British scientists challenge government

Its good to see that in Britain they at least have the nerve and ethics to challange government. In America it seems scientists report whatever the government wants them to find, because that is what keeps the government funding rolling in year after year.

Scientists (my wife is a PhD research scientist) are largely funded by the Federal grant system. To secure grant funding you have to submit applications that fairly closely mirror current thinking or give a very clear reason why it should be challenged. The latter is extremely difficult and there is a high likelihood that your grant application will be reviewed by some of the very scientists you are challenging.

For this reason, research tends to be very incremental. You do research that only "nudges" scientific opinion a little in one direction of another. Over the years it has worked pretty well and prevented spending money on a lot of hair-brained ideas or contrarian viewpoints. It does stifle creativity and free thought quite a bit, but the government is very sensitive about having the wisdom of its grants questioned.

The problem comes when all the data is different that current policy and the scientific consensus contradicts political positions. Then funding tends to dry up. Grant administrators are loathe to fund pointless research that defies current science, but they also don't want to see their funds cut because they are seen to support politically incorrect positions. So they simply do as little funding on the subject as they can get away with. They tend to only fund confirmatory research until the political winds change.

A good story about what happens in these situations revolved around Sen. William Proxmire who used to give out "Golden Fleece Awards" for federal expenditures that he considered wasteful. Unfortunately, Sen. Proxmire was more interested in headlines than science and he was often quite wrong. One of his "awards" went to NIS funding of research into honeybee parasites. He contended that the researchers were the parasites and demanded that that line of research be defunded. It was. But also any research that dealt with honeybees became impossible to get funded. People left the field because they could no longer get their work funded. Students did not enter the field. Now European honeybees are extremely endangered and "sudden hive collapse" is decimating beehives. European honeybees pollinate about 40% or our crops. Crop yields are falling because of the lack of honeybees (most are rented hives.) There was money earmarked in this year's budget to try to keep beekeepers in business until something is figured out. Proxmire's name was evoked and the money was cut, even though Proxmire is long dead. It is going to be very difficult to resolve the honeybee problem because competent researchers have long abandoned the field and it will take 20 years to resurrect the research once funding is re-established. Oh well, it all sounded like a good idea. Too bad that it will increase food prices.

There are some good reasons for that conservatism in funding. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so if you have no scientific support for your "different" idea, it is understandable that we are less inclined to throw tax-payers money at it. Review panels try to be open-minded about what "new" ideas seem reasonable even without a lot of evidence yet, but some conservatism is inevitable, and probably a good idea with limited funds.

jock,

I agree with the gist of your post. And want to make sure that people understand that I know there are venues for small grants to collect pilot data or explore different ideas. My wife sits on several peer-review panels (study sections, they are called.) How "open-minded" some of these people are is spotty. Almost any real experts have formed opinions on how things work in their area of specialty and tend to be less open-minded than you'd think. I have been always proud of my wife's ability to be objective about grant applications that conflict with her own personal views. But I am also dismayed about her stories about people who effectively block research because it might discredit some of their own past work.

Grant funding is extremely tight these days (in terms of a percentage in GDP or in inflation-adjusted dollars) and has fallen to levels not seen since prior to WWII. Federal dollars given to research are the lifeblood of industry 20 years hence. The cuts in such funding do not portend well for job creation over the next 30+ years.

In his farewell speech Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex, but also of centering research funding in the government. It's a quick and interesting read, particularly in light of today's politics:

http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/All_About_Ike/Speeches/Speeches.html

Some of us are saddened when we consider his warning, and the total disregard for the concerns he mentioned... and he seems so much more thoughtful than most, of not all, of the Republican political minds of today.

Well, considering NSF has never funded any of MY grant proposals, I'm not going to defend their open-mindedness!

jcbwell #1.5,

Everyone in Congress should be required to listen to this every day before they start our work (ours, not theirs - they're supposed to be working for us), lest they forget his wisdom and foresight.

I am currently living and studying in London and the funniest (or should I say saddest part) is that the alcohol problems are astounding! Dr. Nutt pointed this out and received even more backlash.

Here Here, from across the pond.

Oh get real. It happened before Bush and it's happened since Bush. Science is ALWAYS twisted, corrupted, shut down or ignored by governments and has been since time immemorial. That's why real scientists try to avoid any kind of government influence like the proverbial plague.

What??? Scientists blackmailing the government? Now THAT"S an active imagination...

lois, it's the other way around.

You bet Benet!

Just ask Galileo, if you could. I am sure the conservative religious leader Pope Urban the 23rd or whatever said something along the lines of this to Galileo.

"you are wrong and we will torture you until you admit it." That was the Inquisition Times, was it not? Now if Galileo had admitted that the Earth was the center of the universe in conjunction with the Catholic Church <which he did later> earlier, he would probably have gotten a free pass for adultery or lechery or whatever people with money did then to appease the CHURCH.

Holy f***ing sh**. He had to do it to save his life. How long did it take for the church to admit that "THEY WERE WRONG"? Any takers?

In 1633 Galileo was formally interrogated for 18 days and on April 30 Galileo confesses that he may have made the Copernican case in the Dialogue too strong and offers to refute it in his next book. Unmoved, the Pope decides that Galileo should be imprisoned indefinitely. Soon after, with a formal threat of torture, Galileo is examined by the Inquisition and sentenced to prison and religious penances, the sentence is signed by 6 of the 10 inquisitors. In a formal ceremony at the church of Santa Maria Sofia Minerva, Galileo abjures his errors. He is then put in house arrest in Sienna. After these tribulations he begins writing his Discourse on Two New Sciences.

Galileo remained under house arrest, despite many medical problems and a deteriorating state of health, until his death in 1642. The Church finally accepted that Galileo might be right in 1983.

1983 1983 1983 damn damn damn.

Why in the name of everything holy do you suppose it took that long? Were the Church officials afraid they might look oppressive? "You think?"

Finally, for any of the all too numerous neo-cons out there, I am not rambling. I am simply trying to make a point about SCIENCE versus the people in power. How long does it take when there are people dedicated to the clouding of reason? Too long, I fear. Far, far, too long.

I still care, I simply do not think that we will make it as a species, and simply because an elite few want to hold sway over the many.

You go, Sichuan! You have the right of it!

But haven't you heard about killer bud?

"But haven't you heard about killer bud?"

It didn't kill me.

Wow, the political idealogues are out in force today. I see a lot of name calling, but very little in the way of intelligent comments. For one thing Sichuan, Gordon Brown is a liberal, not a conservative so it is obviously not just conservatives and/or religious people who try to shut up scientists when they disagree with their views.

Government, by its very nature, tends to try and control scientific research and advancement and has since humankind's beginnings. It doesn't matter who is in power, whether it be conservatives, liberals, religious theocracies, etc. They ALL want to control science so that it benefits THEIR causes and only their causes.

Ugh, there are far too many of you idealogues on BOTH sides who throw everybody into one category or another and don't bother to do any critical thinking. Grow up.

Marijuana is the drug of choice of many of the immigrants the English see as a threat to their way of life, so rationality in comparing it to good old English alcohol just isn't going to happen.