Is taxpayer-funded academia worth it?

[DrZoidberg]

And finally. It's fundamentally about freedom. Do we really want to tell experts in various fields how to do their jobs? How's that going to be an improvement? Same problem with the Kremlin trying to make five year plans for all it's citizens. Didn't work for USSR and probably won't work for universities. Just leave them alone. The research overall will be better.

Sounds like you'd be a supporter of my $10 million research project.

But the bigger question is, how do we maximize this freedom to research? Maybe it's suitcases full of free money handed out at libraries to anyone who claims they are a researcher? Maybe some sort of ATM?

For a $50,000,000 grant I'll research the issue and let you know.

From back when I did research there was typically two types of researchers. Hard working and lazy. It was always good to cooperate with others. The hard working ones found each other and the lazy found each other. You could spot them from a mile off. The lazies were people who had "hacked" the system. Lazy bastards who just researched the most obscure shit they could, so they could be sure that nobody could challenge the "scientific value" of their work. I'm pretty sure that's the type of researchers who have produced the "research" Trausti showed us.

The hard-working researchers are in the majority by far, and produce good quality research. The problem is that they don't stick around long. They're in and out. They use the research as a spring-board to find new jobs and watnot. Different fields of course have their own culture. I was in computer research. The lazy one's tend to stick around year in and year out. But we want some of them to stick around year in and year out. It takes time to become a good teachers. The hard-working researchers won't be around long enough to become good teachers.

Anyhoo... that was my experience. I think the system is good enough. Sure it's a compromise. The challenge for academia today is the rise of self study on the computer. These systems are becoming better and better. And the traditional lecture system isn't really optimised for this. It'll have to be revised. But that'll happen. But everything is slow in academia.

 

[untermensche]

What are you defining as basic research?

Research where discovering the answers yields no sellable product.

Like all the research on the computer before there was any real sustainable market for them.

Like all the research on satellites and communication that allowed cell phones to exist.

Corporations can't do this kind of long term research that doesn't bring in profits for long periods of time and sometimes is a dead end.

A major flaw of capitalism is the absence of the ability to have long term planning. If your plans are too long sighted you are crushed before you can fulfill them due to lack of revenue.

That is where the government is necessary.

More irony coming from an anarchist. The government is also very top down control too.

I'm describing the current system and the flaws of capitalism and the reality that what is called free enterprise is entirely dependent on government planning and support.

I would prefer Anarchism but that doesn't stop me from seeing the world as it is.

 

[laughing dog]

What are you defining as basic research?

 Basic_research is a good start.

Finding the chemical composition and shape of DNA is a good example of basic research.

 

[coloradoatheist]

What are you defining as basic research?

 Basic_research is a good start.

Finding the chemical composition and shape of DNA is a good example of basic research.

And I think it's naive to say that if there was no research done elsewhere then the companies wouldn't do any research.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

 Basic_research is a good start.

Finding the chemical composition and shape of DNA is a good example of basic research.

And I think it's naive to say that if there was no research done elsewhere then the companies wouldn't do any research.

There would be very little research. We have products and therapies based in the knowledge of the shape and composition of the DNA molecules. The basic research would have not produced a marketable product in the short-term. Even the transistor began in a lab in a Leipzig university. Apple, Medtronic and Microsoft all started from universities.

 

[laughing dog]

 Basic_research is a good start.

Finding the chemical composition and shape of DNA is a good example of basic research.

And I think it's naive to say that if there was no research done elsewhere then the companies wouldn't do any research.

No one said that. The argument is that private firms and individuals are less likely to engage in basic research because they either cannot recoup any benefits or a large enough share of the benefits to make it worthwhile for them. That does not mean no one will do it, it means that private enterprise will engage in less basic research than is economically feasible.

 

[ronburgundy]

No. Your apply free-market "logic" which doesn't apply to science or to what is good for society.

You are also showing ignorance of how science funding actually works.

More money going into the personal back accounts of those doing basic research does not mean more money towards basic research. The money must be spent on the real costs needed to produce the data. The researchers don't personally see a penny of the funding money they get for research. It goes into spending accounts at the Institution, where every penny spent must be accounted for. At public Universities, researchers don't even get a raise in salary for bringing in a big grant. At most, having a grant allows them to get paid over the Summer months, if at a 9 month institution, but even then, they get paid at the same monthly rate they do otherwise and the size of the grant has no bearing on it. In fact, this is one of the many ways that the public benefits more from grant money given to researchers at public Universities more than when grant money is given to private research firms. Only at private firms are the grant getters are directly financially rewarded for each extra dollar in grants they bring in. Thus, they have strong incentive to inflate their stated need and use of the grant funds to make it as big as possible, and little inventive to actually use the monies toward what they said they would in their proposal.

It's all technically true. But if you don't bring grant money you will eventually get your contract not extended and get effectively fired.

Once you get tenure, getting grants no longer has any bearing on your job security. Also, most departments from which research like in the OP eminates don't even require grant funding to get tenure, because the type of research being done has little costs associated with it (i.e., no expensive tech, labs, animal care, etc..).
And even in departments where getting grants is largely required to get tenure, the size of the grant doesn't matter as much as whether you have the money required to do productive and informative research. IOW, unlike with private research firms, their is no reliable and direct personal gain for each extra dollar in taxpayer grants your score.

 

[ronburgundy]

Research where discovering the answers yields no sellable product.

Like all the research on the computer before there was any real sustainable market for them.

Like all the research on satellites and communication that allowed cell phones to exist.

Corporations can't do this kind of long term research that doesn't bring in profits for long periods of time and sometimes is a dead end.

A major flaw of capitalism is the absence of the ability to have long term planning. If your plans are too long sighted you are crushed before you can fulfill them due to lack of revenue.

That is where the government is necessary.

And companies do that. You only hear about things that do something useful.

The amount of true basic research a company does directly reduces their profits. Relying upon random luck of stumbling on knowledge that you can profit from is not a good business model. Any company that stays in business is going to minimize risk, and by definition, basic research is a huge risk in terms of the certain expense relative to highly uncertain gains.

Most government research is based on war which you are against.

By definition, any research done specifically for war is not basic research, it is applied. Yes, the government also does lots of applied research, and it makes use of knowledge gained from basic research in military applications, but it would do that no matter who came up with the basic knowledge. The question is where is the incentive to do basic research, which by definition very slowly and iteratively without knowing ahead of time if it will have any applications, let alone applications profitable to the person's who generated that basic knowledge. Every plausible economic theory says that private industry lacks the incentive to do much of that kind of research.