Government funded research, take two?

The parts of science that are either Government or University funded are usually in areas that private industry just don't want to touch, Private industry is about profit before science, this can be seen in fields they fund like medical and pharmaceuticals, which offer massive returns for a business model.

Universities and Governments are still were science for the sake of science is done groups like NASA, NOAA, NSIDC and USGS do research that no commercial group would bother with.

The Government research group here in Australia, the CSIRO has pioneered much research in a variety of fields from agriculture, marine science, climate, geography to name a few.

The center I work for does a variety of research in the Southern Ocean with research in Glacial & Sea ice, Animal & Marine biology and Climate as it relates to Antarctica much of it done in partnership with quite a number of different Universities both in Australia and from around the world as well as other similar agencies, like BAS or USGS, just last week I helped install instruments for a voyage called SIPEX2 with some instruments supplied by University of Melbourne and USGS

http://www.acecrc.org.au/Research/SIPEX%202012

This is the problem I have with denier statements on scientists being funded to lie about their research, scientists in general would not do that, these scientists are not driven by money, unlike the execs at oil companies who invent these theories, scientists are driven by finding the facts.

All these scientists no matter who they work for have to publish their results for the rest of the community (whatever their particular field) to read, that is thousands of other scientists as qualified (if not more qualified) than those who wrote the paper, reading, following duplicating (and correcting) research and building on it, It has never been as deniers like to pretend just Hansen & Mann, whom deniers have taken great delight in attacking. Of course these same deniers seem to think peer review is just the 3 or 4 scientists who edit the paper before publication, when peer review is in fact all who read the paper, reflected in the longer term by the references the paper receives in further papers.

There are times when government research has advanced certain causes. Take, for example the space program. It was too big a subject for one corporation or person. Just the permits alone would kill off any private attempt. I lived back in those pre-Sputnik days and there were just too many obstacles to get started and as of yet (other than Russia) no one has a commercially viable plan. Congress had denied any funding until that fateful day. I can remember listening to the radio when that announcement was made that Russia had put a satellite in orbit. Oh what a sinking feeling that was. I am not nationalistic in nature, but to hear that the Russians had accomplished something that so many of us dreamed about but could do nothing about was literally heartbreaking.

Once that happened the congressmen got off their duff and spent money. They didn't do this very efficiently either. Each military was commissioned to put a satellite in space. The Navy with its Vanguard looked to be the best shot but after failure after failure changes had to be made. Finally, we accomplished the satellite but to save face Kennedy had to put a man on the moon. Which we gladly did. (And don't believe that Al Gore crap. We really did.)

The Interstate Highway system is another good example of government intervention along with the Transcontinental Railroad.

However, one needs only to look at the Volt and Solyndra to see the waste of government intervention. These politicians are using our money so they don't give a hoot if they are successful or not. Us taxpayers are taking a $49,000 hit on every Volt sold. You would never see a Ford if Henry would have taken a hit like that. But to our congressmen it is just monopoly money. It is not theirs so they can use it to get votes.

In the case you outlined the government helped. But did this company really need it? Yah it probably made things better for your company but I believe the owners could have accomplished the same. They had a bigger vested interest and would spend money more wisely.

You have to realize that railroads were started and prospered without government intervention. It was government intervention, railroad company arrogance and the unions which brought the railroads into the sad state they are in now. This is a big loss for humankind in the US.

You have to realize that Alexander Graham Bell started with only private investors. Edison used his own money. The Wright Brothers had to sell the airplane to the Army. What about Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs? How much money did they get from Uncle Sam? Fluke and Hewlett-Packard started by designing calibrators to sell to the government. They didn't get financing to design calibrators. We could go on and on but the sheer numbers of successes are not on your side. Venture Capitalists have a better record than our government.

So the question is, do you really think that for-profit run businesses have the acuity and foresight to invest shareholder money into research that does not yield immediate profits?

Look at Tata Motors. It is a good example. What the government needs to do is get off everyone's back. If you and I were to try to manufacture automobiles in this country, the US, we immediately would have 10 to 15 million dollars of permits and tests to conduct before we could sell one automobile. Tata did not have that. Neither did Bell, the Wright Brothers, or the Woz.

The hing about government funded research is that most politicians are scientifically illiterate and do not care about what scientists publish. The bad news is that government funded scientists are not accountable to the politicians, even though the scientific community holds them accountable. the good news is that government funded researchers are independent.

Regarding conspiracy theories about AGW, the problem with these conspiracy theories is that governments have been lukewarm or hostile towards AGW. Yes, some governments do have carbon taxes, but Svante Arrhenius published his findings on AGW in 1896. When did the Swedish parliament pass a carbon tax? If it even has, it was not in 1896. And the government that pays for the research by James Hansen and Michael Mann has no carbon taxes.

Politicians care little about taxes, just as long as they are high enough to vote themselves big pay raises. What politicians do care about is votes, and carbon taxes are not a vote getter.

<<<So the question is, do you really think that for-profit run businesses have the acuity and foresight to invest shareholder money into research that does not yield immediate profits?>>>

I think it would be difficult to think of one that didn't. If you think governments have more acuity and foresight than those who actually risk their own money, I would have to wonder what you have been smoking.

Since when does the government do what is good for the country? They do what is in their short sighted short term political interests. Republicans might favor agricultural subsidies to get donations from farmers. Dems have all sorts of special interests from trial lawyers to unions that aren't good for the country but are good for trial lawyers, unions, and democrat reelection chances.

Do you think borrowing trillions is good for the country? The problem is it is easy for a politician to vote to spend now and pay later after they are out of the office. They create promises that they can't keep. It isn't their money. Why should they care.

If you want to bring the post office and DMV efficiency to the private sector then I would say let the government get more involved.

>>Do you really think that for-profit run businesses have the acuity and foresight to invest shareholder money into research that does not yield immediate profits?<<

Yes and no. For example, the petroleum energy industry knows that global warming is real and they certainly are including that information in their long-term planning. In the short-term, they're economically better off funding denier-bots because it is making them money now. And, contrary to common political nonsense, the alternative solar and wind energy industries are not run by counter-culture environmental wackos. They are run by global corporations in partnership with the power energy industry. The general pattern is for them to setup LLCs for project development and then sell it off to the people that send you your electric bill. At the moment, they are sitting on projects pending Congressional approval of tax credits - because they are capitalists interested in making money. They have no more interest in "environmentalism" than does Exxon-Mobile.

In the long-term though, the answer is no. There is a reason that people who watch no news at all are better informed about international current events than FOX News viewers, and that NPR listeners are the most informed.

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/17482...

Allowed absolute free-will, big-business and -industry are no different than a third-grade classroom without adult supervision. The result is Love Canal, NY; a spontaneously combusting Cuyahoga River; unsafe drinking water; throat-choking air pollution; and countless "Superfund" sites that cost taxpayers their health and lives as well as money. The reason that we have a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and EPA is precisely because business and industry were so totally negligent in considering the environmental and human health consequences of their actions - and they have no one but themselves to blame for the regulations that now exist.

Brainwashed halfwits attacking any government spending they don't like with prefab rhetoric is not in and of itself a very good reason for such spending. Their hypocrisy in voting for incompetent chickenhawk politicians who wasted trillions in not finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, for example, does not necessary make better irrigation systems for ornamental trees (even if they cost only cost a few minutes worth of the Iraq blunderfest) a good candidate for scarce public research dollars. I'd tend to think that the benefits of such systems would extend well beyond ornamental trees, but there are certainly far more ways for businesses to make money using publicly funded research (of a kind which such businesses would not undertake on their own) than a country facing resource, demographic, and budget limits could afford to provide the research funding for. I'd vote for ornamental trees over Halliburton's corporate welfare black holes in the Mideast, but would not give them priority over Peace Corps projects in Africa or rebuilding passenger railroad infrastructure in the U.S. or paying for a public postal service explicitly authorized by the founding fathers.