101–110 of 170 posts
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It's inefficient and creates negative externalities.
Inefficient as compared to what?
Subsidized infrastructure does not practically promote risky endeavors. It's created the side effects mentioned in the original article.
Beat research universities at their own game, and perhaps they'll go back to being true universities.
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the difficulty with 'basic research with seemingly no value' (a good example is the fourier transform, which at the time was seen as a mathematical curiosity) - is that it lacks accountability. How do you make sure that the academe that is selling their project as 'basic research' isn't just pulling a fast one on you and sucking your funds to tickle their intellectual jollies? This problem is even worse when you take…
I don't agree with the taxpayer funds aspect. Why can we not agree that employing people to perform research is a good thing? There are lots of things that are taken as good investments by governments based on the fact that it will be useful in future years. Take for example teaching people to read and write, preventative healthcare, disaster planning, Sex education (it's a long list when you think about it). My poin…
If it's so obviously good, then why aren't people paying out of their own pockets to help out?
I'm going to anticipate your answer: because they're too selfish. But is there any reason to believe that our elected officials are any less selfish? Look at the narcissistic idiots we elect - and ask, are these the people whom you really want holding the purse strings? I often see complaints, "petition congress not to defund science". Well you know what, scientists shouldn't be so darned entitled, it wasn't their money to begin with. Putting their faith in the continued patronage of a capricious bunch of authoritarians beholden to questionable special interests may not have been the smartest way to secure a sustainable (or a moral) stream of funds.
In the end, taxes are backed by "if you don't pay them, you're gonna be taken away by agents who will throw you in jail". That's blood money you're taking. Deficit spending, which is governments do these days, is even worse - at least with taxes there is the pretense of the voter having a say; when you borrow money on the credit of the nation - you are mortgaging the assets of future generations, who cannot go back in time and cast a vote against spending their money on a stupid idea.
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the difficulty with 'basic research with seemingly no value' (a good example is the fourier transform, which at the time was seen as a mathematical curiosity) - is that it lacks accountability. How do you make sure that the academe that is selling their project as 'basic research' isn't just pulling a fast one on you and sucking your funds to tickle their intellectual jollies? This problem is even worse when you take…
I don't agree with the taxpayer funds aspect. Why can we not agree that employing people to perform research is a good thing? There are lots of things that are taken as good investments by governments based on the fact that it will be useful in future years. Take for example teaching people to read and write, preventative healthcare, disaster planning, Sex education (it's a long list when you think about it). My poin…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't agree with the taxpayer funds aspect. Why can we not agree that employing people to perform research is a good thing? There are lots of things that are taken as good investments by governments based on the fact that it will be useful in future years. Take for example teaching people to read and write, preventative healthcare, disaster planning, Sex education (it's a long list when you think about it). My poin…
I'm not sure "it being a good thing" is sufficient rationale for government to pay for any given thing. For starters, you'll have arguments about what's good and what's not. Why do you decide to fund telescopes pointing at distant galaxies, versus anthropological expeditions to the Andaman islands? Or do we fund it all? If it's so obviously good , then why aren't people paying out of their own pockets to help out? I'…
In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous in that individuals cannot be effectively excluded from use and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others.[1] Examples of public goods include fresh air, knowledge, lighthouses, national defense, flood control systems and street lighting. Public goods that are available everywhere are sometimes referred to as global public goods.
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I'm not sure "it being a good thing" is sufficient rationale for government to pay for any given thing. For starters, you'll have arguments about what's good and what's not. Why do you decide to fund telescopes pointing at distant galaxies, versus anthropological expeditions to the Andaman islands? Or do we fund it all? If it's so obviously good , then why aren't people paying out of their own pockets to help out? I'…
See definition of public good(economics): In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous in that individuals cannot be effectively excluded from use and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others.[1] Examples of public goods include fresh air, knowledge, lighthouses, national defense, flood control systems and street lighting. Public goods that are availabl…
Let's put it in really stark terms. I want to build a lighthouse. Because it's a public good; it will keep ships in the ocean safe. Is it morally justified for me to hold a gun to your head and threaten to blow it off if you don't give ten dollars for the construction of the lighthouse? What about one dollar? Ten cents? Half a cent? Let's ratchet back a little bit. Maybe I don't threaten to blow your head off. I'll just build a cell and throw you in there. For ten years. Is it any better if it's six months? Six weeks? Does that make it any better? Does it make it any morally better if instead of taking the personal responsibility for detaining you, I delegate that responsibility to agents of a byzantine bureaucracy?
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See definition of public good(economics): In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous in that individuals cannot be effectively excluded from use and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others.[1] Examples of public goods include fresh air, knowledge, lighthouses, national defense, flood control systems and street lighting. Public goods that are availabl…
your statement is an existence statement. Yes, public goods exist. In some cases government regulation of public goods against abuse is reasonable e.g. "clean air". But your statement doesn't give moral justification for government subsidy of public goods. Let's put it in really stark terms. I want to build a lighthouse. Because it's a public good; it will keep ships in the ocean safe. Is it morally justified for me…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
the difficulty with 'basic research with seemingly no value' (a good example is the fourier transform, which at the time was seen as a mathematical curiosity) - is that it lacks accountability. How do you make sure that the academe that is selling their project as 'basic research' isn't just pulling a fast one on you and sucking your funds to tickle their intellectual jollies? This problem is even worse when you take…
It's very difficult to predict ahead of time what will be useful and what won't. Given this limitation, there is already a reasonable amount of accountability: many different people in the field are involved in both deciding whom to fund and whom to publish. Moreover, people track how well past research does (based on citations as well as impact more generally) to evaluate any individual researcher. This is already m…
Do you not see how this could be bad? You're implicitly subsidizing a select few - then who gets to be the gatekeeper that decides what is or isn't bad? Surely not, people who are selected because of their high training, where "high training" winds up also being indirectly judged as "people who were trained by the closed society of individuals who just happen to be the selectees"?
I mean, really, that's what we're doing. As the system becomes more closed and self-interested, and dependent on extracting funds from the government, the more the danger of becoming detached from reasonableness - and then you DO have to worry about people tickling their intellectual jollies.
Now, if we had the very same system, except it were funded as, say a private non-profit entity, it will for sure have the same problems. But - it's less morally suspect, because, at least the people donating their money into it should have known that risk beforehand - and can choose to directly defund their part in the rotten enterprise when they figure out what's going on.
> Punishing risk-taking just because you're worried about somebody tickling their "intellectual jollies" is rather short-sighted.
You're absolutely right. But that choice is not one that government should be making, because of its conflict of interest (accountability). Incidentally, there are problems with transparency in government funding reviews (NSF and NIH panels are conducted in secret with 'anonymous reviewers'), too, but those are implementation details, not fundamental problems.
I'm not suggesting that the risk-taking involved in judging basic science should not be done. I am suggesting that it should not be done by government.
I sympathize a lot with the frustration here and can agree on some of the points (especially the rankings/h-index/etc mania), however... Much of what is bemoaned here is simply a consequence of the fact that science is done by humans and generally costs money, so there is a necessary component of business-type activities (networking, fundraising, marketing, management). Scientists also have human qualities such as eg…
"These smaller, more digestible, incremental papers are also more useful to other researchers" Survey papers are useful to other researchers. Minimum publishable units are a waste of research time, and the pressure to pad one's CV and get "results" (which actually means more papers) worsens the situation. It is even worse when a grad student is told that they were "scooped" because their half-finished MPU was publish…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
your statement is an existence statement. Yes, public goods exist. In some cases government regulation of public goods against abuse is reasonable e.g. "clean air". But your statement doesn't give moral justification for government subsidy of public goods. Let's put it in really stark terms. I want to build a lighthouse. Because it's a public good; it will keep ships in the ocean safe. Is it morally justified for me…
I don't think the provision of public goods are a moral choice, if anything it is an economic choice, where its subsidy is justified by two things: the benefit of the public good outweigh its costs, the general public will not sufficiently fund public goods out of their free will. The degree of benefit for the future is sometimes not measurable, however if the past is any indication than it has definitely provided ma…
May I remind you:
>I'm going to anticipate your answer: because they're too selfish. But is there any reason to believe that our elected officials are any less selfish? Look at the narcissistic idiots we elect - and ask, are these the people whom you really want holding the purse strings?
>The degree of benefit for the future is sometimes not measurable, however if the past is any indication than it has definitely provided major contributions to innovation.
It's not like privately funded applied and basic science is chopped liver here. Applied: Salk and Sabin developed the polio vaccines without a public dime (pun intended) and didn't patent it either. Basic: Peter Mitchell proposed and validated the chemiosmotic effect (1970s) and even won a nobel prize on the discovery, without public help. Obviously, if you go far back enough to where the state was essentially uninvolved in science, most of the discoveries were made with private funding. Yes, of course, publically funded science has made discoveries, but what you are arguing is the broken window fallacy.