The End of Public Funded Research • Hacker News Board

Re: The End of Public Funded Research

#21

Post by wladimir » Tue, Dec 07, 2010, 5:28 PM UTC

juiceandjuice wrote: post #14

I guarantee you research leading to the web as we know it would have been squashed under this project.

Indeed; all theoretical research will get squashed. After all, it's usually not exactly known how the outcome will be useful in the future. Bad idea to let every hillbilly decide on what is useful research and what is not. Another push toward incrementalism and mediocrity. Go USA!

Luckily for researchers, black-ops research is also publicly funded, and the budget for that is increasing every time.

Re: The End of Public Funded Research

#22

Post by hmahncke » Tue, Dec 07, 2010, 5:29 PM UTC

This is likely the first grant "$750,000 to develop computer models to analyze the on-field contributions of soccer players": http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=117162&org...

This may be the second grant "$1.2 million to model the sound of objects breaking for use by the video game industry." http://www.cs.cornell.edu/projects/Sound/ (although the dollar value isn't the same as cited on the House Whip site)

[edited to include 2nd grant, suggested from Science Blogs @ http://scienceblogs.com/drugmonkey/2010/12/congress_critters...]

Re: The End of Public Funded Research

#23

Post by kenjackson » Tue, Dec 07, 2010, 5:42 PM UTC

Here's the soccer research in question: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone...

It's actually quite interesting. The real question is how do you judge the merits of individuals in a team where there aren't a lot of individual measures. That is, in basketball there are a lot of individual measure, rebounds/assists/points/steals/blocks/turnovers. But in soccer far fewer (and occur with less frequency). So the question is, how do you model this sparse data. Pretty interesting IMO.

The second research, sound effects, is just downright interesting: http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0905...

It really is how do you model the sounds amoung interaction in a 3D modeled space. I think this is darn near basic computational science, although one that I've never really seen anyone study before.

If these are the two shining examples of poor research funded by the NSF then the NSF has done an incredible job.

Re: The End of Public Funded Research

#24

Post by stygianguest » Tue, Dec 07, 2010, 5:44 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #15

bioinformatics wrote: post #3

You have one person to blame for most of this: Palin, and her "fruit flies in France" spending. This might change a lot, or might not change how science is funded at all. But if the Republicans get the presidency, the house and senate, expect a lot of change, to the worse.

If Republican presidents behave as they have in the past, science funding is likely to increase. http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/trtot08p.pdf http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/trres08p.pdf Don't know about the house and senate.

I'm really dissapointed that the ministery of peace has always gotten more research money than the normal variety. It seems hard to defend especially since the cold war ended. Some people must be really eager to start a new cold war with China. Depressing.

Re: The End of Public Funded Research

#25

Post by misterkeeter » Tue, Dec 07, 2010, 5:48 PM UTC

1. Do a search for all the colleges in Cantor's district.

2. Look those colleges up in the NSF Database he supplies.

3. Report them to his little program.

4. For more fun do it for all of Virginia.

Re: The End of Public Funded Research

#26

Post by bendmorris » Tue, Dec 07, 2010, 5:49 PM UTC

My concern is that the American public politicizes questions of science, so I really don't want them deciding what research is worthwhile. There are some genuinely scary statistics such as 50% not believing in evolution and 20% not believing that the earth orbits the sun.

I posted the source and some other stats at http://www.bendmorris.com/2010/12/sciences-worst-nightmare.h...

Thanks to everyone who posted links of the actual studies he named...they're a perfect example of how your average citizen (or Congressman) doesn't understand the value of basic research.

Re: The End of Public Funded Research

#27

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 07, 2010, 5:52 PM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #23

Here's the soccer research in question: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone... It's actually quite interesting. The real question is how do you judge the merits of individuals in a team where there aren't a lot of individual measures. That is, in basketball there are a lot of individual measure, rebounds/assists/points/steals/blocks/turnovers. But in soccer far fewer (and occur with less freq…

[deleted]

Re: The End of Public Funded Research

#28

Post by sukuriant » Tue, Dec 07, 2010, 5:53 PM UTC

fredleblanc wrote: post #8

People seem really up-in-arms about this. I don't see the harm in having people look through the information and making recommendations. It's what the people do with these recommendations that matter. One person that disagrees with something (for whatever reason) probably won't be enough to abandon research on it. I'm cool with taking a look at what is there.

I think the real issue is that the mass public doesn't see how seemingly random research could actually benefit society.

The whole situation is really upsetting. The public has no idea how research in "pointless" X, "grant-begging" Y and "wasteful" Z could, through their combined research and perhaps a couple surprises along the way, yield W, something new and outstandingly useful.

For an example of this, look at the Four Coloring Problem. Microsoft permitted one of their employees to work on that and, through the research required found a way to make their systems crash less often. Yes, Microsoft themselves funded the research, but did you or I see "more stable OS" from "Graph Coloring"? I know I didn't.

Also, when you think of research to explore space, do you think of: high efficiency foam insulation, "Portable X-ray machines, programmable pacemakers", "concentrated baby foods", "freeze-dried instant mixes" and "surgical tools"[2]? I don't. If you have, you have vastly more foresight than me, and I'm sure I'm not alone in my narrow-mindedness when it comes to the usefulness of some science projects.

In all, I believe the normal citizen has no idea what's useful in regard to research and what's not.* Is there even such a thing as useless research?

[1] I'm having a bit of trouble locating the citation for this one. Unfortunately, it is still one of my favorite, obscure discoveries. If anyone can remember more of the Hacker News post that made reference to it and could help me find it, I'd be most grateful and change my post right away.

[2] http://space.balettie.com/Lovell.html

* I do admit that there is an opportunity for scientists to begin to do unethical things and this should be controlled, (perhaps not by the people, perhaps so), but this is not decided what to research so much as what/how not to research.

Re: The End of Public Funded Research

#29

Post by yummyfajitas » Tue, Dec 07, 2010, 5:53 PM UTC

700ravens wrote: post #16

yummyfajitas wrote: post #5

Title is blatant editorializing. Editors, please change it. This is an attempt to crowdsource the process of finding wasteful spending within a government agency. I.e., instead of saying "hey, the NSF has too much money, lets cut the total budget", Congressman Smith wants to cut specific wasteful items from the NSF budget (presumably while preserving the useful ones). I suspect this is an effort to head off claims li…

I actually made an account so I could post as myself. Although someone has already made my point, I need to reiterate it -- crowdsourcing scientific review is an awful idea. Journals and funding agencies use peer review specifically because a review needs knowledge of the subject area and of the context of the research. Few scientists will review a wasteful proposal in kind terms. The research dollar is so limited th…

A scientist in field X is great at judging the benefits of project Y (relative to project Z) to field X. He can provide an expert opinion on whether the project is new, whether it is likely to succeed, whether other people working in X will use it.

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.

To give a specific example, it's quite possible that within the field of comparing minorities to caucasians, this is a great project:

http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=1004...

If the public as a whole doesn't care about comparisons between minorities or caucasians, or doesn't believe that information is particularly valuable (e.g., perhaps there is no legitimate way to act on that information), this project is a waste of money. If enough people flag this project, it might suggest to Congressman Smith that it is a worthy project to cut.

Re: The End of Public Funded Research

#30

Post by l_dopa » Tue, Dec 07, 2010, 5:55 PM UTC

In the spirit of this brilliant experiment with direct democracy, Cantor should elect to crowdsource his next colonoscopy. We need the steady hand of the people on that endoscope, not some elitist Harvard doctor wasting taxpayer money! A weighted average of tweets containing a direction and velocity to #cantorsrectum would do just fine.