Almost all enterprises are channels for money to flow to the mega rich, which in our day and age means mostly business leaders get the money.
My main rant is that the funding in my country is determined by politicians, none of whom are scientists, yet they get to decide what areas of science deserve funding (based on what your buddy in industry who gives you free champagne to bath in says) and who think that science is a project of: I want you to discover the teleporter, how much money will that cost?
But let's not forget that we are all fed this lofty ideal that scientists are somehow there for the benefit of humanity and are the smartest people on the planet etc, when the reality is obviously that science as the concept we have today actually evolved from rich fucks who loved to sit around and tinker and argue as a hobby. While most of the actual knowledge evolved from necessity a lot of the time (how do I build this? how can I predict this so that crops will grow? etc). In a sense, science being there for industry is the natural progression from that, kind of returning to its roots. In a very twisted way. Graduates who go on to work in industry and all that... It's just that, especially in that age of rich guys with hobby science, a lot of that lofty ideal of science was pushed, and as science as something very elitist and only being about those rich guys. Now we have widened up science participation more and so I think it's only natural that science ends up closer to industry than in the past where if you studied science at uni it was mostly just to say in that field in academia or government science lab etc. We have more graduates now, because industry pushed for more funding for science graduates to be available, so where else would they all go anyway? They can't all go into academia, as there are too many of them.
Science can't all be applied. Or, to put it in another way, we can't all be doing engineering. Which is what the politicians seem to want.
who think that science is a project of: I want you to discover the teleporter, how much money will that cost? - that's engineering.
I continue to assert, that we need CERNs and SSCs and ISSs so that we have something to look forward to, other than the next iPad or smart TV. We need people, rich or otherwise, tinkering with stuff at their leisure. Quite a few scientists were dirt poor and existed on the donations/grants of the rich.
So no... We are not retuning to the roots. We are biting our own tails.
Science can't all be applied. Or, to put it in another way, we can't all be doing engineering. Which is what the politicians seem to want.
who think that science is a project of: I want you to discover the teleporter, how much money will that cost? - that's engineering.
I'm in complete agreement with you, which is why I said that's the bit of the rant you missed.
And I know some scientists were poor, but I think a lot of the 'view of scientists' etc is based on the rich ones. In any case, being the poor scientists were just for the rich guys to do some science who didn't feel like doing it themselves, but still wanted in on the science hobby. They still had the influence by being the ones with the purse strings at the end of the day.
I still assert that a lot of so-called scientific knowledge we have came out of necessity though, and that we are getting back to a point where we are making steps in science as a by product of engineering type issues, as you call it, because of the way science is currently funded predominantly.
However, we have a lot of funding for science, even if we always want more. The issue here is: do you want less science funding and less industry involvement? If industry isn't involved and doesn't pressure politicians into funding the sciences to produce excess graduates that they can recruit, then the fall out is that those excess graduates won't really exist and it will be back to only a handful of science graduates.
Ideally we want the government and industry to just throw a load of money at scientists without asking any questions whatsoever and not asking what is done with the money and so on and so on.
I don't think donations from the rich is a viable way to fund the next ISS project. And many of those projects were dreamt up in a different era and didn't necessarily all have actual science at the forefront of the politicians minds who got together to give the go ahead for the money.
At the end of the day, scientists i know are mostly apolitical. If scientists got up and made more noise and stood for elections in politics, then maybe a change would happen, but in the UK there aren't any scientist politicians really, I think the closest we have is a GP and a lawyer who did chemistry undergrad or something.
Hmmm... The issue here is: do you want less science funding and less industry involvement? - I wasn't actually talking about that. It was more about the issue of where money flows and where it ends, and the issue of scales (a typical amount of funding for a PI, on the scale of things - compare that with a budget for a, say, Hollywood blockbuster, or a salary or a movie star or an NFL player).
Industry involvement in science, on some level, is healthy - keeps us grounded. But it should not keep us bound, or enclosed, which is what is happening now. What I see happening is, R&D departments in industry are being closed - they can't afford them - so they outsource to the Universities the work that goes beyond proof of concept and demonstration of principle, leaving us with less and less time to dream up new things.
I don't think donations from the rich is a viable way to fund the next ISS project Well... Time will show what will become of those private race-to-space things one keeps hearing about. I wouldn't dismiss them outright.
And many of those projects were dreamt up in a different era and didn't necessarily all have actual science at the forefront of the politicians minds who got together to give the go ahead for the money. - that's true...
If scientists got up and made more noise - true again. We'd rather let those with D's in undergrad physics tell us how to do things than do them ourselves. So where does that leave us?
We have to learn that you have to don't just get shit handed to you on a platter, just because you need it. Most groups in society that aren't right at the top already have to fight for their voices to be heard and for their cause to get funding from the government. We just have to suck it up that we have to make sacrifices such as getting involved in politics, or stop being whiny about the fact that people aren't just magically all doing what we want the to do. *shrug*
compare that with a budget for a, say, Hollywood blockbuster, or a salary or a movie star or an NFL player
That could be said of just about anything. Why is my local hospital being closed down leaving us with no hospital for all 120 000 inhabitants of my borough? And atrocious traffic conditions might i add that make the idea of far away hospitals and absolute nightmare. Compared to the funding that new Olympic sport's stadium got... instead of building an Olympic stadium we could have not just saved the hospital from closure, I bet it could have been refurbished or even rebuilt.
And that comparison makes more sense since that's tax payer money. Hollywood throw around that kind of money because people want to watch the films. The newest console games can cost hundreds of millions of dollars... again, because the market exists. You make it out like Entertainment industry shouldn't be spending/making all this money, but what about the food or gold industry or what not? Do i really need a choice of ten different types of orange juice on the supermarket shelf? Tropicana probably spends millions on advertising. What about gold? The majority of gold is mined for jewellery, which is pretty fucking useless, but everyone moans about how much is spent on a Hollywood blockbuster rather than how much money the latest gold mine in the middle of the rainforest cost to start up, although it's even more 'useless'.
I wasn't actually talking about that. It was more about the issue of where money flows and where it ends
What about the court systems? Where does the money end up there? People have to buy things like chairs for the court rooms and toilet paper and stationary and shit and all that money just goes to the industry corporations that make that stuff. Is it just a way to sponsor paper manufacturers? I don't think science is a way to bankroll Sigma Aldrich. I don't think universities are their main source of income? I could be wrong, but most of those companies exist to service industry. And even if they are set up to service universities, so what?
I think we agree on the issue of the role of industry though from what you're saying in general. Like I said, industry is often the driving force in which areas are getting funded, because they don't do their own basic research any more, and then they want to hire the scientists... so yeah, a lot of this is to benefit industry, even though I don't think it's about solvents. ;)
It comes down to politics though and my reply to your last question.
It seems that we also agree on the fact that we (scientists) should get off our high horse and get involved in the politics in order to change something. However revolting that might be.
The situation with the hospital is appalling... But yes, it could be said about a great many number of things.
It seems that we also agree on the fact that we (scientists) should get off our high horse and get involved in the politics in order to change something. However revolting that might be.
Yes, scientists have relied in the past century on funding from governments that were doing a keen arms race both in terms of weapons and space, but also in general in energy technologies, general scientific knowledge (for a prestige dick measuring competition), and their society's health and so on (all dick measuring stuff, but also of course to stop people defecting or sympathising with the enemy), let's also not forget that. There was a brief period of 'yay we can all work together now!', but now we are in the phase of 'fuck this is all shit and everyone for themselves and wwwwaaaah it's all about what the companies want'. No more fear of your citizens going like: oh, it's better in the enemy's country. They are better at science, and healthcare, and social services and technological advances...
So yeah, suddenly we scientists need to wake up and do something, but we've got a whole forest suck up our arse, so we think politics is beneath us. Ivory towers...? Nope, we are so far away, we actually are on Mars I think ;) .
I think politics is so revolting to scientists, because it is all about lies... Some think, perhaps, about necessary lies, but lies nevertheless. Science is... if not about the pursuit of truth, but at least about evidence of some sort. Alas, humans don't make decisions based on evidence...
i think that may be one thing, but i think the other is definitely that traditionally scientists have been privileged enough to be able to be very apolitical.
rant, research financeenergyresearchDecember 28 2013, 09:37:56 UTC
Engineering is required because it is the discipline that creates (tax-paying) wealth via industry and therefore should be regarded correctly by government as a priority human endeavour. It is up to scientists in their respective fields to compete for limited tax revenue to fund non-commercial, basic research that may (not) become engineering applications in the future.
To use your analogy, we need the next (appropriately taxed!) range of consumer devices to be bought in order to finance the basic research into particle physics, space exploration, etc.. As the politicians say: "it's the economy, stupid". No economy, no research.
The computer industry is full of open source programmers conducting research in their spare time; the ubiquity of their tools makes this relatively easy with todays technologies and communications infrastructure (courtesy of preceding basic research!) and proves that people are capable of innovation beyond the university environment.
Should scientists be relatively highly paid to do non-commercial basic research? With limited tax revenues, probably an example of (s)he who shouts loudest...
Actually, let's take that a step further. Consumers buy more iPads which, via the tax dollar flow, finances more basic research - that was basically your point. Ideally, that would work. The reality is, that the tax dollars will end up in someone's deep pockets, someone who has no interest in financing basic research. At best, they will spend it in financing ways to make a better iPad. And that sucks.
> ...tax dollars will end up in someone's deep pockets...
That is why political groups "lobby" (or bribe, or whatever other "inducements" exist) to gain preferential access to those tax funds. Scientists are generally averse to such corruption, hence the lack of interest in research funding.
My main rant is that the funding in my country is determined by politicians, none of whom are scientists, yet they get to decide what areas of science deserve funding (based on what your buddy in industry who gives you free champagne to bath in says) and who think that science is a project of: I want you to discover the teleporter, how much money will that cost?
But let's not forget that we are all fed this lofty ideal that scientists are somehow there for the benefit of humanity and are the smartest people on the planet etc, when the reality is obviously that science as the concept we have today actually evolved from rich fucks who loved to sit around and tinker and argue as a hobby. While most of the actual knowledge evolved from necessity a lot of the time (how do I build this? how can I predict this so that crops will grow? etc). In a sense, science being there for industry is the natural progression from that, kind of returning to its roots. In a very twisted way. Graduates who go on to work in industry and all that... It's just that, especially in that age of rich guys with hobby science, a lot of that lofty ideal of science was pushed, and as science as something very elitist and only being about those rich guys. Now we have widened up science participation more and so I think it's only natural that science ends up closer to industry than in the past where if you studied science at uni it was mostly just to say in that field in academia or government science lab etc. We have more graduates now, because industry pushed for more funding for science graduates to be available, so where else would they all go anyway? They can't all go into academia, as there are too many of them.
Reply
who think that science is a project of: I want you to discover the teleporter, how much money will that cost? - that's engineering.
I continue to assert, that we need CERNs and SSCs and ISSs so that we have something to look forward to, other than the next iPad or smart TV. We need people, rich or otherwise, tinkering with stuff at their leisure. Quite a few scientists were dirt poor and existed on the donations/grants of the rich.
So no... We are not retuning to the roots. We are biting our own tails.
Reply
who think that science is a project of: I want you to discover the teleporter, how much money will that cost? - that's engineering.
I'm in complete agreement with you, which is why I said that's the bit of the rant you missed.
And I know some scientists were poor, but I think a lot of the 'view of scientists' etc is based on the rich ones. In any case, being the poor scientists were just for the rich guys to do some science who didn't feel like doing it themselves, but still wanted in on the science hobby. They still had the influence by being the ones with the purse strings at the end of the day.
I still assert that a lot of so-called scientific knowledge we have came out of necessity though, and that we are getting back to a point where we are making steps in science as a by product of engineering type issues, as you call it, because of the way science is currently funded predominantly.
However, we have a lot of funding for science, even if we always want more. The issue here is: do you want less science funding and less industry involvement? If industry isn't involved and doesn't pressure politicians into funding the sciences to produce excess graduates that they can recruit, then the fall out is that those excess graduates won't really exist and it will be back to only a handful of science graduates.
Ideally we want the government and industry to just throw a load of money at scientists without asking any questions whatsoever and not asking what is done with the money and so on and so on.
I don't think donations from the rich is a viable way to fund the next ISS project. And many of those projects were dreamt up in a different era and didn't necessarily all have actual science at the forefront of the politicians minds who got together to give the go ahead for the money.
At the end of the day, scientists i know are mostly apolitical. If scientists got up and made more noise and stood for elections in politics, then maybe a change would happen, but in the UK there aren't any scientist politicians really, I think the closest we have is a GP and a lawyer who did chemistry undergrad or something.
Reply
The issue here is: do you want less science funding and less industry involvement? - I wasn't actually talking about that. It was more about the issue of where money flows and where it ends, and the issue of scales (a typical amount of funding for a PI, on the scale of things - compare that with a budget for a, say, Hollywood blockbuster, or a salary or a movie star or an NFL player).
Industry involvement in science, on some level, is healthy - keeps us grounded. But it should not keep us bound, or enclosed, which is what is happening now. What I see happening is, R&D departments in industry are being closed - they can't afford them - so they outsource to the Universities the work that goes beyond proof of concept and demonstration of principle, leaving us with less and less time to dream up new things.
I don't think donations from the rich is a viable way to fund the next ISS project
Well... Time will show what will become of those private race-to-space things one keeps hearing about. I wouldn't dismiss them outright.
And many of those projects were dreamt up in a different era and didn't necessarily all have actual science at the forefront of the politicians minds who got together to give the go ahead for the money. - that's true...
If scientists got up and made more noise - true again. We'd rather let those with D's in undergrad physics tell us how to do things than do them ourselves. So where does that leave us?
Reply
We have to learn that you have to don't just get shit handed to you on a platter, just because you need it. Most groups in society that aren't right at the top already have to fight for their voices to be heard and for their cause to get funding from the government. We just have to suck it up that we have to make sacrifices such as getting involved in politics, or stop being whiny about the fact that people aren't just magically all doing what we want the to do. *shrug*
compare that with a budget for a, say, Hollywood blockbuster, or a salary or a movie star or an NFL player
That could be said of just about anything. Why is my local hospital being closed down leaving us with no hospital for all 120 000 inhabitants of my borough? And atrocious traffic conditions might i add that make the idea of far away hospitals and absolute nightmare. Compared to the funding that new Olympic sport's stadium got... instead of building an Olympic stadium we could have not just saved the hospital from closure, I bet it could have been refurbished or even rebuilt.
And that comparison makes more sense since that's tax payer money. Hollywood throw around that kind of money because people want to watch the films. The newest console games can cost hundreds of millions of dollars... again, because the market exists. You make it out like Entertainment industry shouldn't be spending/making all this money, but what about the food or gold industry or what not? Do i really need a choice of ten different types of orange juice on the supermarket shelf? Tropicana probably spends millions on advertising. What about gold? The majority of gold is mined for jewellery, which is pretty fucking useless, but everyone moans about how much is spent on a Hollywood blockbuster rather than how much money the latest gold mine in the middle of the rainforest cost to start up, although it's even more 'useless'.
I wasn't actually talking about that. It was more about the issue of where money flows and where it ends
What about the court systems? Where does the money end up there? People have to buy things like chairs for the court rooms and toilet paper and stationary and shit and all that money just goes to the industry corporations that make that stuff. Is it just a way to sponsor paper manufacturers? I don't think science is a way to bankroll Sigma Aldrich. I don't think universities are their main source of income? I could be wrong, but most of those companies exist to service industry. And even if they are set up to service universities, so what?
I think we agree on the issue of the role of industry though from what you're saying in general. Like I said, industry is often the driving force in which areas are getting funded, because they don't do their own basic research any more, and then they want to hire the scientists... so yeah, a lot of this is to benefit industry, even though I don't think it's about solvents. ;)
It comes down to politics though and my reply to your last question.
Reply
The situation with the hospital is appalling... But yes, it could be said about a great many number of things.
Reply
Yes, scientists have relied in the past century on funding from governments that were doing a keen arms race both in terms of weapons and space, but also in general in energy technologies, general scientific knowledge (for a prestige dick measuring competition), and their society's health and so on (all dick measuring stuff, but also of course to stop people defecting or sympathising with the enemy), let's also not forget that. There was a brief period of 'yay we can all work together now!', but now we are in the phase of 'fuck this is all shit and everyone for themselves and wwwwaaaah it's all about what the companies want'. No more fear of your citizens going like: oh, it's better in the enemy's country. They are better at science, and healthcare, and social services and technological advances...
So yeah, suddenly we scientists need to wake up and do something, but we've got a whole forest suck up our arse, so we think politics is beneath us. Ivory towers...? Nope, we are so far away, we actually are on Mars I think ;) .
Reply
Just musing.
Well, hope you have a fine holiday season. :)
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To use your analogy, we need the next (appropriately taxed!) range of consumer devices to be bought in order to finance the basic research into particle physics, space exploration, etc.. As the politicians say: "it's the economy, stupid". No economy, no research.
The computer industry is full of open source programmers conducting research in their spare time; the ubiquity of their tools makes this relatively easy with todays technologies and communications infrastructure (courtesy of preceding basic research!) and proves that people are capable of innovation beyond the university environment.
Should scientists be relatively highly paid to do non-commercial basic research? With limited tax revenues, probably an example of (s)he who shouts loudest...
Reply
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And that sucks.
Reply
That is why political groups "lobby" (or bribe, or whatever other "inducements" exist) to gain preferential access to those tax funds. Scientists are generally averse to such corruption, hence the lack of interest in research funding.
Reply
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