Privatized Science
October 19th, 2007
4 Comments
Bad news for innovation.
“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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We saw this at the beginning of Mike Judge’s “Idiocracy.” All the best minds will go into ED and hair loss.
But it has electrolytes!
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.
“probable”