Science and Money

[Erasmus00]

A commonly held belief is that science shouldn't be about money. Scientists should share their knowledge with the world, so on and so forth. People like Einstein (who with his 1905 papers launched the quantum revolution, proved the existance of atoms, and introduces relativity) make nothing off their theories.

 

My question is this: is this the ideal situation? Should the science community encourage scientists to make money, live comfortably? Or is the current "utopian" approach the better? Does this lack of financial incentive keep people out of acadmic science?

-Will

[UncleAl]

A uniformed avatar of jackbooted State terror

 

http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/ss1.jpg

 

at LAX earns an average of $132,000/year to shake down honest citizens in violation of the Bill of Rights (illegal search and seizure unless presented with a court-ordered subpoena specifying the person by name or address and the search objective).

 

Project Head Start (free day care and food for slumbunny bastard get)

"but the program doesn't help them catch up in math or their ability to comprehend what people say to them."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/06/10/head.start.ap/index. html

$6.7 billion/year

 

National Science Foundation

Funding all US physical science

http://www.nsf.gov/about/budget/fy2006/

$5.605 billion in FY 2006

 

What is a scientist worth in comparison to what is vigorously, joyously spent on crap? Obviously, not much. May they obtain the future they purchase. doubled.

[Fishteacher73]

Much of science is about money. A great deal of R&D is in the private sector and has quickly out maneuvered much of the old institutions. There are fields that do not really have viable economic outcomes. (I know there are a lot of cosmology buffs out there, but there isn't much application for much of the results). Even the "institutions of science" (our universities) are vying for pestige and grant money.

Whether we like it or not most science is about "show me the money!"

[infamous]

Whether we like it or not most science is about "show me the money!"

 

This is absolutely true I'm sad to say. I believe also that new thinking is restricted to some degree because of the same reason. No one want's to make waves by disagreeing with the policy makers because they might lose their grant money. We are still getting new ideas from theoreticians but I must say that thinking out of the box, so to speak, is on the way out. What I really mean by "on the way out" is this, there are still many strange ideas out there, they just won't get any support from the policy makers no matter how good their ideas are.

[Qfwfq]

People like Einstein (who with his 1905 papers launched the quantum revolution, proved the existance of atoms, and introduces relativity) make nothing off their theories.

Not quite, Einstein was auctioned to the various universities. They were competing for the priviledge of including his name on their staff.

 

This is in contrast to many researchers working their guts out for ordinary salary if they're lucky, otherwise going from post-doc to post-doc without much future security. In past times natural philosophers were wealthy men that could afford the pursuit, there is not a perfect correlation between being rich and the potential ability to offer a great progress if given the opportunity. Science has hardly ever been managed on criteria of social justice. In the USSR and east block school kids were chosen for their inclination to become athletes, chess champions, scientists or whatever. I don't think the system was quite perfect though.

 

There's not much you can do about it. Choose capital driven R&D, gov't funded or combinations, improve the system as possible, it will never be perfect.

[learnin to learn]

Science is all about money???? Dang... I could get payed $25,000 a year and I would still want to be a scientist!!! I am still in highschool, and I study science during my free time. Last time I checked I did'nt get payed :shrug: . I was wondering how do grants work? someone gives you money to research or discover something?

[Happeh]

A commonly held belief is that science shouldn't be about money. Scientists should share their knowledge with the world, so on and so forth. People like Einstein (who with his 1905 papers launched the quantum revolution, proved the existance of atoms, and introduces relativity) make nothing off their theories.

 

My question is this: is this the ideal situation? Should the science community encourage scientists to make money, live comfortably? Or is the current "utopian" approach the better? Does this lack of financial incentive keep people out of acadmic science?

-Will

 

At one point in time, society was about science for the common good. Government funded scientists to develop products for everyone.

 

Now the evil and the greedy have commercialized science. Science is no good unless it provides profits. Scientists are not people do a public good, they are beans to be counted by accountants.

 

Remember when we supposedly went to the moon? That was 30 years ago. Why isn't there a moon base and a space station? No money it it. They will spend billions to put up satellites with missiles, because you can use missiles to threaten other people out of their money and property.

 

I like your idea but it is naive. It is a product of the 50's and 60's when hopeful and forward looking people like Isaac Asimov and EE Doc Smith were writing science fiction. In the real world, the world of today, nothing happens unless the greedy and the powerful decree that it be done. You can see that science fiction writers are also coming around to this reality. I see many more science fiction books these days about scientists in a struggle with political and military opponents. Back in the day, the scientist was the hero to whom the politicians and military gave anything they wanted so they could create new inventions to help the human race.

[InfiniteNow]

I found this thread because I have had my head wrapped in financial questions as of late. Your questions were not my intended search result, but very interesting all the same. I'll take a poke at them, and perhaps by "pheonixing" this thread, some new ideas may be offered by the current Hypo population...

 

My question is this: is this the ideal situation? Should the science community encourage scientists to make money, live comfortably? Or is the current "utopian" approach the better? Does this lack of financial incentive keep people out of acadmic science?

 

The current situation is not, by any means, ideal. I do not believe the science community needs to encourage scientists to make money because our system has already put this encouragement in place. A utopian approach is always better, but much less likely to work. Utopias have inherent problems unless resources are provided without restriction to all. This was discussed in another thread recently regarding replicator technology. Interesting to me is that scientists (at least the ones I've known) seem more often to tend toward a utopian ideal.

 

Your last question seems easy, but upon further inspection has some caveats. Of course (I would say) the lack of financial incentive keeps people out of science... at least science for profit. Only those truly interested in a scientific topic will explore such curiousity, even if just for the fun of it. I suspect many people on this site fall into that category. However, there are lots of brilliant people out there exploring other arenas due simply to the financial benefit of doing so, and their energies are not directed to the pursuit of science. A sad situation indeed. Finances do play a role, but I would venture to say it's not implicit in keeping scientists from exploring their ideas...

 

 

Is science more often than not an altruistic pursuit? One can only hope...

 

 

Cheers Erasmus. :hyper:

[Vending]

Is science more often than not an altruistic pursuit? One can only hope...

 

I am afraid that this would be a false hope. The majority of the behavoirs of scientists is by no means altruistic. Scientists in the real world are dirven by things such as pride, the need for tenure, desire for fame, and spite for other scientists (there are many rivalries in science, not all of them friendly). Science is a human enterprise and, as such, it is directed by human emotion and passions. This is a good thing. There is no way that science would have progressed as far as it has if scientists were not concerned with their pride and reputations. At least that is my opinion.

 

THough it is a common thing for those that do not actively participate in science to romantacize it, i think this is a hendrence more than a help. I have known many people who had a sharp mind withdraw from science after becoming dis-illusioned. They had been lied to throughout their childhoods about the kind men in the ivory towers and were not prepared for the real scientific community filled with egos, petty bickering, and power-plays.

 

The real difference lies in the fact that there is an openess in the scientific community not found in many other areas. The fact that people share most of their results and that these results are open to free critisism is the key to science. This i why it works. But the motivations are not all that different.

 

 

Alas, science is not so different from other human undertakings. But fortunately for those of us that are scientists, it is really REALLY interesting. :naughty:

[InfiniteNow]

They had been lied to throughout their childhoods about the kind men in the ivory towers and were not prepared for the real scientific community filled with egos, petty bickering, and power-plays.

Unless, of course, they studied the science of the mind, evolved mechanisms of competition, and/or social sciences! :naughty:

 

Nice post Vending. You raised many good points, however, you didn't convince me to stop hoping for more altruism. :umno:

 

 

Cheers. :hammer:

[Vending]

Nice post Vending. You raised many good points, however, you didn't convince me to stop hoping for more altruism. :naughty:

 

I certainly hope I did not. Sometimes it is better to have false hope than to have no hope. I think that often times false hope is called "ideals." And in that respect, it is good.

 

I just thought i would give me thoughts so that people did not jump into science with expectations too different from reality. I thiink that a good book for this (one that is readable, entertianing, and shows how science is very much a human endevor) is "The double helix", by James watson. In this he details in very straightforward terms his expereince in dealing with the humanity of science.

 

I do not wish to sound like I think altruism is bad, merely that it is unabtainable. Of course if we don't try to obtain the unobtainable, then we will never know how close we can get...

[InfiniteNow]

I do not wish to sound like I think altruism is bad, merely that it is unabtainable. Of course if we don't try to obtain the unobtainable, then we will never know how close we can get...

No no... too late now. You've crushed my spirit. My desire for altruism in science has been annihilated...

 

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. :umno:

 

 

Peace. :naughty:

[Doctordick]

Vending, when I read your post, I found it quite logical and to the point. That event encouraged me to read your other posts. I read them all and was pleased to discover nothing worthy of serious disagreement nor anything which seemed "not worth saying". That is a very rare phenomena on any forum of the web which I have read. I was particularly struck by your comment to TroutMac.

Well, first off, do not assume that everyone is glad to see you go. I for one will miss you. I appreciate people that make me think about philosophy and my beliefs.

This is supposed to be a scientific forum but it seems to me to fall quite short of what I would like to see. At any rate, I thought it might be possible for you and I to have a serious discussion.

 

Meanwhile, I thought I might comment on a few of your posts.

Science is not circular, per se. It is, however, never ending. That is to say that there will always be some new phenomenon that needs explaining. Circular implies that the phenomenon refer back to themselves and rely on each other for their definition. This is not the case, rather one is always adding layers to science within each scientific paradigm.

Yes, that is exactly what they want you to believe; however, I have discovered that it is not really the case. Some forty years ago, I read Gamow's Mr. Tompkins series; a set of stories designed to show the layman how the basic constants of physics impact what we see. They are quite delightful and, for the most part, accurate; however, his "Mr. Tompkins goes to Quantum Land" (where Plank's constant was a large number) was just plain wrong. That is, it just wasn't internally self consistent. That lead me to consider what the world would actually look like if Plank's constant were a large number.

 

To put things simply, I tracked the issue around in my spare time for a few months and was never able to find a good starting place: that would be a place where I could confidently start with full assurance that the value of Plank's constant had no impact on my opening picture thus allowing a valid starting place from whence I could deduce what the world would look like. Besides, since I was a graduate student working on my Ph.D. in physics at the time and really didn't have a lot of spare time, I dropped the issue as probably not worth solving. At the time, I had developed a pretty strong feeling that Plank's constant was circularly defined but I didn't have a clue as to how to prove it.

 

Today, I am firmly convinced that all of physics is circularly defined and I think I can indeed prove it. The problem is that I can not find anyone who will make any effort to follow my arguments. I currently have achieved the status of a "crack pot" and no one with sufficient training in physics to follow my thoughts will even consider the possibility that I could be right.

It seems like a photon is well aware of its 3-D surroundings. If you shine light through a slit it will be deflected, this is what gives rise to the defraction patterns we see in the two (or one, even) slit experiment. Thus, light must interact in some way with the 3-d world around it. THis would seem to hint at the idea that light cannot be just 2-d.

Of course i could be totally WAY off base here.

What you should have said is that "this would seem to be a hint at the idea that light cannot be explained as a 2-d phenomena". That is very probably correct; but I cannot guarantee it as I am not really an expert in the area of explanation under the constraint of being limited to 2-d phenomena. Certainly I would agree that the explanation of light as currently understood (a 3-d explanation) could not at all be reduced to 2-d but that does not mean that the phenomena normally referred to as "light" could not be explained from a 2-d perspective.

I have known many people who had a sharp mind withdraw from science after becoming dis-illusioned. They had been lied to throughout their childhoods about the kind men in the ivory towers and were not prepared for the real scientific community filled with egos, petty bickering, and power-plays.

I suppose you might very well have put me in that category but I personally don't think you would be right. I went into physics because they were the only people who seemed to mount a decent defense of their beliefs. When I was a graduate student, I had a habit (whenever I had to look up a reference in the journals) of always reading the entire volume which contained the reference. It gives one a rather strange impression of scientific work: I would say that well over ninety percent of the published stuff is simply not worth the paper it was written on. But, much more relevant to the subject under discussion here, by the time I had been granted my degree, I had been pretty well dissuaded of the idea that any of them could really mount a decent defense of any of their beliefs.

The real difference lies in the fact that there is an openness in the scientific community not found in many other areas. The fact that people share most of their results and that these results are open to free criticism is the key to science. This is why it works.

Now here I would disagree with you. For the most part, they are not open to free criticism and I would also question the fact that it "works". In 1971 "Physics Today" published an editorial urging physicists to try to make their work "more relevant" so as to attract more support for funding. When I read that editorial it struck me as counter productive as, from my perusal of scientific breakthroughs, most all of them arose in essentially irrelevant areas. If someone's income is dependent upon his being seen as right it is very improbable that he will take a truly objective view of the situation.

Alas, science is not so different from other human undertakings. But fortunately for those of us that are scientists, it is really REALLY interesting. :naughty:

Now, with that, I agree with you one hundred percent. Is there any possibility that you might find thinking about a proof that all science is circular interesting?

 

Have fun -- Dick

 

"The simplest and most necessary truths are the very last to be believed."

by Anonymous

[questor]

why aren't scientists like anyone else in their needs, aspirations, and goals?

it just so happens that they are generally blessed with more organized minds,

and in a perfect world would be worth more money than a Rap ''artist''. unfortunately, in our currently deteriorating society, the ugly and debasing

is winning the prize. the beautiful and uplifting is thrust to the rear. and so,

this process will continue to the detriment of our country, mainly because most Americans do not want to be ''judgemental'', or criticise those cultural

depradations that are bringing us down.

[Vending]

 

Now here I would disagree with you. For the most part, they are not open to free criticism and I would also question the fact that it "works". In 1971 "Physics Today" published an editorial urging physicists to try to make their work "more relevant" so as to attract more support for funding. When I read that editorial it struck me as counter productive as, from my perusal of scientific breakthroughs, most all of them arose in essentially irrelevant areas. If someone's income is dependent upon his being seen as right it is very improbable that he will take a truly objective view of the situation.

 

Well, perhaps "free" critisism was too strong of a phrase. Certianly science is a club of sorts. One that you have to earn membership into. I doubt that many physists would welcom critisism by an impressionist painter as to the validity of quantum mechanics. But then again, most impressionist painters may not care what a physicist thinks of there brush technique ;)

 

What I ment was that the scientific community is suprisingly open to new and different ideas. This does not mean that they accept every new idea presented them, just that if an idea seems usefull enough it is accepted and sometimes other ideas are thrown away. For an movement that is as large as science is and with as much "momentum" as it has, i think it is impressive how many scientific revolutions (ot borrow a phrase form Khun) we have had.

 

But that is neither here nor there. To those that work on the cutting edge of sceintific theory, science tends to look dynamic and open. To those struggling to be accepted by science, it tends to look old and stodgy.

 

Either way though I think most people can agree that there have been several scientific revolutions in the short 300 or so years that modern science has existed (marking modern science as starting with newton -- a resonable position, i think). What other feild of human endevor has been so dynamic over these last few hundred years.

 

Is there any possibility that you might find thinking about a proof that all science is circular interesting?

 

 

Well, i am sure i would find it interesting. However, i have not been formally trained in physics, so I cannot promise that I would understand it completely. However, if you would like to send me a copy of it then you can pm me and we set up a way to get me the document. Or if you just wish to start a new thread, that might work. Either way, I would be more than happy to read your thoughts and give you mine in return :eek:

 

I think I will have fun :)

 

--VM

[questor]

cannot science be defined simply as the search for universal truths? and aren't truths physical laws? so isn't it inevitable that science is circular?

[HydrogenBond]

The reality is that culture bases worth on money, prestige and entertainment value. Scientists are part of culture and strive for these things also. There is nothing wrong with that. The problem is that prestige, pride and entertainment are all irrational things. So this makes contemporary science a blend of rational and irrational. This can often make the truth in science, suspect.

 

This a terrible paradox for science. One wants to be rewarded and recognized for their efforts. And culture should respond. Yet these rewards often come easier, at the expense of the truth.

 

I have been ragging on the iron core theory of the earth for some time now. This is a clear cut example of the cash cow coming first. This dogma has to be protected because it provides a lot of good jobs. Because we are dealing with irrational things like prestige, pride, money, this dogma is irrationally defended to where the defense will even deny what science is suppose to be based on, i.e., logic and common sense.

 

When I look at science if I feel I am be sold on something, like soap suds, I assume it is a marketing illusion. If one can not reduce their science to something easy to understand, it is probably at least part smoke and mirrors. If it is too complicated for the layman to understand it is also easier to slide past them. Just use pride to slide it past them.