Comments on: Junk science

By: Sean Kirby

Sean Kirby — Sat, 06 Mar 2004 22:20:00 +0000

It’s been said that if the government directed reseach on Polio, we would have the best iron lung in the world, but no vaccine. I’m just saying…

By: buffalo gal

buffalo gal — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 21:28:37 +0000

This discussion seems to assume that there is only a choice between government and business funding of research, ignoring the role of non-profit agencies. Much of Harvard’s funding for the stem cell research comes from a large non-profit agency, for example. The non-profits fund basic research much as the government agencies do, without a vested interest in secrecy or potential profit. I’m just pointing this out – it should please the libertarians!

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 18:59:25 +0000

“Xerox PARC singlehandedly invented most of what you think of as the modern computer back in the 70s.” A lot of that work (mouse, GUI, cut-and-paste) was borrowed from Doug Engelbart’s work on the Augmented Human Interface project at SRI in the late 1960s, sponsored by DARPA. When the funding dried up, Engelbart was shunted to Lockheed, and his key researchers moved to Xerox PARC. So Xerox was building on work done within SRI under gubmint sponsorship. SRI itself is a non-profit independent research institute, so it’s in a twilight world between the private- and public- sector.

By: DJW

DJW — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 16:16:10 +0000

Shelby, sorry—fast, bad reading.

By: GMT

GMT — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 14:24:09 +0000

whenever the government funds scientific research, it’s liable to get politicized Granted. But when the politics in question involve preying on the superstitions of primitive and ignorant people, it is no longer a matter of simple politicization. The politics in question are openly hostile to science. That’s the difference, and that’s the reason for this “brouhaha.”

By: Rich Puchalsky

Rich Puchalsky — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 12:38:48 +0000

This is where libertarians are really ill served by their stereotypical tendency towards ideological completism. They are very vulnerable towards being used as stalking horses by the right (or the left, if the left ever came into power). When the right wing dreams up something like “Let’s do all governmental science using scientists paid by the industries affected by regulation, and disguise this as general privatisation” libertarians can’t seem to disagree, because of course the Final Eventual Libertarian Master Plan has the government getting out of the science business. So they lose any ability to win people over with gradualism, and get associated with every obviously manipulative and shady plan to come down the pike.

By: des

des — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 09:58:54 +0000

Is there some way for those (not including me, good heavens, no) who loathe and despise the US to help finance Libertoonian think-tankery? Privately, but of course.

By: Shelby

Shelby — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 07:33:34 +0000

Williestyle: I should be more clear. “Also, considerable basic science takes place at private universities with limited or no public funding” refers to basic science ocurring with “limited or no public funding”, not private universities with, etc. My apologies if this was misleading.

By: Zizka

Zizka — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 05:39:55 +0000

Libertarians have a genius for zeroing in on the successes of government (e.g. free public education, the funding of scientific research, public health) and asserting why they are unsuccessful experiments and very bad things. They then offer to replace these government programs with untried sketches of experimental alternatives which they assure us will perform much, much better. “Government never has been, and never will be, anything other than a scheme for transferring money from the pockets of the productive citizens to those of various parasite classes. Nothing positive has ever been accomplished by government.” Obviously true, right? See how easy it is?

By: Shelby

Shelby — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 05:38:43 +0000

djw: What part of “So while it’s fair enough to criticize his suggestion” was unclear? williestyle: No, it’s not.

By: WillieStyle

WillieStyle — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 04:01:27 +0000

Also, considerable basic science takes place at private universities with limited or no public funding. That was a joke right?

By: DJW

DJW — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 03:45:10 +0000

shelby—huh? Because you suspect he wouldn’t actually advocate this plan right now or make it his top priority (both insights not readily apparent in orignal text, of course), it’s not fair to criticize him? How does that even begin to make sense?

By: Shelby

Shelby — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 02:50:25 +0000

Aaron, I think Bernstein was stating a common libertarian idealization—removing government funding from all but an irreducible few sectors (chiefly defense). It’s interesting to work out how these sectors would be affected in the long term by a reduction or elimination of tax funding, and it’s necessitated by the ideal of minimizing taxes (“theft”). In any event, I know few libertartians who would start by cutting funds for basic research. There are many, more gratifying areas of state spending to attack. So while it’s fair enough to criticize his suggestion, I don’t think he was advancing it as a near-term political platform. (I’d say let’s not make too much of it, but I probably have made that mistake right here!)

By: Don P

Don P — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 02:45:39 +0000

Xerox PARC singlehandedly invented most of what you think of as the modern computer back in the 70s. Bell Labs invented the transistor, UNIX and Information Theory. DEC labs has also done some nice work. Um, the modern computer is mostly microelectronics, magnetic and optical storage devices, and CRT or flat panel display devices. Xerox PARC didn’t invent any of those things. The miniaturization of electronics was driven mostly by government defense and space programs. The internet, which has probably done more to drive mass consumption of computing technology than any other single development, was also invented by the government, initially for the purpose of providing a resilient distributed communications network that would survive a nuclear attack.

By: Aaron Bergman

Aaron Bergman — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 02:39:32 +0000

The comment by Berenstein really astounded me. Does he have any idea where science would be these days without NSF, DOE, DOD, NIH, or whatever funding? Companies generally fund directed research. Some places do have broad R&D departments, but there are vast areas of science that would never receive any funding if the government weren’t doing it. And not just fields like mine. What company would put up the Hubble Space Telescope? Who would build the LHC? Who would spend money on WMAP? I’ve got plenty more acronyms where those came from. And even that aside, one can look in fields like biology and medicine where there is a copious amount of private funding, and still government funding is important for broad and basic research. All of which just reinforces my belief that it is the rare libertarian who would actually want to live their ideals if presented with them.