Current Events > Funding leads the rate of scientists doing basic science to drop to 1%

(+) Yeah! (+)

mm, so we were just playing the game

my lab was 3 people competing with Dr. Joe Katz's "Chinese army"
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TC, why should your lab get more funding? What value are you contributing to mankind's future?

Clad posted...

TC, why should your lab get more funding? What value are you contributing to mankind's future?

I mean, I don't really care about my lab having a lot of funding right now. My current projects are utilizing primarily freely available data, with a couple of collaborations paying for the rest. I think the bigger thing to question is why you can only imagine motivations to be self serving.
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COVxy posted...

Clad posted...

TC, why should your lab get more funding? What value are you contributing to mankind's future?

I mean, I don't really care about my lab having a lot of funding right now. My current projects are utilizing primarily freely available data, with a couple of collaborations paying for the rest. I think the bigger thing to question is why you can only imagine motivations to be self serving.

Why should ventures which provide no value to mankind be funded with taxpayer dollars?

Clad posted...

TC, why should your lab get more funding? What value are you contributing to mankind's future?

people who are educated and can research more advanced things later.

You know this reminds me of a really old movie called Curly Sue, where a guy drags this little girl around and the two of them are con artists, and she's impressing people by spelling out big words like "asphyxiate" and eventually one of the other main characters says "Can you spell cat?" and she goes "... I don't know how."
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Clad posted...

Why should ventures which provide no value to mankind be funded with taxpayer dollars?

they shouldn't. followup:

should all ventures which provide value to mankind be funded with taxpayer dollars?

second followup:

if your answer is anything other than an unequivocal yes, where is the line?
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ChromaticAngel posted...

people who are educated and can research more advanced things later.

Those people should pay for their own education and training. If a lab isn't investing into anything of value, their demand for tax dollars seems out of place.

Darkman124 posted...

Clad posted...

Why should ventures which provide no value to mankind be funded with taxpayer dollars?

they shouldn't. followup:

should all ventures which provide value to mankind be funded with taxpayer dollars?

second followup:

if your answer is anything other than an unequivocal yes, where is the line?

Depends on what the role of government is and whether or not the venture won't succeed on its own despite it having value. IE the Tesla bail out in 2008.

shockthemonkey posted...

Clad posted...

COVxy posted...

Clad posted...

TC, why should your lab get more funding? What value are you contributing to mankind's future?

I mean, I don't really care about my lab having a lot of funding right now. My current projects are utilizing primarily freely available data, with a couple of collaborations paying for the rest. I think the bigger thing to question is why you can only imagine motivations to be self serving.

Why should ventures which provide no value to mankind be funded with taxpayer dollars?

Your argument so far has seemed more like "there is no value to mankind unless you get funding" than what you're asking here.

uh try reading the posts again fam

Clad posted...

Depends on what the role of government is and whether or not the venture won't succeed on its own despite it having value. IE the Tesla bail out in 2008.

1) i am asking you to answer the questions for our present government. answer the questions.

2) discussion of applied sciences is off-topic. tesla does not do basic science.

3) what tesla bailout? do you mean the $350m loan that tesla later paid back?
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Darkman124 posted...

Clad posted...

Depends on what the role of government is and whether or not the venture won't succeed on its own despite it having value. IE the Tesla bail out in 2008.

1) i am asking you to answer the questions for our present government. answer the questions.

2) discussion of applied sciences is off-topic. tesla does not do basic science.

3) what tesla bailout? do you mean the $350m loan that tesla later paid back?

one thing at a time. first tc has to justify why his lab deserves funding if it isn't contributing anything of value to mankind.

obviously we shouldnt be spending tax dollars for no reason, fam.

Clad posted...

one thing at a time. first tc has to justify why his lab deserves funding if it isn't contributing anything of value to mankind.

obviously we shouldnt be spending tax dollars for no reason, fam.

no no no

this isnt about tc

i'm asking you

answer the questions
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isn't knowledge valuable idk lol tbh
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Clad posted...

Why should ventures which provide no value to mankind be funded with taxpayer dollars?

My entire viewpoint is that despite no monetary payout, basic science has intrinsic value.
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Just for background Darkman, last time we discussed something around these lines, Proudclad refused to accept that Tesla doesn't do basic science, and claimed that I was obfuscating the issue by making any such distinction between basic and applied sciences.
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COVxy posted...

Clad posted...

Why should ventures which provide no value to mankind be funded with taxpayer dollars?

My entire viewpoint is that despite no monetary payout, basic science has intrinsic value.

I didn't say that value is only in monetary payout. I asked what value you're providing. What knowledge or potential applications can come out of what you're doing? That's what's most important here, because investing into anything requires that there be value. It doesn't require immediate value or just monetary value, but there are multiple ways to measure value.

Is it going to save money? Cure diseases? Or are you expecting to get paid to tinker and play in a lab while taxpayers do real work? Because no doubt there are useless ventures that subsist on the tax dollars without any hope of actually providing any value, ever.

Darkman124 posted...

Clad posted...

one thing at a time. first tc has to justify why his lab deserves funding if it isn't contributing anything of value to mankind.

obviously we shouldnt be spending tax dollars for no reason, fam.

no no no

this isnt about tc

i'm asking you

answer the questions

Do you feel like you're one of the cops in those movies? Where the cop or lawyer demands his way and slams his hand on the table and says "ANSWER THE QUESTIONS DAMMIT" and then stares profusely into the other person's eyes?

Clad posted...

I didn't say that value is only in monetary payout. I asked what value you're providing. What knowledge or potential applications can come out of what you're doing? That's what's most important here, because investing into anything requires that there be value. It doesn't require immediate value or just monetary value, but there are multiple ways to measure value.

Is it going to save money? Cure diseases? Or are you expecting to get paid to tinker and play in a lab while taxpayers do real work? Because no doubt there are useless ventures that subsist on the tax dollars without any hope of actually providing any value, ever.

Do you agree that understanding the organization and function of the brain, and how that relates to cognition, is a valuable goal?

Right now, my work focuses on understanding organizational features of the brain the constrain the possible computations certain brain regions can perform.

And again, this is all beside the point. I think it's a tragedy that basic science isn't being funded not because I do basic science, but because I value basic science and knowledge.
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Clad posted...

ChromaticAngel posted...

people who are educated and can research more advanced things later.

Those people should pay for their own education and training. If a lab isn't investing into anything of value, their demand for tax dollars seems out of place.

How do you propose uneducated people pay for this? In university, they'll be lucky to have lab access for 2 hours a day, 3 days a week. If someone wants to study in a lab full time, they can't as science labs are insanely expensive, even basic ones.

Effectively what you're saying at this point is that academia should only be open to the rich.
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Clad posted...

Do you feel like you're one of the cops in those movies? Where the cop or lawyer demands his way and slams his hand on the table and says "ANSWER THE QUESTIONS DAMMIT" and then stares profusely into the other person's eyes?

idk but you are acting guilty as fuck right now

answer the questions
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Darkman124 posted...

Clad posted...

Do you feel like you're one of the cops in those movies? Where the cop or lawyer demands his way and slams his hand on the table and says "ANSWER THE QUESTIONS DAMMIT" and then stares profusely into the other person's eyes?

idk but you are acting guilty as fuck right now

answer the questions

haha relax and have some fun, Mr Bad Cop. bring in Balrog to be the good cop.

1) All ventures which provide value should be funded, but can they all be funded? No, because resources are limited and we need to decide which ones we prioritize based on how much value they provide, what the costs are, etc. In an ideal world we'd set aside funding for everything of value. But in our realistic world we can't do that, so we need to rely on corporations and private investors to do heavy lifting where possible and government to do some heavy lifting where needed. I feel like your question was hinting at whether or not government should fund all valuable ventures, and the answer to that is no because it can't and because it would do an awful job if it tried.

2) I brought up Tesla as an example of when government invested correctly. Not as an example of basic science. If something is immensely valuable, like space exploration or renewable energy, and cannot get a good running start without some government intervention...it's fair for the government to use tax dollars.

The line between what gets funded and what does not is not black and white. There's no easy line to draw. Gotta ask what the costs are, what the opportunity costs are, what the people want, and what our competitors are doing. What is best for mankind in the long run, etc.

COVxy posted...

Clad posted...

I didn't say that value is only in monetary payout. I asked what value you're providing. What knowledge or potential applications can come out of what you're doing? That's what's most important here, because investing into anything requires that there be value. It doesn't require immediate value or just monetary value, but there are multiple ways to measure value.

Is it going to save money? Cure diseases? Or are you expecting to get paid to tinker and play in a lab while taxpayers do real work? Because no doubt there are useless ventures that subsist on the tax dollars without any hope of actually providing any value, ever.

Do you agree that understanding the organization and function of the brain, and how that relates to cognition, is a valuable goal?

Right now, my work focuses on understanding organizational features of the brain the constrain the possible computations certain brain regions can perform.

And again, this is all beside the point. I think it's a tragedy that basic science isn't being funded not because I do basic science, but because I value basic science and knowledge.

If it's just going to enter the compendium of useless facts and rote memorization we impose on college students, I'm not convinced that every lab is producing something worth funding. Especially not when there are much more immediate and pressing things we can invest in, including applied science that actually does real shit lmao.

Clad posted...

If it's just going to enter the compendium of useless facts and rote memorization we impose on college students, I'm not convinced that every lab is producing something worth funding. Especially not when there are much more immediate and pressing things we can invest in, including applied science that actually does real shit lmao.

Applied science wouldn't exist without "useless facts" (which is a really incomprehensible way to actually characterize basic science, as fact collecting is very much so what most basic science isn't, as most basic science is theory driven).
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COVxy posted...

Clad posted...

If it's just going to enter the compendium of useless facts and rote memorization we impose on college students, I'm not convinced that every lab is producing something worth funding. Especially not when there are much more immediate and pressing things we can invest in, including applied science that actually does real shit lmao.

Applied science wouldn't exist without "useless facts" (which is a really incomprehensible way to actually characterize basic science, as fact collecting is very much so what most basic science isn't, as most basic science is theory driven).

How much new discovery happens when trying to stretch existing knowledge into applications? I feel like people uncover more knowledge about the universe when they're trying to solve a material problem of some kind, rather than when they're just meandering about a lab without a clear objective or idea in mind. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the material researchers at SpaceX are uncovering more new knowledge than some PhD student in some college lab somewhere doing basic science.

Transcendentia posted...

rather than when they're just meandering about a lab without a clear objective or idea in mind

This does not characterize what basic science is. It's more like "Theory x says this, theory y says this, I've developed an experimental protocol that will gather evidence to either support theory x or theory y. The results suggest that theory x is more likely to be true, given these assumptions".

Basic science is directed, hyper directed.

Transcendentia posted...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the material researchers at SpaceX are uncovering more new knowledge than some PhD student in some college lab somewhere doing basic science.

I mean, this is demonstrably false. Find the number of basic science publications headed by industrial labs, and those by academic labs. I'm relatively certain the industrial labs value will hover around zero unless you go back to the 60's and 70's when Bell Labs made a blip.
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Industrial labs aren't going to publish their shit. They're going to keep it as trade secrets and make products/services that give them the competitive edge.

I mean, traditionally, if industry labs are doing basic science they have been happy to publish, to my understanding, e.g. Bell Labs.
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Clad posted...

I think cutting to the chase, the real question is whether or not you believe there to be any value in basic science? And if so, whether you'd be able to list an example of basic science you think is not valuable, and and example in which you think is.
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Clad posted...

Annihilated posted...

Funding still needs to be given to research in quantum physics. There is so little we still understand about quantum mechanics, but the knowledge we do have has the potential to transform the entire world as we know it.

source?

Source for what exactly? How quantum mechanics works or the possibilities it has? Because it's a pretty huge field that is extremely hard to understand let alone master, and the list of possibilities once you understand it is pretty endless. I can point you to a few videos or documentaries on how quantum physics works, or a few articles related to advances in applied research, but that would only be scratching the surface. I can give you a few examples though.

First, there's quantum computing. They exist, but they are still in their infancy. While a classical binary computer uses bits, 1's and 0's, to perform operations, a quantum computer uses Q-bits, which includes a total of four states: 1, 0, and a superposition of each one simultaneously. For practical uses, classical computers excel at mathematical computation, repetition, and data retrieval. Quantum computers are more intended for solving multiple solutions for a problem at once, which makes them ideal for determining probability and branching paths on a massive scale. Imagine being able to predict tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis months in advance. But the biggest advancement would have to be in artificial intelligence. The level of sophistication in quantum AI would make our current AI look like a Teddy Ruxpin doll. For all their usefulness, Siri and Alexa don't actually do a whole lot of thinking. They mostly defer to search engine algorithms and results and simply present the data to you. If they had quantum intelligence, they would be able to understand any question you asked them, the context in which it was asked, and things you might not have considered when asking it. If you're a fan of automation, which I know you are, this would take us to Skynet levels.

But quantum entanglement is where things get really cool. Basically, two particles can become linked to each other across any distance, and you would be able to tell the state of one particle by looking at the other. In the short term, this would give us instantaneous 0 latency communication over any distance and with encryption that was completely uncrackable by the very laws of physics. Because as soon as you directly observe the particles, the entanglement is broken, and the particle must then "decide" which of the two locations it's in. In the long term, we would be able to instantly transport matter, making 3D printers obsolete, and in the very long term, possibly even people.

And then there's quantum tunneling, which I won't even attempt to explain, except that a particle can simply *be* someplace else if it wants to.

COVxy posted...

Clad posted...

I think cutting to the chase, the real question is whether or not you believe there to be any value in basic science? And if so, whether you'd be able to list an example of basic science you think is not valuable, and and example in which you think is.

Don't ask him those questions it'll show that he doesn't really know what basic science is.
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This seems overblown. First of all, the 1% comes from a self-reported survey of scientists who say 100% of their research is "fundamental research." The number of scientists reporting 10%-90% as fundamental research is obviously far greater.

Second, the survey asks scientists to compare their current research program to their research program 10 years ago, as they recall it. It is not a like-to-like comparison of contemperaneous reports, and the observed effect could be entirely due to framing or cognitive bias. The actual budget numbers for basic research funding show that it has remained basically steady.

That said, I think Canada, the US, et al should drastically increase funding for research, fundamental and applied, public and private.
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GFaceKillah1280 posted...

This seems overblown. First of all, the 1% comes from a self-reported survey of scientists who say 100% of their research is "fundamental research." The number of scientists reporting 10%-90% as fundamental research is obviously far greater.

This is true, but colloquially, I know several labs, including my own, which had almost zero applied work, whose current work is almost all applied. Further, the funding stats seem to support this as well.

GFaceKillah1280 posted...

Second, the survey asks scientists to compare their current research program to their research program 10 years ago, as they recall it. It is not a like-to-like comparison of contemperaneous reports, and the observed effect could be entirely due to framing or cognitive bias. The actual budget numbers for basic research funding show that it has remained basically steady.

I very much doubt this is an issue. It's not like asking you to report how much meat you ate 10 years ago. A grant application, a scientific leg of your lab, isn't so easy to forget or misremember.

GFaceKillah1280 posted...

That said, I think Canada, the US, et al should drastically increase funding for research, fundamental and applied, public and private.

Yes, but some legs of research are in more need than others. It's shortsighted to let basic research fall by the wayside.
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Don't know how I've missed this topic for this long.

The way I see Basic Science, it's that it's there to build off of, but we may not necessarily know what we will build from it. Because it's exploratory. We are travelling uncharted waters where we learn what we know and we learn what we don't know.

If we stop basic science in favor or applied science, it's not necessarily going to shut us down scientifically, as applied science still studies the unknown for specific purposes. But that purpose limits the scope of the study. So we are only studying what we are looking for, and we may miss out on anything that we could have found outside of that limited box of inquiry.

Basic science is valuable because we explore the unknown and have the potential to uncover pockets of knowledge that can then be used for specific purposes later. The risk with that is that many times we'll come up empty-handed and the research will be a dud (as is most research). I can see why people don't like it, because if it fails, you get nothing in return, and if it succeeds, you still get nothing in return, just the potential to spark a future study with a more direct benefit.

But as someone said earlier in the topic, science isn't exactly a new concept in our culture anymore, so the perceived need for basic science isn't as strong as it used to be. Only when we hit a serious stagnation point within applied sciences will there be a resurgence of interest in basic science. Or if we magically achieve world peace and we get bored with ourselves.
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Zanzenburger posted...

But that purpose limits the scope of the study. So we are only studying what we are looking for, and we may miss out on anything that we could have found outside of that limited box of inquiry.

Teflon was discovered while applied-sciencing for better refrigerants.

COVxy posted...

I very much doubt this is an issue. It's not like asking you to report how much meat you ate 10 years ago. A grant application, a scientific leg of your lab, isn't so easy to forget or misremember.

It's not a simple factual question, though. It's asking them to categorize their research into vague, non-mutually-exclusive categories. To expound on my point about possible bias, basic research grants are probably more attractive to scientists because they give them more freedom to pursue what personally interests them. So scientists are (unconsciously) motivated to make the case for increasing funding for basic research.

COVxy posted...

Yes, but some legs of research are in more need than others.

Well, that probably depends entirely on whom you ask.
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Ahh when your beautiful abstract mathematics are funded due to pragmatics of your field. Feels amazing man.
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Zanzenburger posted...

Because it's exploratory.

I can't agree with this notion that basic science = exploratory. I mean, a subset of basic science is exploratory, but up until recently it wasn't even very well accepted to be exploratory. My guess is that the majority of basic science is hypothesis driven.
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COVxy posted...

I mean, this is demonstrably false. Find the number of basic science publications headed by industrial labs, and those by academic labs. I'm relatively certain the industrial labs value will hover around zero unless you go back to the 60's and 70's when Bell Labs made a blip.

fwiw Caltech-JPL, JHU-APL, MIT-Lincoln, and other UARCs still do this
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Darkman124 posted...

COVxy posted...

I mean, this is demonstrably false. Find the number of basic science publications headed by industrial labs, and those by academic labs. I'm relatively certain the industrial labs value will hover around zero unless you go back to the 60's and 70's when Bell Labs made a blip.

fwiw Caltech-JPL, JHU-APL, MIT-Lincoln, and other UARCs still do this

Yeah, but I mean the overall point was that industry lead basic research has always paled in relation to academia lead basic research, and that rate has even decreased over the years.
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Since its only BASIC science why should we care. Its 2017 ADVANCED science is the way to go.

Lol, unsure if serious.
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If only i could know what type of basic science the cladman finds valuable...
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take a gander:

http://reason.com/archives/2016/08/26/most-scientific-results-are-wrong-or-use
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