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...

-- 
For Sale: Parachute. Only used once, never opened, small.


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