From a Puzzled Young Scientist
Here at Stanford the other day, I had a cup of coffee with David Strauss, a young man with a couple of questions he very politely asked me to post on Ricochet.
Studying for his doctorate, David is a couple of years into his program in electrical engineering, working hard on a thesis on “sub-surface imaging.” (Don’t ask. Although David is wonderfully articulate, and although he spent a good ten minutes slowly and painstakingly telling me about his work, I was able to grasp virtually nothing. It has something do with using electro-magnetic signals to see hundreds of feet underground. As I listened, my tiny little mind kept going back to the comic book ads for glasses that were supposed to enable teenaged boys to see through clothing.)
Working at a major university, surrounded by scientists, laboratories, and equipment, David finds himself musing quite about the nation’s vast scientific-industrial complex—and the demands in makes on American taxpayers. But here’s David:
With the new Republican majority in the House, many people have been talking about rough times ahead for science funding for the next couple of years. I would like to open up this discussion of scientific policy to the Ricochet community.
The main relationship between scientific research and the government is dictated through funding. Often, scientific funding is drawn into two general categories: basic and applied. Basic research is focused on expanding our body of knowledge (think high-energy particle physics or cosmology) while applied research seeks to answer specific questions (think cancer-drug development). For the most part, in the scientific and academic community, it is difficult to find anyone who denies the importance of “basic research” and the necessity for “basic research” to be funded by the government. However, all too often, researchers assume that the value of their research is obvious, seeing funding for basic research less as a privilege or a means of enriching the American people but as an entitlement. With this in mind, a few questions:
What are the “basic science” research areas that the U.S. government should support? How should the value of basic research be evaluated? With applied science, it is far easier to quantify the success – lives saved, profit earned, etc – but no similar metric seems to exist for the basic sciences. Could similar metrics for basic research be defined? Would such metrics be “too restrictive” and suffocate innovative thinking and creative twists in the scientific process?
Fine minds of the Ricochetoise, over to you.
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Dec '10
Re: From a Puzzled Young Scientist
Nick Stuart: "Peer -reviewed?"
As in "peer-reviewed climate science?"
Sorry, I'm just a tad jadedand cynical about the notion that peer-review can be unbiased. More like "you approve my project, and I'll approve yours, and we'll keep that guy who disagrees with us out in the cold." · Dec 23 at 3:37am
The problem with peer-review is usually not political because there usually aren't political implications. For theory, it's straightforward, your papers get read by others (usually it's single-blind, the author is known by the reviewer but not vice-versa).
The reviewer then sends a report to the journal editor. There are problems. Since nobody gets paid to review and there's little accountability, there's no incentive to be careful. There's also a bit of snobbery and name intimidation. Well-established researchers get published where kids would not. I had a paper which I submitted and got back a report saying it wasn't interesting and had to send it to a lesser journal.
An internationally-renowned researcher worked independently on the same question (but thankfully, a different facet) and suddenly the community thought the problem was interesting.
Jun '10
Re: From a Puzzled Young Scientist
Amish, you should start and edit an academic journal of Ricochet. That way I can get published....more frequently... or maybe we could establish the Ricochet fund for the advancement of empirical thought and human scientific enterprise...a Ricogrant for the Ricoscientist.....
Edited on Dec 23, 2010 at 8:13amAug '10
Re: From a Puzzled Young Scientist
I think this might set a record for an ISI impact factor that was negative.
Jun '10
Re: From a Puzzled Young Scientist
anon_academic
I think this might set a record for an ISI impact factor that was negative. · Dec 23 at 8:38am
Haha, how about the American Journal of Ricochet? That might get us to a .0001 impact.
May '10
Re: From a Puzzled Young Scientist
AmishDude (1) I hadn't heard that about the UK system and I was just there talking to several prominent mathematics researchers.
It is buried in the new Cameron proposal to increase tuition and reduce government support for UK public universities. The institutions will have to manage themselves and allocate funding- that will likely change the funding profiles for "less practical" research. Less effect at OxBridge, of course, given the prestige.
(3) The best from other countries are (a) educated under a much better system ............. An American student who does science is a chump. Go to law, there's more money there and no competition from overseas.
K-12 no question. But at the next levels the cream still rises. And be advised that the only people who make money off of law are the elites; if you like science (or math), study it. If you don't become a plumber.
(4) It's not entreprenurism, it's rent-seeking.
Of course it is! But it's entrepreneurial rent-seeking!
We appear to be split here between those who believe only in applied development, and those who see value in "blue sky" as the means to true breakthroughs.
May '10
Re: From a Puzzled Young Scientist
By the way, discussions of how basic research was done privately in the past are irrelevant. Bell Labs does not do what it did before when it used its regulated monopoly cream-skimming to fund the blue sky work. After the (much-needed) breakup of AT&T, that luxury is not there. The same applies to almost all other similar previous research centers. Those that survive get a lot of their money from the government, be it NIH, NSF, or DoD.
We can argue whether it is worth it or not- but it is simply not consistent for people on one hand to decry the US "falling behind" in science and technology blah blah and then say that we should shut down all research except for what Bill Gates gets interested in. The scope and scale do not equate. Not even close.
By the way, translational research is the integrated clinical application of technologies. The comments here don't reflect understanding of this at all.
For example, how do you treat something, e.g., cancer, with multiple causes? You need to combine and measure adjuvant therapies- antibodies, anti-angiogenesis, gene therapy, etc. Your family doc can't do that.
May '10
Re: From a Puzzled Young Scientist
Kenneth: By the way, didn't Bell Labs do a lot of basic research? · Dec 22 at 1:46pm
Edited on Dec 22 at 01:48 pm
My memory may be not what it used to be - but isn't it the case that AT&T offered to create and support Bell Labs (and its basic research) in return for some special consideration wrt anti-trust issues raised against it?
Sep '10
Re: From a Puzzled Young Scientist
In reading through the comments, I was struck by a few things. First, the distinction between basic and applied research is not such a useful one. My research would be considered applied inasmuch as it has applications. Nevertheless, I've found plenty of new physics over the years. It's amazing how quickly you get to basic questions in quantum mechanics when you work with lasers (think quantum cryptography).
Second, the discussion seems to be centered on the university (mention of Bell labs by Kenneth excepted). Most science is not done in the university, and I'd argue that universities are the least efficient places to do it. Most of the work is done by graduate students, and students are, well, still learning after all. Things happen much faster in the private sector, largely for this reason. From my own experience, I know that my abilities and those of my colleagues now far exceed the skills I had as a student.
(continued)
Sep '10
Re: From a Puzzled Young Scientist
Third, the Bayh–Dole Act has blurred the distinction between 'nonprofit' universities and the for profit enterprises doing research. This law has made an unholy mixture of profit motive and nonprofit privilege. Universities are now operating in science as ordinary businesses under the color of nonprofit status.
As for the role of government in science funding, it has a place because some projects are so big (Kennedy's space program, Fermilab, Hubble telescope) and because some science is very useful, and not just for weapons (ARPANET). For the stuff that's not useful in the immediate sense, the taxpayers can choose to spend money on things even if they are not part of government's core missions. But it falls to scientists to sell their ideas to the public. I think there is broad interest in science, but if you can't persuade people that it is worthy, tough tacos.
In my ideal world where government is much smaller, private institutions would have more money to spend. But this is not the world we inhabit. Government at all levels involves itself in many aspects of life. Science is a special interest group like any other, no more or less corrupt.
May '10
Re: From a Puzzled Young Scientist
To me, the question alone suggests a slew a private-sector mechanisms to encourage funding of basic research. Here are a few that immediately come to mind:
* Corporate association -- Not unlike local businesses sponsoring little league teams.
* Naming -- Discoveries are named after their sponsors. (Not too different from stadiums recently.)
* Product placement -- An instrumentation company donates equipment to a research project and the equipment gets mentioned prominently in the published reports.
I'm sure there are lots more.
Sep '10
Re: From a Puzzled Young Scientist
Sergei Nirenburg
Kenneth: By the way, didn't Bell Labs do a lot of basic research? · Dec 22 at 1:46pm
Edited on Dec 22 at 01:48 pm
My memory may be not what it used to be - but isn't it the case that AT&T offered to create and support Bell Labs (and its basic research) in return for some special consideration wrt anti-trust issues raised against it? · Dec 23 at 9:37pm
Bell Labs and its predecessor institutions (Western Electric Research Laboratories) existed because AT&T needed the results of research. When Claude Shannon did his work in information theory, it was arguably quite basic, but also had great utility for AT&T. The same goes for Bardeen, et al. (transistors).
I seem to recall having heard something about anti-trust mentioned by Sergei. If true, this could have been satisfied by a much lesser, perfunctory effort. Institutions of the stature of Bell Labs don't come into being because of a legal footnote.
Dec '10
Re: From a Puzzled Young Scientist
I am a grad student in cell biology, my work falls officially under the label of basic science but has potential translational implications. This is a question I have been mulling over for several years, and discussing on the sly with a couple of conservative friends down the hall. I, too, am torn, but believe government funding of science should be cut back along with everything else. A lot of the research going on at universities does have significant long-term potential for adding to the public good, but it is simply too long-term or abstract to justify funding under the limited government I'd like to see (evidenced by the spin researchers put on grants applications to make them sound translational). Another point, I'm tired of going to conferences and reading editorials in Science about the need to educate the public on "why basic science matters," but I don't see scientists actually taking this discussion out in public. As Paul (#20) said, if you can't (or aren't willing) to tell the public why they should care, you have no right to their tax dollars.
Dec '10
Re: From a Puzzled Young Scientist
In general, I think that basic research suffers from a (forgive the Axlerodian expression) communications problem. People give money to causes that matter; if scientists can explain why their work is important, private cash will increase. This, in an ideal world, would create room for conservatives to argue in favor of less federal research money. As others here have commented, there are plenty of sources for basic science funding, there just needs to be more cash available. For example, on top of an NIH RO1, my lab has been or is currently funded by at least three private NPOs, as well as internal funding for exploratory projects. In addition to more private money, corporate cash would be a great source for research. Because of the stigma attached to work funded by tech and pharma, I'd propose a fund built out of corporate and private donations that is administered independently, merging money from all sources to minimize bias and accusations thereof. Or, put another way, let's encourage the formation of more (big) organizations like HHMI and Gates. Maybe Soros could seed the first billion...