"Mueen Nawaz" <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote in message
news:48daa315@news.povray.org...
> 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.

When budgets are made, for better or worse, spending on science is often
taken as a unit. Yes, in that sense, if particle physics gets a
disproportionately large sum, you can bet condensed matter will get less.

> 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.

Yes we can. Conversely, if we cannot, gambling with such enourmous money on
LHC is even more silly, is not it?

If you want to be conservative, invest in areas of medical research that are
most promising. There are plenty of underfunded fields.

> 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.

It's humanity's failing, since as far as I can see from the responses from
this group, people don't know what's good for them. I'm sure many of you,
and possibly I, will develop a form of life threatening cancer at one point
in the near future, within a few years or a decade. It's a certainity given
a large enough population. Would you rather have all those universities
spend their research budgets on an academic endavour that will benefit not a
single human being, or one that could benefit many?

The very essence of existence goes through health. I cannot think of a
single reason why medical research should not top all lists when it comes to
resource allocations.

> 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.

We build one every decade or two.

> 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

I did not say "budget" in my OP, I said "annual spending". (Spending the
entire budget in one year would mean closing doors the next year). Even so,
LHC costing more than twice the budget of NCI is telling.

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