Basic Science Can't Survive without Government Funding

[rangerrebew]

Basic Science Can't Survive without Government Funding

Without government resources, basic science would grind to a halt

    By Nathan Myhrvold on February 1, 2016
 

On December 2, 2015, the centennial anniversary of the publication of Einstein's general theory of relativity, science fans everywhere reflected on this amazing act of genius. But the theory was not born, fully formed, in some eureka moment. Albert Einstein chipped away at it for years. He was finally driven to complete it by a fierce (though collegial) rivalry with mathematician David Hilbert

Examine the detailed history of almost any iconic scientific discovery or technological invention—the lightbulb, the transistor, DNA, even the Internet—and you'll find that the famous names credited with the breakthrough were only a few steps ahead of a pack of competitors. Recently some writers and elected officials have used this phenomenon, called parallel innovation, to argue against the public financing of basic research.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/basic-science-can-t-survive-without-government-funding/

[rangerrebew]

Cut out all money for global warming "research" and the "crisis" will cease to exist.

[andy58-in-nh]

Basic science thrived without government funding for centuries...

[Absalom]

Basic science thrived without government funding for centuries...

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Firstly, opening commentary is brainless.
The Greeks and the Scientists of Scholasticism (Priests)
formulated the Laws which govern our physical world.
Critically they were self-taught, not schooled!
As for Einstein, he (along w/Darwin) formulated a Theory
which is unproven some 100 hundred years later.
In contrast, Archimedes, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton,
among many; produced these physical Laws w/o government!!!

[Drago]

Government funding (chasing grants) enables debacles like the "global warming by man" fiasco...follow the $$.

[The_Reader_David]

-------------------------------------
Firstly, opening commentary is brainless.
The Greeks and the Scientists of Scholasticism (Priests)
formulated the Laws which govern our physical world.
Critically they were self-taught, not schooled!
As for Einstein, he (along w/Darwin) formulated a Theory
which is unproven some 100 hundred years later.
In contrast, Archimedes, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton,
among many; produced these physical Laws w/o government!!!

You're citing blackboard science (and don't seem to be aware that Einstein's theory has actually been well-validated).  Once you get to empirical science that conducts experiments, you need funding for laboratories.  It wasn't so obvious that the government funded it in the old days, but in the old days, the government was the nobility and scientists were either self-funded noblemen or had noble patrons.  Kings and noblemen established and endowed the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge and those endowments supported lots of science.  We got quite far with that, but now a lot of open questions need lab equipment that costs too much for patronage (e.g. orbital telescopes, TeV particle accelerators, neutrino detectors,...)

There are, however, serious problems with the way governments fund science now, since it encourages herd behavior.  Every government science funding program really should have about a third of its budget devoted to funding the best contrarians who object to the main enthusiasm of their discipline.  40 plus years of grants to fund string theory gave us nothing.

[Sanguine]

You're citing blackboard science (and don't seem to be aware that Einstein's theory has actually been well-validated).  Once you get to empirical science that conducts experiments, you need funding for laboratories.  It wasn't so obvious that the government funded it in the old days, but in the old days, the government was the nobility and scientists were either self-funded noblemen or had noble patrons.  Kings and noblemen established and endowed the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge and those endowments supported lots of science.  We got quite far with that, but now a lot of open questions need lab equipment that costs too much for patronage (e.g. orbital telescopes, TeV particle accelerators, neutrino detectors,...)

There are, however, serious problems with the way governments fund science now, since it encourages herd behavior.  Every government science funding program really should have about a third of its budget devoted to funding the best contrarians who object to the main enthusiasm of their discipline.  40 plus years of grants to fund string theory gave us nothing.

I clicked on this thread to say basically what you just said, but you said better than I would have.

[Absalom]

You're citing blackboard science (and don't seem to be aware that Einstein's theory has actually been well-validated).  Once you get to empirical science that conducts experiments, you need funding for laboratories.  It wasn't so obvious that the government funded it in the old days, but in the old days, the government was the nobility and scientists were either self-funded noblemen or had noble patrons.  Kings and noblemen established and endowed the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge and those endowments supported lots of science.  We got quite far with that, but now a lot of open questions need lab equipment that costs too much for patronage (e.g. orbital telescopes, TeV particle accelerators, neutrino detectors,...)

There are, however, serious problems with the way governments fund science now, since it encourages herd behavior.  Every government science funding program really should have about a third of its budget devoted to funding the best contrarians who object to the main enthusiasm of their discipline.  40 plus years of grants to fund string theory gave us nothing.

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When Einstein's theory is labeled a Law; he can join Archimedes and Newton; not before!
As for funding those scientists, poor things; let them locate a Nobleman on the Net!!!

[IsailedawayfromFR]

I used to read Scientific American when younger as it was interesting.

The brainless repetition one reads now how man is destroying the world turned me off.

It is not science, but propaganda.