Australian science funding looks scary in the upcoming election

[Arete]

So Australia goes to the polls tomorrow to elect a new federal government. The opposition released their budget plans 48 hours before the election including this gem:

 

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/abbott-vows-to-cut-futile-research/story-fni0cx12-1226710934260

 

A play straight out of the far right GOP playbook:

 

http://news.sciencemag.org/2013/04/u.s.-lawmaker-proposes-new-criteria-choosing-nsf-grants

 

As a natural born Australian working as a scientist overseas, this is horrifying. Firstly, the ARC has a rigorous peer review system which awards less than 25% of grants. So what our opposition leader is saying is that not only does he not trust the country's top scientists to know what proposals are worth pursuing, but also that he and his party, as a laypeople know better.

Having politicians, rather than scientists decide on what to fund is not only based fundamentally on the logical fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantiam (i.e. I don't personally understand how this research is useful, therefore it is not useful) leads to an extremely dangerous situation by which science funding can be manipulated for political or personal gain. This is flagrantly displayed in Tony Abbott's (the opposition leader) policy release speech where he notes that he will redirect funding to dementia research - a disease which his family has a history of. Dementia research is good in itself, but Abbott has been explaining that it is important because *he* could get it.

Additionally, the policy displays a flagrant lack of understanding of the process of scientific discovery. Even if your goal is disease eradication, curiosity-driven basic research provides virtually all of the theoretical and practical building blocks which go into applied disease research. And if you want to understand where we have come from as a global community and where we are going (and if that is where we want to be!) then you need to fund the humanities. For example, a colleague of mine recently used research on the night time entertainment activities of people in sub-Saharan Africa to investigate malaria infection. Aid money gets used to hand out insecticide infused bed nets to protect people from malaria, on the assumption they go to bed when it gets dark. Only the humanities research showed that people were staying up in outdoor bars, and thus were not protected from malaria. So without basic research, you wouldn't have the pyrethroid insecticides to put in the bed nets, without applied research you wouldn't know how to infuse a bed net with them, and without "frivolous" humanities research you'd be scratching your head wondering why it didn't work, and how you managed to piss all that taxpayer, foreign aid money up against a wall.

Finally, it shows a complete lack of understanding of how global the scientific workforce is. I would say that roughly 60-70% of my cohort have worked internationally, and that moving back to Australia is a conscious decision driven by a combination of lifestyle and career motivations. If you damage Australian science funding, you will lose your top people. I've already spoken to two Australian colleagues who are currently overseas who are unlikely to return if this happens, and two more who are considering a move overseas as their next career move if it does.

It may not be a major issue for most Australians, many may even agree with Abbott. But for me and my family this is THE election issue now, and may dictate whether or not I ever live in my country of birth again. If I remain overseas this is the last Australian election I will be eligible to vote in. For a country that regards itself as a developed, technological leader in science, this is the one of the worst possible policies conceivable.

Edited September 5, 2013 by Arete

[CharonY]

I think in this context it is relevant to note that politicians in other countries have pushed for a similar control over science, including the US and Canada.

 

http://news.sciencemag.org/2013/04/u.s.-lawmaker-proposes-new-criteria-choosing-nsf-grants

 

http://business.financialpost.com/2013/05/14/how-should-science-research-funding-be-determined/?__lsa=d350-a2a2

 

In several grant mechanisms in Canada you have to submit the direct benefits (in terms of health or economy for Canada) of your proposed research. These things cripple fundamental sciences, of course. There is also a general push towards sustainability of programs, i.e. the research is supposed to generate revenue to finance itself, again something that is virtually impossible for basic research.

 

Considering that almost the only source of basic research are government funding, this paint a very bleak view for the future of discoveries.

[Phi for All]

Additionally, the policy displays a flagrant lack of understanding of the process of scientific discovery. Even if your goal is disease eradication, curiosity-driven basic research provides virtually all of the theoretical and practical building blocks which go into applied disease research. And if you want to understand where we have come from as a global community and where we are going (and if that is where we want to be!) then you need to fund the humanities. For example, a colleague of mine recently used research on the night time entertainment activities of people in sub-Saharan Africa to investigate malaria infection. Aid money gets used to hand out insecticide infused bed nets to protect people from malaria, on the assumption they go to bed when it gets dark. Only the humanities research showed that people were staying up in outdoor bars, and thus were not protected from malaria. So without basic research, you wouldn't have the pyrethroid insecticides to put in the bed nets, without applied research you wouldn't know how to infuse a bed net with them, and without "frivolous" humanities research you'd be scratching your head wondering why it didn't work, and how you managed to piss all that taxpayer, foreign aid money up against a wall.

 

The media is largely responsible for misinforming, misquoting and misrepresenting science to the general public, so I would love to see examples like this done as media advertising for your candidates, explaining the benefits of scientific funding, and how skimping on it even a little cripples us a lot in the long run. People respond to more in-depth analysis like this if you keep it simple and graphic. This reminds me of the Baltimore Needle Exchange program Malcolm Gladwell references in The Tipping Point. It's a good example of how the media causes a knee-jerk reaction but can also be used to better inform the public once they report the story from all angles and drop the sensationalism.

 

The problems of a complex world most often need complex solutions, and scientific research is one of the best ways to gather the spectrum of information necessary for making informed decisions. Taxpayer funding is one of the few ways we have of keeping research as free from commercial and special interests as possible. Science needs that neutral platform to work best, imo.

 

Best of luck, Oz. Get out there and cast your vote for smart.

[hypervalent_iodine]

It may not be a major issue for most Australians, many may even agree with Abbott. But for me and my family this is THE election issue now, and may dictate whether or not I ever live in my country of birth again. If I remain overseas this is the last Australian election I will be eligible to vote in. For a country that regards itself as a developed, technological leader in science, this is the one of the worst possible policies conceivable.

 

The sad fact is that many people do agree with him and it's largely the fault of the Murdoch dominated media and this weird and misinformed obsession with budget deficit. I read the costings that the LNP released today* myself and truly it is a terrifying thing to have to process given that they are likely to win this Saturday. His personal distrust of science is very apparent in it and it's disconcerting to know that a man who believes global warming to be rubbish has such influence over scientific progress in Australia.

 

This is how it reads in the document by the PBO (numbers are in $mil and columns from left to right represent the financial year starting from 2013/2014 and going to 2016/2017 with the last column being the total over the 4 years in $mil):

 

 

Having politicians decide on research themes that dictate funding is certainly dangerous and severely limiting to discovery and progress. There have been a few articles on this featured on Crikey and ABC (I wouldn't dignify the Daily Telegraph by calling it a news outlet), but it's an issue wholly eclipsed by the obsession with budget surplus, the carbon tax and boat people.

 

As an aside, I don't even consider their, 'Funding from reprioritising Australian Research Council spending,' to be the worst thing in there. Other gems include:

 

'Coalition's Policy for Women' (at a cost of about $1 mill)

'Repriositisation of the Portrayal of Senior Australians in the Media'

 

These may not be bad, I just have no idea what they actually mean.

 

'Border Security - withdraw taxpayer funded immigration assistance to illegal boat arrivals'

 

Never mind the fact that seeking asylum isn't illegal and that unrepresented litigants tie up more of the court's time and would likely cost the public more than if they just had publicly funded legal aid.

 

And then there's the magical 1 billion dollar dividend they predict they'll save by stopping additional refugee boats, the scrapping of the carbon tax, funding the abolition of the mining tax by cutting the schoolkids bonus and low income super contributions and the mass culling of public sector jobs.

 

The whole thing wreaks of austerity.

 

 

*For those interested in the financial aspect of what we in Australia are going to have to deal with for the next 3 years or so, this is a link to the LNP costings by the PBO (Parliamentary Budget Office).

[Arete]

Just as an update for the non-Australians, the LNP won the election, and for the first time since its introduction in 1931 there will be no minister for Science in Australian government.

 

While details of how Federal funding for science will be managed are yet to be released, there's dark clouds looming.

[Unity+]

 

The media is largely responsible for misinforming, misquoting and misrepresenting science to the general public, so I would love to see examples like this done as media advertising for your candidates, explaining the benefits of scientific funding, and how skimping on it even a little cripples us a lot in the long run. People respond to more in-depth analysis like this if you keep it simple and graphic. This reminds me of the Baltimore Needle Exchange program Malcolm Gladwell references in The Tipping Point. It's a good example of how the media causes a knee-jerk reaction but can also be used to better inform the public once they report the story from all angles and drop the sensationalism.

 

The problems of a complex world most often need complex solutions, and scientific research is one of the best ways to gather the spectrum of information necessary for making informed decisions. Taxpayer funding is one of the few ways we have of keeping research as free from commercial and special interests as possible. Science needs that neutral platform to work best, imo.

 

Best of luck, Oz. Get out there and cast your vote for smart.

The media is especially at fault for the fear of artificial intelligence because there is this vibe from robotics that somehow if we build a machine like DARPA is then a Terminator-type scenario will ensue within our society, which sounds like a valid point but the likely hood of it happening is little to none.

 

The sad fact is that many people do agree with him and it's largely the fault of the Murdoch dominated media and this weird and misinformed obsession with budget deficit. I read the costings that the LNP released today* myself and truly it is a terrifying thing to have to process given that they are likely to win this Saturday. His personal distrust of science is very apparent in it and it's disconcerting to know that a man who believes global warming to be rubbish has such influence over scientific progress in Australia.

 

This is how it reads in the document by the PBO (numbers are in $mil and columns from left to right represent the financial year starting from 2013/2014 and going to 2016/2017 with the last column being the total over the 4 years in $mil):

 

 

Having politicians decide on research themes that dictate funding is certainly dangerous and severely limiting to discovery and progress. There have been a few articles on this featured on Crikey and ABC (I wouldn't dignify the Daily Telegraph by calling it a news outlet), but it's an issue wholly eclipsed by the obsession with budget surplus, the carbon tax and boat people.

 

As an aside, I don't even consider their, 'Funding from reprioritising Australian Research Council spending,' to be the worst thing in there. Other gems include:

 

'Coalition's Policy for Women' (at a cost of about $1 mill)

'Repriositisation of the Portrayal of Senior Australians in the Media'

 

These may not be bad, I just have no idea what they actually mean.

 

'Border Security - withdraw taxpayer funded immigration assistance to illegal boat arrivals'

 

Never mind the fact that seeking asylum isn't illegal and that unrepresented litigants tie up more of the court's time and would likely cost the public more than if they just had publicly funded legal aid.

 

And then there's the magical 1 billion dollar dividend they predict they'll save by stopping additional refugee boats, the scrapping of the carbon tax, funding the abolition of the mining tax by cutting the schoolkids bonus and low income super contributions and the mass culling of public sector jobs.

 

The whole thing wreaks of austerity.

 

 

*For those interested in the financial aspect of what we in Australia are going to have to deal with for the next 3 years or so, this is a link to the LNP costings by the PBO (Parliamentary Budget Office).

In my opinion(unless I read the article wrong), private businesses having hold of the research would be much better because the research would go faster. Whenever the government has hold of a research project, it takes much longer than needed because of funding issues. Take the Human Genome Project. Though both the private business and the government-funded project finished at about the same time, the private business started way later than the government funded project.

 

At least if it is left to the private business, there is no threat to research by a group of people(though there is the issue of selling information and overpricing it, but that is to be left to a different debate).

[Arete]

In my opinion(unless I read the article wrong), private businesses having hold of the research would be much better because the research would go faster.

 

 

How are you going to ensure that basic research generates a profit?

[CharonY]

Just to add, the reason why basic research are being slashed is the perception that it does not generate immediate benefits. This is the reason why the huge majority of basic research is conducted with government funds, rather than with private money. Now, there is a push from politics for science to generate short-term benefits, in a similar way of thinking as companies. This would absolutely kill basic research and there will be whole swaths of nature that we will not be able to explore (no company would touch that).

 

With regards to the human genome project, it was an aberration for various reason not really a matter of private vs public. The main reason they were faster and cheaper was the shotgun strategy they used. This technique has issues with assembling the sequences if you do not have a good scaffold to align it to. However, HUGO offered a well-ordered scaffold (they made a much more labor intensive top-down approach that is slower, but has a better way to order the sequences) and made continuous releases public, which Celera could use to make sense out of their shotgun sequences.

 

On top of that Celera sought to patent genes based on the draft, which was the main reason why they were able to raise the funds. Here the monetary reward is quite clear (and the stocks plummeted after the push to prevent patenting human genes).

Thus for most basic research Arete's question would be the key point.

Edited September 17, 2013 by CharonY

[Phi for All]

I'm so tired of the privatization approach to everything. There are plainly many areas where cooperative, non-profit-oriented public funds, allocated by experts in that field, work much better than private funding where profit and market share are always the priority.

 

I'm so sorry to hear that Oz is temporarily without its basic research funding. I'm sure we'll start hearing about lots of cost overruns due to private enterprise siphoning off those funds (and more) to fix not having the research done right in the first place. By the time people realize this in x years, you'll be x years behind.

 

People have to ignore a lot of evidence and historical data to make a decision like this. I remember reading about how privatizing prisons in Arizona turned out to be a horrible boondoggle. It was supposed to be a move that saved a lot of taxpayer money but ended up costing a lot more, and made some corporations very rich. And they continue to do it, even though they know it doesn't work. Because privatized is always better, right?

[CharonY]

Actually other countries such as USA and Canada are basically in the same boat (especially with the sequestration in the US and the type of government in CA), from what I can see. So the good news is that Australia is not going to lag too much behind....