Bishop Hill Scientists: "poor must cough up"
Mar 11, 2013 Bureaucrats The scientific establishment is in full voice this morning, with a letter in the Telegraph demanding yet more money from the hard-pressed taxpayer.
We urge the Government to demonstrate its long-term commitment to funding science and engineering as part of a strategy to boost growth and enable Britain to meet the social and technological challenges of the 21st century.
In 2010, the core research budget disbursed by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) was ring-fenced. However, the overall science budget has since been eroded by cuts in capital expenditure by BIS and to research and development in other departments, combined with the depreciating effect of inflation.
Of course, as we know, the causal links between economic growth and public spending on science are far from demonstrated - as Pielke Jr notes claims that such a link has been demonstrated are largely faith-based. In reality, the letter represents just another case of rent-seeking behaviour in the bureaucracy.
Having worked in manufacturing industry, I am aware of just how hard life is for those on the shop floor and how hard it will be in retirement. But it is these people who will be footing the bill for any new flow of funds to the scientific community. The scientific bigwigs who appended their names to this letter would have done well to consider the morality of their demands before they did so.
Their special pleading leaves a sour taste.
Reader Comments (55)
Entropic,
thanks for the links, I'll have to get back to you in a day or two as I won't have time to plough through all that lot until the weekend.
I know what you'll say to my initial thoughts on the first link, but I'll say it anyway.
"Charles Jones and John Williams of Stanford University, the National Bureau of Economic Research, and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco" Mandy Rice-Davis said it best.
The optical digital recording technology behind all music, video, and data storage; according to what I can see there was a lapse of 20 years between the discovery and Sony & Philips actually taking it up and making it work. So even if it had been patented that would have lapsed. As the two corporations are not American then without further research I don't think the ROI can have been any more than had the money been spent elsewhere or not spent.
communications and observation satellites; Not sure how much was made on the investment by the government bearing in mind the investment in launch technology required to get them into space.
supercomputers used by government Yes these were development accelerated by war, but weren't a concept thought up by government research. It is a moot point that war actually does speed development. For instance Japan built the first all welded warship in the 30s, after the war it took a further 25 years and help from the Americans to get back to where they were. The UK, France never really recovered from the war and Germany took as long as Japan to get back on its feet. Who can say what would have happened in those wasted years. True the USA won thirty years of dominance now thrown away.
more resilient passenger jets don't know what is meant by that, as previous point is true; and both Whittle and von Ohain had patents for jet engines in 1930 and 1936 respectively. Whittle certainly had the devils own job getting government support, so possibly this claim fails. Further investegation needed.
fluorescent lights; quick research comes up with In 1857, the French physicist Alexandre E. Becquerel who had investigated the phenomena of fluorescence and phosphorescence, theorized about the building of fluorescent tubes similar to those made today. Claim fails
better cancer therapies; are we sure that's exclusively government? In the UK we have http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/home/ a charity not sure how much the government gives this charity further work needed.
advanced batteries now used in electric cars Wet-cell nickel-cadmium batteries were invented in 1898.did a government need to get involved after that? The earliest pioneering work on NiMH batteries—essentially based on sintered Ti2Ni+TiNi+x alloys for the negative electrode and NiOOH-electrodes for the positives—was performed at the Battelle-Geneva Research Center starting after its invention in 1967. The development work was sponsored over nearly two decades by Daimler-Benz in Stuttgart, Germany, and by Volkswagen AG within the framework of Deutsche Automobilgesellschaft, now a subsidiary of Daimler AG. Battelle Memorial Institute is a private nonprofit applied science and technology development company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. Where is the government here?
Google, which was started by a couple of students working on a research project supported by the National Science Foundation, is today worth an estimated $250 billion and employs 54,000 people. Now do the two students involved think that they would have thought of the idea anyway? Further investigation
You get my drift I think, I may have to post on unthreaded as this may not be on the front page.
Entropic
Just before I go out for the day. re Google it was the 15th Search Engine developed so not an original idea, merely an improvement so no government money should have been spent.
SandyS
Most of your examples discuss the lag between science and the technology developed from it. This does not support the argument that government funded science is automatically a waste, it only emphasises that an expectation of an immediate financial return is short-sighted.
A recent news item may be apposite. Would you regard the government funded research on hyrothermal vents as wasted money in the light of recent plans to mine them for copper, gold and rare earths?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21774447
@Entropic
Probably, but still looking through your other stuff, as they are only plans. As mining will be blocked by the green lobby for pollution reasons.
I disagree 20 year gap is a waste of money, who can say that private enterprise wouldn't have come up with a better idea when it was required, and I think that some of the claims are untrue, the re-chargable batteries and Google certainly are. Unless you can prove otherwise.
Entropic
Just had time to read that link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21774447
Cold War heritage
As it is the duty of the government to protect the people from attack then then that research could be justified. Nodule mining was the cover story for the USNS Glomar Explorer (T-AG-193), so it it all comes together.
As I said; from the article (my Bold)
<B>But many marine scientists and conservationists have warned that the implications of this deep-sea gold rush are not yet understood - and that mining nodules or hydrothermal vents could prove catastrophic for seabed ecology.</B>
Off out until tomorrow