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Billionaires With Big Ideas Are Privatizing American Science

nytimes.com

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Re: Billionaires With Big Ideas Are Privatizing American Science

#31

Post by WalterBright »

kiba wrote: post #7
Aqueous wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason we have a shot at affordable commercial spaceflight, as well as an eventual affordable journey to Mars, is because of that vanity project. If it was left up to the public sector alone, I don't think we'll be able to go to Mars in 20 or 30 years. But this hasn't really changed. Even in NASA's hey day space missions weren't government-only projects - The space capsules and Saturn V were built by contrac…

They are engineering projects, rather than something that discovers something new, per se. Even so, extending our capability to explore space allow us to do more scientific research, rather than less of it. With the advent of electric vechicle, the money that went to buying gas and doing maintenance can be better spent on something else.

Lots of research projects in the past were underwritten by rich people for the lulz, or by newspapers in exchange for exclusive stories to sell.

I've often wondered why big corporations, as marketing, don't finance something like launching another Hubble space telescope. The corporate logo would go on the side, the corporation could host a conference to collect and analyze the results, it would be fantastic PR (instead of those silly commercials and celebrity endorsements they spend so much money on).

Re: Billionaires With Big Ideas Are Privatizing American Science

#32

Post by vinceguidry »

> American science, long a source of national power and pride, is increasingly becoming a private enterprise.

Oh how quickly journalists forget the past. The only reason we ever became a scientific superpower in the first place is because of one man, John D. Rockefeller.

Re: Billionaires With Big Ideas Are Privatizing American Science

#33

Post by michael_nielsen »

jrs99 wrote: post #15

I don't know why you would employ a science adviser who thinks that physics isn't "sexy." It's damn sexy. And anyone who really understands even a small amount of physics will think that physics is "sexy."

Bill Press (the quoted adviser) is an outstanding physicist -- I believe he was the youngest physicist ever tenured at Harvard. I think the quote was out of context. He wasn't saying he doesn't like physics, he was saying it can be hard to sell as a political priority.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Press

Re: Billionaires With Big Ideas Are Privatizing American Science

#36

Post by pravda »

jdonaldson wrote: post #3

Universities also privatize science through patents and IP. Research publications privatize research by bundling and charging exorbitant fees for journals and proceedings. Our generation doesn't have a NASA or Bell Labs. The closest thing to those outfits are vanity projects from billionaires... SpaceX, etc.

>Our generation doesn't have a NASA or Bell Labs.

Bell Labs was a private corporation.

Re: Billionaires With Big Ideas Are Privatizing American Science

#37

Post by Aqueous »

tsotha wrote: post #26
Aqueous wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason we have a shot at affordable commercial spaceflight, as well as an eventual affordable journey to Mars, is because of that vanity project. If it was left up to the public sector alone, I don't think we'll be able to go to Mars in 20 or 30 years. But this hasn't really changed. Even in NASA's hey day space missions weren't government-only projects - The space capsules and Saturn V were built by contrac…

>The only reason we have a shot at affordable commercial spaceflight, as well as an eventual affordable journey to Mars, is because of that vanity project. I'm not sure why you're calling SpaceX a vanity project. The company is already profitable, and if things play out like Musk is planning the company stands to make a lot of money. That's not a vanity project; that's a business. Now, a Mars shot would be a vanity p…

The parent called it a vanity project.

Re: Billionaires With Big Ideas Are Privatizing American Science

#38

Post by jjoonathan »

jrs99 wrote: post #18
angersock wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Erm, no? Do you mean classical physics and mechanics, quantum mechanics (and if so, what branch), particle physics, solid-state physics, what? You have to be more specific unless you want to come off as just another -~= Science! =~- people getting off to things they don't actually understand.

I guess I should be more specific and say statistical mechanics. As a science expert, I have to say the rest is truly boring.

I vote for solid state!

Voting for stat-mech almost seems like cheating :)

Re: Billionaires With Big Ideas Are Privatizing American Science

#39

Post by lexcorvus »

I don't expect the NYT to have a multi-century sense of historical perspective, but is a multi-decade sense of perspective too much to ask? The present government-funded model of science was created by Vannevar Bush less than seventy years ago—"in the lives of those now living."

Re: Billionaires With Big Ideas Are Privatizing American Science

#40

Post by jcampbell1 »

> A look at major initiatives suggests that the philanthropists’ war on disease risks widening that gap, as a number of the campaigns, driven by personal adversity, target illnesses that predominantly afflict white people — like cystic fibrosis, melanoma and ovarian cancer.

The #1, #2 richest Americans have specifically targeted funding research for diseases that affect only the poor. I think this is a more valid criticism of the NIH rather than philanthropists.

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