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View Poll Results: Should we support science with taxpayer dollars?
Yes, pure research and applied research have yielded great innovations. 62 79.49%
Yes, but only strictly applied research for important problems. 10 12.82%
Yes, but it is way overfunded. 6 7.69%
No. Scientists are just mercenaries and self-promoters. 3 3.85%
No. Scientists are pushing a liberal agenda for their liberal employers. 5 6.41%
No. All the questions science tries to ask have been answered by religion already. 1 1.28%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 78. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 04-03-2013, 08:47 PM
 
3,846 posts, read 2,379,720 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wutitiz View Post
The case of Russian geneticist Trofim Lysenko provides an interesting parable. Lysenko gained favor with Stalin and his theories were granted exclusivity in Russia and the rest of the Soviet bloc. Scientists with the temerity to disagree were sometimes jailed or executed.

Lysenkoism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Interestingly, though, since the Russian scientists were not allowed to even think about DNA, their research away from it yielded valuable data that otherwise might not have ever been discovered.

They were forced into a whole different perspective of things.
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Old 04-03-2013, 09:24 PM
 
Location: Maryland about 20 miles NW of DC
6,105 posts, read 5,977,918 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fiddlehead View Post
Should fund pure and applied science with federal funds? Or should any research enterprise prove that is can earn a profit in the near-term?


As a card carrying Physicist who has worked in Academia, The National Labs and in Industry the terms pure and applied science are misleading because who judges and much of physics is done with new cutting edge technology in fact "pure" and "applied" science are like the Yin-Yang symbol, and in my oppinion two sides of the same whole. I like the term Curiousty Driven and Goal Oriented Science. For example when Muller and Bednorz disclovered what was Superconductivity at an unprecidented temperature where they doing Curioustity Driven or Goal Oriented Science.? They were looking for a high Tc superconductor and even had a hypothesis that lead them to first test doped nickel oxides (a miss) than copper oxides (The hit). These compounds were first made nearly 30 years earlier in Russia hence the name perovskites and a French scientist actually measure their conductivity saw interesting behaviour but didn't measure that property at low temperature where he might have discovered High Tc behavior in the late 1960s. When the High Tc discovery came in 1987 the French and Russians tested their old samples and guess what. Fate is cruel when you let a great discovery slip through your hands. But this is science whether done becuase it is fun and peaks your curioustity or you spend tens of billions of dollars to confirm an intermediate vector boson first advanced in 1964 by a young theorist from Scotland named Peter Higgs. Now the scientists at CERN are they doing curiousity driven or goal oriented science.

I am a co-auther on one of the first papers showing that high Tc material had a Fermi Edge. Published in March 1987.
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Old 04-03-2013, 09:28 PM
 
Location: ATX-HOU
10,216 posts, read 8,099,744 times
Reputation: 2037
Quote:
Originally Posted by Little-Acorn View Post
Where's the check box for:

"No, government's only job is to protect our rights, it should do that effectively and economically enough that it leaves us with enough of our money that we can decide which science to support ourselves."

?
Oh the irony of using telecommunications and then complaining about the gubment overreaching. Just because you want to live a solitary life in a cabin in the woods, doesn't mean everyone else does.
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Old 04-03-2013, 09:34 PM
 
Location: Maryland about 20 miles NW of DC
6,105 posts, read 5,977,918 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nonarchist View Post
Interestingly, though, since the Russian scientists were not allowed to even think about DNA, their research away from it yielded valuable data that otherwise might not have ever been discovered.

They were forced into a whole different perspective of things.

Russian scientists were free to think and did. They just kept quiet and pretended to agree with Lysenkoism. Lysenko was a party favorite because Marxists drew their theory of history and economics from a directed theory of Evolution. That you could create new organisms by selective breeding and in the case of Lysenko by getting organisms to acquire traits by forcing their environments. The survivors will acquire the traits you desire. Iike wheat that you could grow in Siberia.
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Old 04-03-2013, 09:40 PM
 
Location: Maryland about 20 miles NW of DC
6,105 posts, read 5,977,918 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dv1033 View Post
So you would rather be stuck with the the view of the Constitution through the eyes of those who wrote and coincidentally lived a very agrarian lifestyle that is in stark contrast to our very industrialized society?

Personally, I want a govt that works for the current times. Or perhaps you believe other country's would never use their govt to get an advantage over us? Perhaps you would prefer a USSR super power instead of our American hegemony? Or perhaps China? Or perhaps an imperialist Japan?

The US Constitution tasks the Legislative Branch with doing anything that promotes the Common Welfare and gives it the power to raise taxes and levies to make these projects a reality .
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Old 04-04-2013, 05:55 AM
 
Location: Dallas
31,290 posts, read 20,692,854 times
Reputation: 9324
Quote:
Originally Posted by Toyman at Jewel Lake View Post
Well, he's more accurate than many of the commenters in the thread are. He at least uses the proper term, "taxpayer funding". Unlike others who use the term "government funding". All spending by government is taxpayer funded, of course.

So, given that, how about we ask all those people working paycheck to paycheck, struggling to pay their bills...how do you feel about money being taken from you to fund well paid researchers and technicians? It pays my salary (we make research equipment, with our customer base divided about equally between universities, national labs and commercial ventures). But still, doesn't hid the fact that every dollar spent by the government is first taken from those that earned it.

I don't think government (tax payers) should fund any scientific research. I don't want some unaccountable government bureaucrat taking my tax dollars and giving them to a research firm. Scientific research is necessary and very important, but there are other ways to fund research.
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Old 04-04-2013, 05:57 AM
 
Location: Dallas
31,290 posts, read 20,692,854 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wutitiz View Post
Yeah, but with his poll choices the OP ironically illustrates why government must not be allowed to monopolize scientific research. Read the answers--potential answers that might detract from the OP's view are left off. Purportedly contrary answers are designed to make the other side seem dumb.

Research virtually is 'the asking of questions,' but with these big-gov't lefty types, they only want to ask the questions that tend to produce the answers they seek. People with this kind of mentality are the last people one would want to put in charge of scientific research.
Exactly. Research is not a valid government function.

But the OP thinks only government can do research and if you oppose government research, it must mean you oppose science. That's quite juvenile.
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Old 04-04-2013, 05:58 AM
 
Location: Dallas
31,290 posts, read 20,692,854 times
Reputation: 9324
Quote:
Originally Posted by desertdetroiter View Post
If we can afford to give tax breaks to organized religion, then we can afford to fund science.
Actually, we can't "afford" either. We are running an annual deficit at $1 trillion or more.
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Old 04-04-2013, 05:59 AM
 
Location: Dallas
31,290 posts, read 20,692,854 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fiddlehead View Post
Don't forget farm subsidies, oil, and defense subsidies. All are investments of a sort. Or that is what we are to believe.
And all should be eliminated.
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Old 04-04-2013, 06:03 AM
 
Location: Dallas
31,290 posts, read 20,692,854 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fiddlehead View Post
Whoa! You must have taken me as a religious person. No. Actually, I am, but I don't want a tax break, or to talk about it. My business.

I am guessing the tax exempt status for churches is because that supposedly allows them to do good works. I suspect that is true in many cases. .
No, it's because they are a non profit organization. Churches are no different than other non profit groups like the Boy Scouts and the NAACP.

But I would support the elimination of ALL tax exemptions for non profit organizations.
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