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somebody wrote:
> life. Sure, someone will comment how US wastes 100s of billions in Iraq, but
> what irresponsible polititicians do should not excuse what supposedly smart
> scientists do.
Consider me that someone.
I never understand why people view science funding as a zero sum
system. Why is the solution to something being underfunded always "Take
money away from some other scientific discipline", when the waste of
money elsewhere (not *just* military) is enormous. Why not simply
suggest that cancer research get more funding, irrespective of how much
NASA or the LHC gets?
Instead of going after wasteful politicians, you'd rather go after
scientists? Let's not take care of the more serious problem and just
rant against those who are less wasteful? Isn't that counter to the
whole point behind your message?
> Science without ethics and mismanagement of resources, to me,
> is just as much a crime against humanity.
I disagree. Choosing to study obscure particles in no way has any
bearing on ethics, let alone be a crime against humanity. The only
ethics in science is if you're actively hurting others.
I also disagree with what seems to be an assumption in your message:
That if you put enough money on studying something (e.g. aging), you'll
get positive results. For all we know, putting those $10 billion in that
research may yield absolutely nothing.
That's what science is: An investigation of the unknown. You can't plan
for results in it the way you plan for results in a company.
Additionally, the money being spent on this comes from a variety of
resources, over time. I don't know the details, but (from Wikipedia):
"It is funded by and built in collaboration with over eight thousand
physicists from over eighty-five countries as well as hundreds of
universities and laboratories."
If "hundreds" of universities and laboratories decided to contribute
parts of their research budget and get together and build this, where's
the problem? If the cancer research folks can't do this, it's their
failing.
Also, comparing it with the amount of money the US spends on annually
on some research is disingenuous. It's not as if we build an LHC every
year.
And of course, I don't know where you got the 1 billion dollar figure
for cancer funding. The National Cancer Institute alone has a budget
exceeding 4 Billion Dollars:
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/NCI/research-funding
This doesn't even include funding from other agencies.
At the end of the day, you are, however, welcome to petition
politicians to reduce funding to those areas. Ultimately, they get to
appropriate (if it's taxpayer money), not the scientists. Stop blaming
them. If a physicist receives a boatload of money after applying for a
grant where he was truthful, he has no need to worry about ethics. He
didn't grab the money - it was given to him willingly. From his
perspective, his work is kosher.
You sound like you want scientists to become politicians...
--
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anl
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