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posted by janrinok on Friday October 30 2015, @10:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the chicken-and-egg dept.

For more than a half century, it has been an article of faith that science would not get funded if government did not do it, and economic growth would not happen if science did not get funded by the taxpayer. Now Matt Ridley writes in The Wall Street Journal that when you examine the history of innovation, you find, again and again, that scientific breakthroughs are the effect, not the cause, of technological change. "It is no accident that astronomy blossomed in the wake of the age of exploration," says Ridley. "The steam engine owed almost nothing to the science of thermodynamics, but the science of thermodynamics owed almost everything to the steam engine. The discovery of the structure of DNA depended heavily on X-ray crystallography of biological molecules, a technique developed in the wool industry to try to improve textiles." According to Ridley technological advances are driven by practical men who tinkered until they had better machines; abstract scientific rumination is the last thing they do.

It follows that there is less need for government to fund science: Industry will do this itself. Having made innovations, it will then pay for research into the principles behind them. Having invented the steam engine, it will pay for thermodynamics. After all, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the U.S. and Britain made huge contributions to science with negligible public funding, while Germany and France, with hefty public funding, achieved no greater results either in science or in economics. To most people, the argument for public funding of science rests on a list of the discoveries made with public funds, from the Internet (defense science in the U.S.) to the Higgs boson (particle physics at CERN in Switzerland). But that is highly misleading. Given that government has funded science munificently from its huge tax take, it would be odd if it had not found out something. This tells us nothing about what would have been discovered by alternative funding arrangements. "Governments cannot dictate either discovery or invention," concludes Ridley. "They can only make sure that they don't hinder it. Innovation emerges unbidden from the way that human beings freely interact if allowed. Deep scientific insights are the fruits that fall from the tree of technological change."


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by jmorris on Saturday October 31 2015, @01:39AM

    by jmorris (4844) on Saturday October 31 2015, @01:39AM (#256761)

    Well, did anybody notice how that worked with the banks?

    Bad example. For oh so many reasons that I doubt I'll remember more than a few in the few minutes I'll waste on this. (Invitation for others to pile on....)

    The banks aren't even close to capitalism or even commerce and haven't since before the Fed was established but doubly so after Bretton Woods, Tricky Dick ending the gold standard, etc.

    The banks get all the benefits of capitalism on the upside and socialism on the downsides. WTF? More important is how do they get away with that? Because they captured the State; Both sides, the Ruling Party and the Loyal Opposition. It isn't just the political donations or lobbying, it is the incest. Look how many of the same names rotate between government and the big banks and investment houses. Now add in spouses and children and it is almost an entirely separate and closed society, a ruling class if you will. And just to spread it around, it isn't just the banks, it is a totalitarian system of control. The same royalty pervade high finance, government from the regulatory state to the Foreign Service but the same royal families run the academy, Hollywood and what is left of the traditional media. It is so interconnected an equally compelling argument can be made for any of the areas to be the one that 'took over' the others yet there really isn't a point to arguing who started it, who is in the end dominant, etc. They are now one.

    And to wrap this into the main topic, Big Science is part of the Cathedral too. From several angles, the Big Government who ultimately funds most of science to the Academy that is almost always mixed up in it. The people on the front lines of Science aren't yet required to be blood related to the Ruling Class but it is a safe bet it is certainly part of the plan if things roll on their way long enough.

    The only good news is there are now cracks pervading the whole structure of control and it is clearly failing badly enough they can no longer convince the masses that things are OK, people no long believe that they are the super, better people who must be in charge lest the good times stop rolling. The Internet is going to be key to breaking the spell they have held the world under.

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  • (Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Saturday October 31 2015, @01:03PM

    by art guerrilla (3082) on Saturday October 31 2015, @01:03PM (#256875)

    i will only add this 'minor' aside:
    a dirty little secret which is almost NEVER mentioned, is that it is laundering dee-rug monies that keeps many a bankster afloat...
    cut off that leg of the stool, and the banksters fall over go boom...
    {which -surprise!- is EXACTLY and TOTALLY why many of those invested in the bankster economy do not want any dee-rugs legalized; has absolutely NOTHING to do with so-called public health or moral issues of dee-rugs...)