Intel Chairman Wants Blank Check for Science
Oh, cry my a river: Craig Barnett, chairman of Intel, boo-hoos about the supposed lack of science funding by the Feds in a whining column in today's San Francisco Chronicle. He writes:
The recent budget deal between Republicans and Democrats effectively flat-funds or cuts funding for key science agencies. Excluding "earmarks," the Department of Energy funding for fiscal year 2008 is up only 2.6 percent, thus losing ground to inflation. The National Science Foundation is up 2.5 percent, with the same result. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is up 11 percent, however the labs where research happens only get 2.3 percent, again losing ground to inflation.Barrett doesn't use actual numbers in his piece, only percentages, raising my lawyer's radar that the magnitude of the actual dollars being spent on science--in other words, context--might undercut his argument. So, I did a little digging. The DOE's budget is huge, for example in FY 2008 over $24 billion, with nearly$3.5 billion earmarked for "science" and more than $5.5 billion for "environmental management." That ain't hay. Add in who knows how much in earmarks--which Barnett conveniently excluded--and we are talking very real money.
Similarly, National Science Foundation's budget is more than $5 billion, with $390 million to be invested in nanotechnology. From the NSF's press release:
Working with other agencies as part of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, the National Science Foundation's (NSF) nanotechnology research will continue to advance fundamental understanding of materials at the subatomic, atomic, and molecular levels and will enable the development of capabilities to design, manipulate, and construct revolutionary devices and materials with unprecedented properties. The Budget provides $390 million in 2008 for NSF's nanotechnology research investments, an increase of 4.5 percent from the level proposed in 2007, including funding for a new NSF center to address environmental, health, and safety research needs for nanomaterials.I believe in generous government funding for science--although I wish that when the money helps private companies strike gold that they would be required to share with the taxpayers who helped make it possible. But science isn't the be all and end all. There are many other pressing needs and our economy is slowing down.
Sometimes the sense of entitlement within the science sector is breathtaking.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 2:31 PM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
As a genetics researcher, it's my opinion that there's a sweet-spot that the government needs to hit and hold:
Too much money and all the money gets soaked up by less-able scientists' labs.
Too little federal money and research is stymied across the board.
The sweet-spot is where only the top 15% or so of the grant applications get accepted - thus only the top grants get funded, and the "market" for the federal money produces a competitive environment that produces the max amount of new, useful information.
This also provides a sort of natural selection, where only the most 'fit' experiments and grants get funding and the rest, well, they get resubmitted the next funding cycle.
You can't blame most scientists for wanting more money and less competition - nobody wants to die off from this natural, uh, I mean, federal, selection"! :) But as I said above, this competition is what ensures that our funding dollars are utilized as efficiently as possible.
Just another thing:
I know you're "carte blanche" analogy was made specifically towards the Intel chairman, but you do kind of extend that towards all scientists in general, which is not necessarily correct - for example, I'm a scientist in favor of limiting the federal funding spigot!
Let's be clear here: much of the moaning for "science funding" is parallel to moaning about more federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, to which I am most stridently in disagreement with.
Although I am generally in agreement with our nation's actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, it does seem like that particular area of spending should be of more focus in terms of analyzing how we can better manage our money so that our federal funding of domestic science labs can at least keep pace with inflation.
Don't mean to nay-say, I'm just giving you my two cents! Keep up your good work, Wesley!
Big Chris: Wise words on science funding. I often distinguish between bench science and "the scientists" or the "science intelligentsia." I can't do it in every post but it is a good reminder. Thanks for stopping by.
As a taxpayer, and believer in liberty and capitalism, I see no moral grounds for federal funding of any research...."scientific" or otherwise. It steals from those with objections and tends to corrupt the recipients objectivity at times.
Regarding better management of expenditures in the far reaches of the empire.......(bite tongue)
Mort
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