Science is Vital

[ajb]

As we all know there has recently been a shortfall in science funding in the UK. This lack of support for science is likely to continue due to the financial situation of the country.

 

However, cuts in science funding could do a lot of damage for the future of UK science and engineering.

 

So, Dr Jenny Rohn, a cell biologist at University College London has set up "Science is Vital". Please have a look at the website and sign the petition.

 

There is a rally organised for the Saturday 9th October at 2 PM.

[lemur]

When GDP or revenues are growing, it is a pretty straight-forward strategy to attempt to increase one's own share of the growth by maximizing one's income. When the opposite is occurring, the question is how to spread the revenue/income losses in a way that prevents certain industries or individuals from getting cut off completely. This becomes especially worrisome when the approach is taken that some expenditures/industries/incomes should be cut out of the budget completely to maintain or raise revenues/incomes for those who don't get cut. Nevertheless, preventing the cuts ultimately comes down to fiscal power, I think. If you have the power to control spending, you can cut expenditures or not. That's why government is working so hard currently to wrest spending-control away from private individuals and firms by means of deficits, taxes, etc. To the extent that science can control the spending that funds it, it will be able to prevent or mitigate cuts; but the question is what the best strategy is to do so. Personally, I think the best way to avoid losing more than less is to voluntarily reduce your budget to demonstrate how much you could do with how little. That way, funders can get an idea of at what point they will start losing intelligent minds to the food service industry.

Edited October 1, 2010 by lemur

[pioneer]

There are different types of science. Science that is applied and practical tends to maintain funding longer since it often leads to revenue generation. For example, the science needed to develop the next generation of semi-conductor material could mean $billions. This is investment science, so it makes sense to invest, even in hard economic times. There is also science that helps us better understand nature but is not considered an investment science. For example, knowing the foot size of army ants might be nice to know, but during hard economic times not knowing this will not have any impact on anything beyond those who specialize in this. This is more fair weather science that we splurge on when we have extra money to burn.

 

Another consideration is certain projects in science are more expensive. The science pie is finite and some tend to need a bigger slice of the pie. This can make less available for other. For example, what will be spent on a supercollider could pay for a lot of lower budget science.

 

Empirical science tends to need more resources than rational science. As an example, a math approach may only require office space and a computer. An empirical approach for the same thing, may take many years of blind experiments using expensive equipment. If you cut the empirical budget, it could be paralyzed. Yet it may still have more than enough if the approach had been more rational in the first place.

 

Another consideration is specialization. This works well in good times when the entire assemble line of science is up and running. But during tough times, it can lead to bottlenecks. If the needed tools require another team and you loose some of this team, due to budget cuts, the base science can be placed in stall mode waiting for funding to return. The old time science of say Edison was very efficient since he was more or less a one man band doing the job of an assemble line.

 

I would tend to think science should also be planning for this and trying to improve theories so these are less cost dependent for science. Say you could make operations cheaper for the same thing, science expands with the same resources.

 

Ingenuity becomes important in tough times. The ability to improvise, when you don't have funding for the latest off the shelf, can keep science moving. For example, one may need more computing power but can't afford the upgrade. One may have to improvise using less money than a new computer. But if you don't how or are used to just buying off the shelf, one will sit idle waiting for the economy to turn.

 

Science should not have an entitlement state of mind. Rather it should have more a spirit of self reliance. If science is nothing but a good paying job with all the social frills and prestige of awards, one thinks they are entitled to, economics can hurt the ego. Monument building is harder in tough times. If one does science to seek the truth, necessity is the mother of invention, and tightening the belt will lead to new directions.

Edited October 3, 2010 by pioneer

[lemur]

For example, knowing the foot size of army ants might be nice to know, but during hard economic times not knowing this will not have any impact on anything beyond those who specialize in this. This is more fair weather science that we splurge on when we have extra money to burn.

 

This logic might have made sense in an economy where scarcity was a naturally persistent basis for value. In such an economy, it would have been necessary to devote labor hours away from non-essentials to perform more essential labor, such as food production, building, or infrastructure work. Today, however, economic recession is caused by depreciation due to oversupply, currently real-estate to be specific. This wouldn't be cured by firing lots of scientists who study non-essentials because even if those scientists go to work building real estate, the value of real-estate will only keep dropping due to overabundance. Currently, governments are trying to stimulate spending as a means to stimulate revenues, income, and thereby GDP but what new expenditures are resulting in new labor needs? What could research scientists do that would possibly have more value for the economy than measuring the size of ant feet?

[pioneer]

All science is useful and the most important tool is the brain, so the best solution would be to cut resources but not manpower. The science manpower needs to figure out ways to do their science without the same level of resources. Science sort of creates its own recession problem, since its requirements don't allow accepted science, without a high resource requirement.

 

For example, measuring ant foot size could be limited to one month of data collection instead of stretching this over many years. Science can still be done with less cost. But since the experts need to appease those who are less knowledgeable, who may not be able to extrapolate this limited data, the requirement for appeasement can get very expensive. In tough times, the appeasement cost may not be justified and the entire science is shut down.

 

When I was a development engineer, if I had a theory and needed to test it, I might only run a couple of experiments and then move forward. If I needed to appease a more rigorous standard, this would not have been enough to precede. I could be made to linger until others feel comfortable with something they are less knowledgable of. Luckily, my projects were goal orientated and I was left alone during development, so I could move faster. I could stretch my budget farther and move with less time.

 

If I had to go by the book of science, tis would have amplified both the resource and time requirements, so if the economy had turned, I might be vulnerable in the next year's budget due to the structural snail pace standard beyond my control. I would rely on the experts to do the right thing and by-pass the protocol in recessions. This keeps the science moving at the rational level when appeasement resources are limited.

Edited October 4, 2010 by pioneer

[Genecks]

I'd like to see some diagrams, ajb.

 

Who is getting the money? Where is it going in particular?

Is it going to the guy who wants to research better plastics or the guy who wants to make a better artificial heart?

 

I mean, sure, people aren't spending as much money of various scientific research. While attempting to better understand human immunology, why fund money towards understanding the immunology of flies when you could simply put money towards understanding the immunology of mice? Then again, if you can develop strong arguments for one or the other, you get the money. And the person who could say, "I can find out more with my flies than his mice and use less money" will more than likely get the money.

 

I really think that a lot of economic changes people have been hoping for will eventually occur. People will fund things related to transhumanism, despite the religiosity of many people in the world. If not transhumanism, then definitely increased abilities in medical science and medical research. Things such as space travel and understanding complex physics will be put on hold. And it seems like we will be coming to a point where we will have more biologists than physicists, as the level of physics required to decently understand biological systems may already be to the level we need to make great leaps and bounds in the future with our limited monetary resources.

 

These are the days of medical science.

 

I will agree with pioneer. We all really need to do a better job of sharing our toys. It seems like people have yet to take up communitarian actions, and that leads to a lot of serious issues. Then again, I like science. I could envision myself as one of those Chinese post-doc researchers that works 16 hours a day on something. Give me some power bars, a little bit of time to stretch and do some quick exercises, and I'm back in the game.

Edited October 9, 2010 by Genecks

[Crossbearershvili]

"Lemur" asked how "... prevents certain industries or individuals from getting cut off completely..." and warning about "...losing intelligent minds...".

There are two different level of science - pure creativety of mind and research for practical ends that call for larger resources.

First one requires very little resources, why "Lemur" is warning about it?

After all, why not let such individuals keep their regular work and use on their free time Universities and Companies space for their personal work, along with Government live support and ownership of priorities and royalties support for such scientists?

It is what they did in former USSR, before1947, when Stalin was put under house arrest and Russians started enforce and plagiarize such scientists to glorify and get rich ethnic Russians.

Unfortunately West continued to pressure USSR even further, untill they closed Offices of Discoveries and Inventions, all together, and joined with Western practices - plagiarize and expropriate creativety, while investing in development of already "approppriated" general acheivements.

That would make the statement used by "Pioneer" about "...necessity is the mother of invention..." quite unnecessary, or redundand.

Another reply is offering "sharing our toys" - is it about already "approppriated" general acheivements?

Now one waits for China to follow Russia, so that some "..post-doc..." ...wouldn't "...work 16 hours a day on something..."

Edited October 9, 2010 by Crossbearershvili

[ajb]

All the UK research councils must publish this sort of information themselves. (I don't think all this information is necessarily up to date. )

 

EPSRC

 

BBSRC

 

NERC

 

STFC

 

I neglect the Medical Research Council, the Economic and Social Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council all of which will publish their statistics.

 

I know that EPSRC does make public all the researchers and projects that get money. I assume the others also do.

 

Now, I noticed that under EPSRC mathematics gets relatively little money, however the number of mathematics fellowships awarded was significantly higher than the other sectors. The importance of work is not simply measured by the cash thrown at it.

[CharonY]

Also mathematics work is generally cheaper in terms of equipment and running costs compared to experimental fields.

[ajb]

Also mathematics work is generally cheaper in terms of equipment and running costs compared to experimental fields.

 

Indeed typically, though I am sure we can find an exception. High level computing springs to mind as a possibility.

[lemur]

After all, why not let such individuals keep their regular work and use on their free time Universities and Companies space for their personal work, along with Government live support and ownership of priorities and royalties support for such scientists?

The idea of scientists splitting their time between science and other productive activities is something that I've thought about a lot. After all, what are professors and students really doing with their hands when they're sitting in classes, seminars, and meetings? The problem with this, however, is that there are many scientists who so abhor the idea of performing productive labor in addition to their scientific work that they will expand the practical aspects of their science to unnecessary proportions to avoid losing their science-based status to a professional one in another field.

 

The problem with putting the creative-type scientists to work and letting them do science in their free-time is ONLY that many people will stop listening to them because they will think that if they aren't a distinguished faculty member at a prestigious university that their ideas are worthless. Then, science turns into the blind leading the blind, or rather policy-makers and funding-controllers leading technicians without true critical theoretical oversight in their work. I'm most familiar with this in social science, where well-funded research tends to answer fairly theoretically naive questions using elaborate quantitative methods/models. That way, the scientists don't have to tell policy-makers they are theoretically naive and the policy-makers get to feel very secure in knowing that the simple answer to their simple question is backed by 20 pages of statistical quantification.

 

So, while I agree that creative/theoretical science can be done in addition to other professional activities, I still think the problem is getting people to pay attention to it and learn from it. What's more, I don't think other scientists should be shielded from reducing their research activities to the minimum level necessary, even though doing so may put them in the same position as the creative/theoretical types. Science should not be about who is the best wizard of oz. But then politics and economy should also not be about eliminating science in order to get more corporate employees.

 

Ultimately it is not only science that should be wrung out for excesses but corporate industry as well. The problem is that if every organization ran as efficiently as it possibly could, unemployment would reach extremely high percentages. In fact, industrial efficiency is the main reason science, management, and service sectors have grown so much in the first place. So, yes you can cut and restructure everything to maximize efficiency but by doing so you just end up in the same situation as before, with lots of people looking for work and not enough work to be done. That's just post-industrial economy.

 

This should be obvious at this point now that the government has stepped into the role of financially backing the corporations so that they can avoid layoffs. All economy is at this point is a system for corporately managing people and distributing the means of consumption to them. You could dissolve the corporations, universities, government, and other organizations for managing resources and labor - and I would actually be quite interested in what the resulting freedom would produce. However, it makes no sense to expose the inefficiency of one institution without acknowledging a master plan to dissolve them all. Otherwise it's just people taking turns getting the blame for the economy as a whole being a people-management machine instead of a true productivity machine.

Edited October 11, 2010 by lemur