obvious Child

This is a poor generalization in some regards. The market is generally unwilling to fund pioneer research. For instance, private stem cell research in the US is completely legal. Why is there so little private funding for it? Because the market is unwilling to risk huge sums of cash on something that may not pan out. Once the principles have been shown to be valid and marketable, then the private market comes in. Huge amounts of products today have come from private funding of research on materials that were used in the space program which was initially government funded. Once the market saw that it could be sold profitably, they funded it. When was the last time that private funding provided the bulk of monies for pioneer science research?

The government provides the initial funds to make the science viable. Then the private market takes over. This is how is has been for decades and it works relatively well even though it socializes risk and privatizes profit with the except that universities often get a cut due to the work they performed.

Cutting public funding will have a negative impact upon the future of America research.

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No, cops cannot threaten to rape and murder your family during interrogations.

MDM

Hey, I listen to Slipknot & I carved this pentagram in my forehead voluntarily with no outside force.

I'm all for an independent voice and giving a 3rd party a chance. Hell, I've been for Nader for years - I just never believed he could go all the way.
BTW, the Fair Tax isn't fair.

rebelbuc

"... few scientiss are socially conservative..." - I'm not sure where you get this from and I don't think that social conservatism is relevant. Dedicated, honest scientists are very focused on getting to the scientific truth! Politically motivated scientists will do whatever it takes to hold on to their grants! One only has to look at the fairly recent history of the Nobel winners to see that these awards are awarded more for political than other reasons (e.g. remember Al Gore)!

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"The Earth has a fever!"... I guess it does - political correctness and socialism are making the planet sick!

obvious Child

O'rly?

List of Nobel laureates - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Perhaps in the peace and literature areas, but not in the hard sciences.
Gore won his prize in the peace. Look at the recent physics, economics, chemistry, biology and medicine fields.

Osamu Shimomura and Peter Grünberg are super political eh?

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No, cops cannot threaten to rape and murder your family during interrogations.

jfuh

The Nobel peace prize has always been political.
Not so with the Chemistry, medicine, or physics.
So that "political motivation" is false.
Since you bring up global warming, you seem to think that global warming is not a scientific truth? Care to true debate that one?
As to the applicability of social conservative, that's what it takes to be a republican these days, socially conservative. Very few scientists if at all are social conservatives.

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don'ttreadonme

Just curious -- what are your scientific credentials?

jfuh

If you support a candidate other than the ones these social cons support, yes it's all a liberally motivated political conspiracy.
That is what these people's mindset has been reduced to, the liberal media is so wrong against them, it's always someone elses fault
That's what's gotten us into the mess of these days all the cons do is finger point and if you ever question them or bring up that they are wrong, you're a terrorist sympathizer or your a flaming hateful liberal. Or you're all conspiring against the great old conservatives.

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If you haven't already - please vote for me

pauleon1

In reference to 1. I said many scientists are involved in seeking federal funding, not all. The number of university-based researchers who seek out federal funding (I'm guessing) dwarfs the number of privately funded, entrepreneurial scientists, but even if it doesn't, I did say many, and not all.

I agree with you on 2. to an extent. There are areas of scientific research that are very important but not very profit-worthy. I think it is perfectly rational to appeal to government for that funding. I do not agree, however, that federal funding is the best way or even that it should be the normative way in which scientists receive funding for research.

3. I can't speak to the personal political leanings of any percentage of researchers. That's why I used the word "may." But I think the number of socially conservative researchers is higher than you might think, unless you define "socially conservative" as "creationist fundamentalist Christian." If you keep it at "favoring smaller government and greater individual freedoms with a strong support of laissez faire economics," perhaps that group would include the many entrepreneurial researchers you mentioned earlier.

4. I never said Obama was anti-American. I said that scientists who support him may not be. Also, I would never say that I can prove anything about his mentality. However, In the furtherance of discussion, I will list a few things that could put Obama in the categories of Marxist and anti-American. That is to say, if Obama is neither a Marxist nor anti-American, it would be a good idea not to have the following attributes or characteristics.

I. Obama favors greater government control over the economy, education, health care, and social well-being of individual citizens. These are Marxist ideals. In addition, Obama's rhetoric about forcing the rich to care for the poor, his incitements of class envy and strife, are straight out of the communist play book. (McCain holds some of these ideas as well, but we're talking about Obama here.)
II. If you believe that you can judge something about a man by who thinks highly of him or with whom he spends his time, or from whom he accepts advice and money, there is a great deal of evidence to support the idea that he is a Marxist, and some compelling evidence to suggest that his views are far stronger than "mildly unpatriotic." Admittedly, Obama could have them all fooled into thinking he agrees with them, in which case we would be dealing with an incredibly dishonest person who happens not to be a Marxist anti-American (OMG, it's BUSH in disguise!:0--and it would've worked if it hand't been for you meddling kids!). Not sure I'd be willing to argue that point.
a. Some members of his campaign volunteers thought it perfectly acceptable to hang a flag bearing the image of Che Guevara, a Marxist revolutionary, on the wall of Obama's campaign office in Houston
Che Guevara Flag In Obama Campaign Office Causes Controversy - Local News Story - WTVJ | Miami
b. Obama refused to denounce his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, who is quite popular for his anti-American screeds. Only when it became a national news story, only when it became clear that Obama might lose votes if he continued to associate with Wright did he half-heartedly denounce him.
c. Obama has suffered greatly for his association with Bill Ayers. He has quite rightly said that his relationship with Ayers developed long after Ayers committed his crimes. That being said, Obama has never said that he abhors the crimes or their motivation.
--There are more examples which I will not bore you with here. Admittedly, none of this proves that Obama is anti-American, or that he is in fact, Marxist. I can't prove that he is or isn't either of those things. All I can say is that if I weren't a Marxist or anti- American, and didn't want to be called those things, I'd think seriously about the three items mentioned above and change them. At the same time, asking me to prove an unprovable is not an adequate refutation of my contention that scientists may not share his philosophical views, even if they vote for him.

pauleon1

God, I wish there were a way to stop people from starting new arguments as the last sentence of a post. :/

Do we want to talk about the fair tax here?

If so,

Why isn't it fair?
What type of tax structure is fair?
GO!

pauleon1

If there is a high likelihood that it will not pan out, does it stand to reason that we should be forced to pay for it instead of allowing a private entity to make that choice?

The Space program was a government entity from the jumpstreet. Kennedy wanted to beat the Ruskies to the moon. That is not the same as private companies refusing to fund something that the government picks up because they see its potential. The last time I saw private funds providing the bulk of monies for pioneer science research was just a few months ago...
YouTube - xprize's Channel Also, Richard Branson/Virgin are doing amazing things in pioneer research.

I don't doubt that some federal funding for some science is a good idea. As I said in another post, it should not be the model we use to think of it. I think if you do the research, you'll see that governments show up late to the game, and they don't score the winning point often enough to be considered a viable member of the team. Private entities are hands-down more efficient, more successful, and less expensive to the citizen when they attempt research.