Article Who Should Fund Science?

[C C]

https://quillette.com/2023/11/04/who-sho...d-science/

EXCERPT: State investment in science is certainly nothing new, but what is fascinating is how easily it is now accepted as the de facto means of spurring scientific innovation. Pew polling confirms that, while government funding does not necessarily inspire trust in science, the public is far less likely to trust scientific findings when funded through an industry source. Additionally, 82 percent of Americans believe government investment in scientific research is usually worthwhile.

Many Western governments failed to respond adequately to the COVID-19 pandemic, so it is understandable that policymakers want to invest heavily in scientific research. After all, should we not ask our state leaders to invest more than ever in innovation in case a worse threat arises? But when considered on the merits of its economic, philosophical, and historical arguments, the claim that governments should be responsible for funding scientific research turns out to be a counterproductive myth... (MORE - missing details)

[Yazata]

https://quillette.com/2023/11/04/who-sho...d-science/

EXCERPT: State investment in science is certainly nothing new, but what is fascinating is how easily it is now accepted as the de facto means of spurring scientific innovation.

I think that change occurred in response to World War II.

Pew polling confirms that, while government funding does not necessarily inspire trust in science, the public is far less likely to trust scientific findings when funded through an industry source. Additionally, 82 percent of Americans believe government investment in scientific research is usually worthwhile.

Research funding by industry typically requires that there be some potential payback for the company doing the funding. We see that in engineering, where most cutting edge research comes from the private sector. (SpaceX and Starship are the poster children for that.) We also see it in medical and pharmaceutical research.

Industry funding is less common in pure research, where short-term payback of the expense of the research is less certain.

So many of us support government funding of pure research.

That doesn't mean that we trust government research more than private research. In the past the media promoted the widespread assumption that private financial motives often biased research results to favor companies' products. (Think tobacco company research on the health effects of smoking.) So for a generation at least, there's been a widespread assumption that government funded research was more objective and less tainted by researchers' financial interests. In many cases that was true.

But over the last 15 years perhaps, that perception has been changing as government funding became seen as a giant intellectual monopoly pushing politically favored research results. (Think COVID and 'climate science'.) I think that the pendulum is starting to swing the other way, towards growing distrust of monolithic post-WWII 'federal science' controlled by the likes of Anthony Fauci, and towards favoring a multitude of diverse funding sources: industry, states, universities, private foundations...