Stop, you thieving scientist!
| 10 May, 2011 | Morgan Giddings |
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All scientists are thieves.
We’re stealing money out of the pockets of the poor unsuspecting public.
Or at least that’s what one commenter said recently in response to my post on giving up tenure, and it’s not the first time I’ve heard that argument (if you can call it an argument).
It goes like this: Joe and Jane Public work hard to earn their money, and so it should be their God-given right to spend it as they choose. Then along comes Uncle Sam (or Tom or whatever Uncle you have in your locale), who grabs up to half of it, and redistributes (some of) it to people like us scientists. Without us having say in the matter!
It is forced theft! We are taking away Joe and Jane’s hard effort! Demotivating them! We are stealing their livelihood and investing it in… who knows what kind of drivel? Like cures for diseases and such! Pffft. Ridiculous.
Here’s my response, with equally weighty logic to back it up: there must have been a storm of anti-clue particles recently showering down from the star Sol, infecting the minds of the rabid anti-tax and anti-science folks, and even spilling over into the otherwise sane and rational public. Hurray for solid, logical debate!
But really: at one time in the not so distant past, many Western and Eastern countries alike understood the idea of “investing for the public good.” They built bridges, universities, science programs, hospitals, parks and all manner of things to benefit everyone.
And the public benefitted greatly. The countries that invested the most in these things saw the greatest return. Good roads and good health facilitated commerce. Good science fostered new businesses. Economies that had invested, thrived. The population did well, and standards of living grew across the board.
Then, along came a generation or two who failed to understand the core idea behind investing. They looked around, saw abundance (created by their forebears), and said, I must claim my fair share. Like little Paris Hiltons, they lived merrily off the investments made by their elders. They assumed that the world just worked this way, that parks, roads and biomedical discoveries just happen for free. All we have to do is unleash the entrepeneurs within ourselves, and magic happens. We can live a good life without any hard work.
Nice argument, until you visit Iraq, or any other country with little infrastructure remaining. Without a strong government to interfere and impede by taxing and investing, the economy is thriving, right?
I’d like to see just one example of a country with weak, ineffectual central government, making few investments in science, infrastructure and people, and that also has a good economy. Just one.
Right now the US and many Western countries are living off the investments made by previous generations. We benefit tremendously from science done 10, 20, 30 years ago. We benefit from roads and schools built over the past century. But we do not take care of those investments. It is like saving up for retirement, and letting the money just sit there earning 0.5%, constantly decreasing in spending power as inflation eats up its real value*.
Science is an investment. It is an investment in ongoing technological progress (bringing things like the internet, making this blog available to you); it is an investment in health; it is an investment in understanding how our world works.
But instead of seeing it as an investment, anti-taxers only see the costs. They see money flowing out to the government, but with no not seeing any in-your-face evidence of immediate results , they say: it must not be doing anything good. It must be a waste. It must be theft.
It’s a bit like the climate change debate, where people will argue for or against based on the recent temperatures in their locale. Any argument of the sort based on temporally or spatially localized circumstances is specious at best (for science investment or climate change!).
Perhaps the anti-science-investment folks would prefer a return to 18th century medicine and physics. I hear that leeches and bloodletting were occasionally effective. For someone who truly believes this, it would seem they should go live like the Amish, taking no advantage of the investments made in science or technology over the past century. If you truly don’t like the fruit of the investments, why are you still taking advantage of it?
Remember this if you plan to make a ranting comment in response to this post: by commenting, you are taking advantage of several decades of government investment in computer technologies and sciences, without which there would be no blog, and no commenting system to use. Post away, and prove my point for me!
On the other hand, if you do believe in the premise of investing in scientific research, and want to stop playing the lottery to get your research funded, we can help you.”
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*I do understand the argument that some make about the link between “money printing” (quantitative easing) and inflation. But the cure for that problem is not the elimination of taxes, in fact, quite the opposite. Governments “print” money because they are too chickensh*t to actually tax the populace for the full cost of operations, and so they do it through this backdoor route. When the value of your currency drops by 50%, it is rarely the politicians that get the blame, whereas if they vote to increase taxes, they will get booted right out of office.
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I think what we’re seeing is the triumph of “run like a business” thinking. Except the only businesses we strive to emulate are those which care only about the current quarter and maybe year over year. We don’t take the long view of anything anymore. Governments are too scared of the next election to do anything meaningful that might have a longer horizon. We’re also seeing this coming from science itself, particularly young scientists looking at a future of endless postdocs and steaming piles of bureaucracy, with people saying the academy is dead and that we should move to a VC model for research funding. That’s nice if you’re actually doing research on cancer or something else that’s got an obvious path to profit. If you’re doing basic science, or – gasp – social science research that won’t end in patents, fuggedaboutit. I guess we can’t have nice things anymore.
The real thieves are the companies doing business with the scientists. Antibodies that don’t bind, gloves that rip, tubes that leak, helpless customer service etc etc etc. When you add it all up, one CEO in this industry made $34,000,000 in 2010, a lot of that being our tax dollars!
I’ll keep my rant short, but its not easy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCXqKEs68Xk
And to think we almost lost fruit fly research! Even though the bad guys didn’t get elected in the end, its scary to think that they were chosen by the republicans to represent their opinions on the matter… and really, everything else… the thought of them in charge gives me goosebumps, you know, the kind you get when you re-realize your mortality and that of the human species). Are they truly evil or just totally clueless, scary world we live in.
The Amish do indeed take advantage of modern technology. The Pennsylvania Dutch have an ongoing relationship with the Clinic for Special Children in Strasburg, PA which screens for various genetic disorders that have high prevalence in the Old Order Amish and Mennonite population and with the Lancaster General Hospital. Since the Amish pay cash for their healthcare, they have negotiated a significant discounted rate.
The major investment lost in the United States over the past 50 years has been the one in education. We are reaping the results of an uneducated population that cannot make rational decisions based on defining the question, gathering the data relevant to the question and making a conclusion. Obviously incorrect statements are not noticed and, even if noticed and challenged, are brushed aside as not beiing meaningful to the preconceived conclsuions that many already have. In short, we are lacking good science at all levels of society.
I hate seeing comments that make this a political argument. I am a Republican, very pro science and research. We do need to educate the population, I totally agree, including politicians. I do have one thing that irks me however and that is waste. I suffer from a serious lung disease which has had little funding directed towards it and yet the funding that is made available is wasted on research that most everyone with my disease would consider to be useless. One multi million NIH grant was awarded to a doctor who was studying the effects of exercise on COPD. This has been studied before. That’s why pulmonary rehab is recommended by all pulmonologists. Cut the waste out and I think most everyone can be convinced of the good that science brings.
When you said “Then, along came a generation or two who failed to understand the core idea behind investing. They looked around, saw abundance (created by their forebears), and said, I must claim my fair share. ”
I thought you were talking about the *scientists*. How odd.
When I place an investment, I don’t usually expect to hear from the recipient that I should not question their use of the money and should never consider alternative investments. What would you do if you received that kind of arrogant tripe from a mutual fund manager?
And just yesterday, I also read, in this same publication, how scientists shouldn’t be required even to explain what they’re doing. Too taxing for the tiny brains of the general public, you see. Never mind that the general public includes any number of technical and scientifically literate folk who don’t happen to be working in academia.
The kind of smugness you express is actually fairly new in scientific academia. It is, as you say, born of unearned abundance and a feeling of natural entitlement — by scientists.
Dr. Giddings,
If you were not a scientist would you not feel the same way about scientists? You personally dump your own money to what essentially amounts to a black box for most lay people and hardly ever see any progress. Indeed, shouldn’t the public at least have some say on what gets funded? The system as it is now serves to promote mediocrity as “Expert” committees are unlikely to fund new or radical ideas counter to their established work, for that very reason…IT IS COUNTER TO THEIR WORK! And so we are left with a slow moving, I would argue trivial research portfolio as whole. Thus the public sentiment is, in my opinion, with good reason. I
Regards,
Josh Nicholson
PS: Any investment is not a good investment, the stock market will teach that lesson very quickly.
Ah yes, the unwashed masses, who can not think for theirselves. Actually the scientist-theives are most of those who are climate alarmists.
You seem to think that good ends justify the imposition. It’s the middle-class privilege of the researchers and institutions that disgusts me to the point that I believe violence is justified and purges long overdue. Tenure is politicized privilege, a class legacy. It makes for bad research and egregious teaching. Collectivist investment, yes — corporatist investment, no. (I would destroy all the benefits you enumerate to not only end the privilege but to punish those exercising it–“representative” goverment is not legitimate or acceptable).
Couldn’t agree with augwhite more. All research projects should be determined by US taxpayers. That way they will get excactly the ROI they deserve.
I’m a scientist, but I think the ranter might have a bit of a point. There’s an abundant amount of waste in the academic scientists. Money is often taken under the guise of doing one project that is supposed to have some sort of public utility and then said money used, instead, to do projects that satisfy a PI’s ego. As long as the work was publishable, few PIs are penalized for this kind of behavior. We tell the tax payers that their money is being used only to fund American citizens or permanent residents, but then take a large portion of that money is taken as “institutional overhead” (sometimes as high as 45%) and then used to hire (and often exploit) armies of foreign postdocs who are often paid below the government-mandated salary and rarely promoted. We have such an attachment to novelty that we train our students to pursue novelty at all costs, rather than work on the problems that benefit the public the most. We then hire tons of grad students and postdocs for whom there is no job guarantee, force them to compete against one another with meager stipends for nearly a decade, and then reward only the most ruthless 10-20% with faculty positions. We dump the rest and then petition the government for more money for even more trainees. Of the PIs, I’ve worked for, few really worry about the costs. We almost always buy what is the easiest to use, not what is the most cost effective. On top of all this, we maintain and promote a system where the results of our labor (the manuscripts and maybe pharmaceuticals) are only accessible to the public if they pay a second time. Then we come here and tell the people they are too stupid to understand the process, that they should shut up, empty their wallets, and that it’s for their own good.
Perhaps “augwhite” should take a look at the article that precedes this on (at least in the daily email from The Scientist), entitled “Billion dollar babies of the human genome”. The US government sunk a total of $3.8 billion into the human genome project. This project has thus far generated approximately $800 billion in economic output, $49 billion in revenues for the US government, and created, literally, tens of thousands of jobs in the US. Stealing money indeed…
“t’s the middle-class privilege of the researchers and institutions that disgusts me to the point that I believe violence is justified and purges long overdue.”
Wow! So execution by a bullet to the back of the head or sent to re-education work camps? Khmer Rouge style.
Because of the closed marriage pool the Amish have high rates of certain genetic diseases. Many Amish willingly participate in genetics research on those diseases. They have aided in identifying genes of certain diseases and have hopefully benefited from discoveries they assisted in making. So the Amish may be less anti science than the people the article is talking about.
Interesting thought-provoking article by Dr. Giddings which makes me wonder why we still have such a vigorous, well-funded and very expensive space program (supported by astronomical {pun} tax dollars). The space program grew out largely from competition with the Soviets in the early post WW2 cold-war era, and this was a correct thing to pursue and develop then. But that competition does not exist anymore, nor are there other friendly or “unfriendly” countries who have significant space programs. I am not even sure what our former biggest competitor, the Russians, are currently doing, if anything, except for now collaborating with us on various projects. I would bet the budget for our entire space program exceeds the GDP of all the 3rd world countries combined!!
A lot of research which is publicly funded is not in any obvious way in the public interest, & is not necessarily determined by public priorities. If it were, clinical research (& research using patients’ tissues, pathology etc), more expensive but more likely to address immediate patient problems and find solutions that would translate back into the clinic, would receive the lion’s share, rather than basic research (& other not clearly human-relevant medical research). There may well be excellent reasons for funding research which appears to have little bearing on immediate human problems, but when times are tight, it is not surprising if the public would like to see more clinical progress in return for their investments rather than reams more basic knowledge. Where more basic research is conducted, public justification & support may become a requirement (I initially trained in basic research).
The messages from all the detractors here who say I am smug and think that scientists should explain ourselves are downright funny (and ironically so).
Please, people: think before you post.
If you’ve ever read my posts before, you know that I strongly advocate for the idea that scientists *must* (not should, but must) do a better job of communicating the value of their work to the public.
I also think that not all projects are worth doing. When I teach people how to write better grants, one of the first things we do is ask this question: Who would care about this research? Often, asking this question redefines the research to something far more useful than it would have been.
I also gave up the “cushy, tenured job” so that I could help scientists do more of the science communicatin’.
I put myself at the mercy of a “free market,” and remain at its mercy, both in my current faculty post and in my business.
Did I say anywhere above that *all* scientific research was useful?
Or that the system is perfect?
Please, if I did, quote those passages for me.
I would not have left a “cushy, tenured job” (which was anything but cushy) if I had thought all was perfect in the world of science. There are many, significant, problems.
But instead of just whining about the problems, my goal is to find real solutions.
Next week’s blog post will address the science communication issue.
I often see a lot of smug and arrogant comments about people criticizing scientists and others whom they claim are saying that the lay people are too stupid to understand them. People like Augwhite for instance. Ok, so let’s examine the typical person he is defending. Half the country believes the world was created by magic, the horoscopes are the most widely read section of the newspaper, the most commonly watched shows on TV are reality shows where the draw is people being at best nasty to each other and believes that cheating and stealing (as long as it is not from them) is ok. Yes, I think I can say with all fairness that, while there are plenty of smart people in the world, the average person is indeed too stupid to understand either the science or the reason behind it. As a teacher, I deal with upper level college students that are science majors no less, that can’t seem to understand the most basic concepts, yet fully expect to get As in the class even though they can’t spell animal, much less explain what it is. If we let the American people vote on the science that is done, you can kiss our country goodbye because they are bloody incompetent fools.
How scientific is it to pretend that the words of one commenter represent a significant number of non-scientists.
At least one commenter I know personally is a diagnosed, medicated paranoid schizophrenic.
Does the Faculty of 1000 consider this worthy of peer review?????????????
To Augwhite (and others) : sadly, smugness is a characteristic not just found in scientists – it abounds everywhere. That said, I’ve spent most of my life in academia and am cross-trained in many areas. That enables me to see connections in biologocal and molecular systems that many people (I’m talking even many scientists here) are unaware of. To put it bluntly, I can see more parts of the elephant. Not better than anyone else, just more of the big picture. That gives me and people like me a vantage point in this argument.
If some of my fellow scientists can’t (or won’t grasp) that certain developments that are taking place in science (a discipline which can- and does- take years of being in the field to truly understand) and their health / social ramifications , I don’t expect most in the public at large to grasp why we are cutting our throats by making scientists the dubious (if not bad) guys. That said, yes, there are some lay people that can and do get it, better than some of our colleagues sometimes.
Nature doesn’t give a flying monkey if you or I don’t understand the RULES, but they still apply. We are still deciphering – and correcting – some scientific misconceptions which are the inevitable results of the answers being only as good as [the technology + the level of understanding of the problem].
Countries like Brazil which are investing a good % of their GNP in basic and applied science are already whipping us into a position way down the line – if we keep stupidly politizing science, something that shouldn’t be. (FYI, I am a registered Independent).
Let’s quit worshipping only the almighty $$$ (or currency unit). Human curiosity manifested as basic science research has always,and will continue to yield the largest social dividends (= money, for my investment-minded friends out there). Do your homework, and you will see that that statement is true.
As former foreign postdoc who has worked in two labs in US and has been damped at the end, I can say that the most of academic science is a waste of money. Most projects are not important for humanity and medicine at all. They do research but concentrate on small things and are not interested in real breakthrough because if problem will be solved and cure will be found, what they are going to do afterwards? I talk about biology research. Very few PI’s do not use postdocs as slaves and encourage novelty and progress. Most of them do not like smart people and do not want to support career of future competitors. They use us while we are excited with scientific enthusiasm and ready to spend long hours in the lab. The 10% of postdocs who make it to the faculty positions, succeed not because of their smarts but because of other reasons. Administration in the universities who is ripping off grants money and is turning science into business enterprise is another issue. Taxpayers should not pay high price to support this kind of academic science.
I do love it when people get confused about the difference between anecdote and data.
Re the economics of science, benefit to public as well as input from public, read Phil Mirowski, “Science Mart”, just published
The annual budget for the NIH is about 35 billion dollars. It seems a lot of money but if we compare it to the profits of the oil companies in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year and we take in account that these companies pay ZERO dollars in taxes when they should be paying several times the NIH budget., then a different picture appears. People should be asking why the American public is forced to subsidize the oil companies with tax breaks and at the same time being continually ripped off with exorbitant gas prices? The expenses in science are peanuts compared to what Americans are losing to the oil companies. However, we see all these anti science rhetoric continually been played in the media while being mute about the oil companies. If republicans want to balance the budget, they should start with defense expenses and making the tax code fair for the common American. Unfortunately they are spreading campaigns against teachers, scientist and the like and defending their corporations interests arguing that education and health for all is socialism. This strategy is easy to play in a society that has gone through generations being brain washed with anti communist propaganda product of the cold war, it is easy to make people ashamed of their right for a fair society. I call for scientist not to fall for this political trick and avoid opening the doors for people who want to promote arguments aimed at dividing and undermining the scientific community. Yes, the NIH has problems. The current NIH policy on supporting clinical studies and trials instead of basic sciences, is the result of public clamor. However, we have to take in account that the big pharma was doing that few years ago spending 70 billion per year, but they dropped the ball because they had a success rate of less than 1 percent in developing new marketable drugs. The strategy was unsustainable when each clinical trial runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars. I still do not understand how the NIH leadership came to the conclusion that they would do better than the pharmaceutical companies. Well, they are realizing that they can’t do better. The NIH is spending billions of dollars in clinical trials that are complete failure, and at the same time letting basic science dry. The NIH should restore the common sense making the political leadership realize of their mistake and reestablish a healthy balance between basic and clinical science. Without basic knowledge clinical trials are based on simplistic assumptions that have proven to be just fantasies. There are few success stories out there, but they don’t tell you that for each one of them there are hundreds of failures, each one costing hundreds of millions of dollars. These times are not good for basic scientist, and there are many out there venting their frustrations, I hope that these arguments help restore basic science to the prominence that it should have in a progressive society and not contribute to its demise instead.
We, as scientists, should not be surprised that the short-sighted shotgun wielded by the anti-tax, anti-government portion of the populace is now taking aim at science as well. Is there waste in the current system? Absolutely. Does all scientific research result in tangible improvment in human health or quality of life? Absolutely not. But as the on-going debate over global warming perfectly illustrates, logic and preponderance of evidence do not hold any sway with a majority of these folks. We cannot convince this minority that an investment in science is worth the tax dollars unless the investment is of benefit to them personally in the next year (or the next quarter). We need to stop arguing with the illogical minority and plead our case to larger and mostly silent majority. They have not sealed their minds to any evidence that doesn’t suit their emotional and political viewpoint.
Por Que, global warming as been proved to be a fraud. Other than un-validated computer models, there is absolutely no science proof the earth is getting warmer because of human activities.
Mike, your are delusional trying to cover yourself from the sun with your finger. Millions of tons of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere daily are not going to rise temperature in your opinion. Your post looks like a message paid by the oil industry which are trying to make the EPA disappear. Do you also deny the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, do you need proof of that too, a certificate from Obama mailed to you ?
I know this is not the purpose of this string of comments, however, I cannot help but respond to Microbio, Ph.D. You would bet wrong. The current budget of NASA is less than 1% of the annual budget for the United States and most certainly less than the GDP of all 3rd world countries.
According to Neil Degrasse Tyson (you should look him up), the Cassini mission to Saturn cost 3.2 billion dollars. It was a 12 year mission so divide that 3.2 billion dollars by 12 and you get about 300 million dollars. Americans spend more money on lip balm in a year. Kind of puts it in perspective, doesn’t it? We sent a mission to Saturn for what you spend on chapstick.
To address your comment about other space programs: since George Bush cancelled the space shuttle, it will be retired this year. That means we will be hitching a ride with the Russians to space, not vice versa. We’re falling behind a bit due to lack of funding. Besides the Russian space agency, China also has a fledgling space program and has a goal to reach the moon in the next decade or so. The European Space Agency launches unmanned rockets, though does not currently have a manned vehicle. It is clear based on your comment that you know very little about the current space program and might do well visiting NASA.gov, or perhaps spending 10 minutes with google. You might find that we have space station orbiting the Earth that is currently a laboratory suited for research in life sciences, chemistry, phyisics, and astronomy. You might read about the Earth observation satellites that are analyzing weather patterns all over Earth in order to gain more evidence on global warming. You might hear about the NASA physicians who went down to Chile to advise rescuers of the trapped miners. NASA physicians have about 40 years of experience regarding the physical and psychological effects of being trapped in a confined space (read: spacecraft) for an extended period of time. If that’s not enough, you could google, “NASA spinoffs.” There you could read about NASA research that has helped set fatigue limits for pilots on that next flight you take to a scientific meeting. As you can see, NASA has quite a broad range of research which affects your life more often than you realize. Please be careful about suggesting an entire government agency is useless when you don’t know all (or any) of the facts. I suggest you do some research on the space program and then perhaps you will understand how 15 billion dollars a year (average since 1958), really isn’t enough.