onedomino said:
Baloney. The Theory of General Relativity emerged from basic research. Quantum Mechanics is a product of basic research. The discovery of DNA came from basic research. The sequencing the human genome was basic research. The Theory of Natural Selection came from basic research. The discovery of Plate Tectonics emerged from basic research. It's a good thing you are not handing out the NSF grants for basic research.
Well, we're talking about government funding here.
Einstein developed General Relativity without funding. When government money began to be spent on the concepts it was in order to build an atomic bomb. Hence applied.
If the development of Quantum Mechanics received any funding at all it would have been in the form of grants some 70 years after Planck and 50 years after Heisenburg.
Watson and Crick did their work at Cambridge.
I wouldn't call the sequencing of the human genome basic research. And though it was funded by government agenices from a number of countries, including our DoE, it was also done by the private firm in about a fourth the amount of time and a tenth of the cost.
Most of plate tectonic theory was developed by professors.
How much of
this is strictly research science? Not much of it.
And any piece of purely government funded research that has produced useful results is probably the exception more than the rule.
I'm just saying
government shouldn't fund plain old research. Government should provide problems to scientists and pay them to solve the problems, or pay scientists who are there to solve problems provided by the people. That is in my opinion a more constructive use of tax payer dollars.
Even giving money to colleges is debatable. I think any college worth going to probably already has more than enough money.
But that sort of indirect funding of research is probably more effective than the direct funding of research.
