Privatized Science

7:02 pm EST October 19th, 2007 | News | 4 Comments

Bad news for innovation.

bill nye the science guy “The biggest threat to science,” writes Jennifer Washburn, is “the decline of government support … and the growing dominance of private spending over American research.” In 1965, the U.S. government funded more than 60 percent of research, while in 2006, 65 percent of research was privately funded. Even some industry leaders are concerned that basic research, which “drives innovation 10 to 15 years out,” is being shortchanged in favor of applied research focused on marketable products. Multiple analyses have shown “that the effect of industry funding on the research outcome is huge” — a particularly troubling phenomenon for medical research.

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4 Responses to “Privatized Science”

  1. vnuy48 says:
    October 20, 2007 at 9:13 pm

    We saw this at the beginning of Mike Judge’s “Idiocracy.” All the best minds will go into ED and hair loss.

  2. Oliver Willis says:
    October 21, 2007 at 12:40 am

    But it has electrolytes!

  3. Mike says:
    October 22, 2007 at 3:29 pm

    This argument supposes that government’s stake in scientific research is “neutral,” which is simply foolish thinking.

    If no one wants to privately fund a specific area of scientific research, the most probabal reason is that it is not worth doing, at least as we understand things now.

  4. Mike says:
    October 22, 2007 at 3:44 pm

    “probable”