding because they are well connected to politicians? Yes.
Are ALL people that get funding well connected to politicians? No.
Is some funding allocated poorly? Of course. Is all funding allocated poorly? No (assuming you are not working under an extreme view of how the govt should work).
What I see here is like an abortion debate. Two sides going at each other like crazy, while completely losing track of where, in the sequence of arguments, they started to disagree.
GWTW seems to be arguing from a strictly Constitutional viewpoint. Something I can appreciate. The constitution guides us by saying Congress has the power to allocate funds “to… provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States…”
So the arguments would seem to come down to what degree the govt should fund our “general welfare” and this can lead you into some very murky waters. It’s clear from article I section 8 that progress of science was desired, but it was very specific (alluding to patents and copyrights).
Funding of science for national defense is clearly within the boundaries, but there is a lot of cross-fertilization between what is primarly defense research and what is primarily not.
What about energy research? Might have a defense argument there, but also general welfare.
Medical research? Might help our soldiers (weak argument), but clearly helps general welfare.
Of course, the general welfare clause has a long and colorful history, dating to even BEFORE the constitution was ratified.
(full disclosure – my research is funded via NSF and DoE)
Brian, I would say for the most part you got it. My concern is simply that our country is broke, owes $14 trillion, shows no intent to stop borrowing and we are slipping into a depression. I think before this is over a lot of people will suffer and for what? So politicians can buy votes with our money. I don’t think we can stop what’s coming our way, we have delayed it by borrowing and printing money but this will only make it worse. My hope would be to convince the politicians and the citizens that we cannot make this mistake again. Living on borrowed money was a mistake, we had a good time but no we will pay the piper. I would like to see a constitutional amendment that would prohibit the federal government from borrowing (I would like to see similar amendments in the 50 states). I would like to see some limits placed on the size of government and on their ability to tax. If that means the gravy train must stop then so be it. Maybe funding for worthy research could be provided by NGO’s from donations. I give to worthy causes and most people do but they do it voluntarily not with a gun in the ribs. The power of taxation is to great to allow it to be misused.
Hopefully you were complaining during the Reagan Administration and all the rest of the politicians. I am old ennough to have complained about the deficits under Reagan but no one seemed to care right on through deficits don’t matter Cheney. Look up the deficits under the various adminstrations and Congressional majorities. Pretty interesting stuff. Where have these deficit hawks been prior to Obama?
Oh,they claim (retroactively now) that they were against Bush’s (and probably Reagan’s) spending too. Yeah,right! Just like they CLAIM that they are ready for and “adult conversation” about the budget.Stay tuned,this should be rich.
Congress sets the budget and spends the money. While it is popular to blame the president they have far less control then congress does.
Why is strict adherence to The Constitution of The United States of America, a good thing? Seems like a bizarre form of idol worship to me? No deviation, adaptation, amendments,etc? (Euthyphro) Do we always have to look to the Constitution to do right? Necessary, but not sufficient. Wasn’t slavery permitted under Constitutional Law?
You don’t have to adhere to the constitution but the federal and state governments do. The constitution limits and defines the responsibilities of government and enumerates the rights of the citizens. However it is the responsibility of the citizens to make sure our government abides by the constitution. This is what I am advocating.
I get that part, but how is it a violation of Constitutional Law to fund things? Isn’t that the reason why we have the ability to amend it, and the ability to interpret certain parts? It’s my understanding that it was written as a living document, because the authors understood that a dogmatic document couldn’t stand the test of time, because it wouldn’t be able to adapt to future needs, and demands of the people it was meant to serve. Also, open to interpretation, so that no one could have a monopoly on the truth.
Would it be constitutional for the federal government to fund the church? Clearly it would not. What is often missed in the discussion about the constitution is that it tells the federal government what it CAN do and says that everything else is for the people and the states. The federal government was never authorized to transfer money from the rich to the poor or to tax one man for the benefit of another.
It is indeed possible to amend the constitution but it seems unlikely that you will get a majority of the people or states to agree to an amendment to provide special interest groups with more money. Give it a try, at least that would be the correct and constitutional way to do it.
Common misunderstanding. The constitution does not “tell the government what it can do”. The constitution is a guide or suggestion for reasonable to figure out how to solve a problem when competing views exist. It was never meant as an instruction manual for every possible problem.
I think the US cannot police the world anymore. We can’t afford it but we have done it so often “off books” that we continue to pay a price. I think wars should be specifically paid for by the public and “earmarked” only for wars. That way Americans could be responsible and have some pain when a war is being fought. Even Libertarians say that defense is a government function and necessary but how about ponying up when defense goes through the roof with wars such as Iraq and Afganistan. Don’t get me wrong, I think we had to go after the terrorist, but we should have to pay for it, not add it to the deficit.
I agree and would go one step further in that nothing should be added to the deficit.
Somite: I can’t agree with you on that. One of the most common words used in the constitution is “shall”. That doesn’t mean “suggest” or “figure” it out. In this context it means “you will”! It also specifically defines the powers of the three branches of government. Now if you are saying the constitution either by intent or ommission allows the congress and the executive branch to interpret what they can do within those confines I agree. And therein lies the purpose of the judicial branch to decide who is right. If all three branches do their job the result should be constitutional. In my opinion for the last 75 years or so all three branches have been remiss.