Given the dire state of the
economy it is not surprising that there is a lot of concern about the financing
of research. This comes in two forms. Scientists anxiously seek new sources to
augment limited federal funding, while government officials fret about the
public getting value for its investment in science.
On the first issue, some
investigators have been turning to ‘crowdfunding’, using sources such as Kickstarter, FundaGeek, SciFund
Challenge and others to raise money
for their labs. The pluses and minuses of this trend are nicely discussed in a
recent blog post on In the Pipeline (http://pipeline.corante.com/).
While there may be some positive features of crowdfunding such as getting the
public more involved in science, to this curmudgeon the pluses are far
outweighed by the negatives. Ultimately success in public fundraising is
contingent on ‘selling’ your science, leading inevitably to a race to the
bottom where scientists/salesmen promise ever more to their supporters.
On the other issue, this
week’s SCIENCE reports on a proposal
from congressional Republicans to alter the way the National Science Foundation
awards grants, ostensibly to improve the quality of the research being
supported. The “High Quality Research Act” authored by Representative Lamar
Smith of Texas would require the NSF to certify that its grant awards address
‘national interests’ and “problems of utmost importance to society”. Aside from the obvious fact that most basic
research does not immediately address ‘national interests’, this ploy is
obviously a step toward squelching science that contradicts the ideology of the
extreme right wing of the Republican Party. Will unbiased climate science be
considered in the national interest by a Texas Republican? How about research
on alternative energy sources? How about therapeutic cloning? However, maybe
“research” supporting creationism could pass congressional scrutiny!
Political intrusion of this
type is just about the worst thing that could happen to American science and
technology. If we want to guarantee that we lose our technological leadership
to competitors like China and India, then the “High Quality Research Act” is
the way to go.
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