Trick Question: Is McCain "Anti-Science"?
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Orac, a noted science blogger thinks so:
But Orac overreacts and "gets political" himself with the "NSF or NIH peer review" nonsense. (Incidentally, it appears that the $5 million "bear DNA study" — coordinated by the U.S. Geological Survey — was not funded by a peer-reviewed NSF grant but by a gaggle of plain vanilla earmarks arranged by recently ousted Senator Conrad Burns (R-Bears). So "15-0" McCain on that serve.)
But let's put earmarks aside and focus, as Orac would prefer, on government research grants peer-reviewed by the NSF, NIH or other government conduits. Of course the science and humanities bureaucrats (and they are bureaucrats) will find that at least some, and indeed more than enough, proposals are "scientifically meritorious." That's what government spenders of taxpayer money are specifically retained to do — find ways to spend it. The fact that they actually wind up doing so proves nothing whatsoever. Doing what you're hired to do does not prove that what you do was ever worthwhile in the first place; it's an entirely separate and precedent question. How could a leading science blogger engage in such atrociously circular reasoning?
Indeed, Orac totally puts the cart before the bear. The function of grant-dispensing bureaucrats is not to disqualify any research proposal as "unworthy" — only "less worthy" than other "worthy" proposals. Federal research funds (i.e., the taxpayer money the bureaucrats get to dole out as beneficences) are allocated before the peer review process ever begins — appropriation precedes allocation. The bureaucrats are merely prioritizing scarce funds among essentially unlimited proposals. "Here's a billion dollars in grant funding — allocate as you think best, NSF peer reviewers." Think a bureaucrat, even a scientist-bureaucrat, swimming in other people's money is going to run out of things to fund? That's a theory debunked by mountains of empirical data.
It's analogous to scholarship competitions: just because you didn't win doesn't mean the application reviewers expect you to flunk out. You may very well have been "worthy" — just not as worthy as the winner. But what's not analogous is that scholarships tend to be endowed by voluntary money, not tax dollars. When the government steps in, suddenly everyone becomes "worthy" and too much money is never enough — especially other people's money. No matter how much funding politicians are willing to extract from taxpayers, there will always be another "worthy student" — or another "worthy research proposal" — deserving of funding instead of an "ignorant" politician's scorn.
All because the (hardly impartial) money-hungry scientists say so. And because they're so much smarter than you. They are, at the end of the day, no better than the politicians whom they do not hesitate to damn as "demagogues." Go figure.
(And, especially in the case of the biological sciences, please don't pretend that politics never plays a part in it.)
Truly "scientifically meritorious" research proposals would be able to find strictly private funding — either for-profit or not-for-profit. Pure research, outside of military applications, is simply not a public good. Something beyond "scientists would like more" is required before one can assert "market failure."
P.S. Don't forget taxpayer-extracted arts funding.
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Meanwhile:
I heard a statement that sounded something like this: "We're spending three million dollars to study bear DNA. I don't know if it was a paternity issue or criminal, but it was a waste of money."I have no "bear in the race" when it comes to researching bear DNA. I am no supporter of John McCain. I am no supporter of any politician who distorts reality to score political points with the ignoranti. (And, as a gay libertarian, I've certainly encountered enough of them.)
Ack! First McCain credulously buys into the pseudoscience that vaccines somehow cause autism, and now this! Shades of William Proxmire's infamous Golden Fleece Awards from the 1970s and 1980s. In a truly irritating bit of antiscience demagogery [sic], Proxmire not infrequently peppered his lists of truly wasteful spending with Golden Fleece Awards to federally funded science projects that, because of the odd or unusual nature of the subject matter, were easily portrayed to the ignorant as wastes of taxpayer money. Never mind that many of them had been subjected to NSF or NIH peer review, just like any other grant proposal, and been found scientifically meritorious enough to fund. If they sounded "funny" they must be wasteful.
But Orac overreacts and "gets political" himself with the "NSF or NIH peer review" nonsense. (Incidentally, it appears that the $5 million "bear DNA study" — coordinated by the U.S. Geological Survey — was not funded by a peer-reviewed NSF grant but by a gaggle of plain vanilla earmarks arranged by recently ousted Senator Conrad Burns (R-Bears). So "15-0" McCain on that serve.)
But let's put earmarks aside and focus, as Orac would prefer, on government research grants peer-reviewed by the NSF, NIH or other government conduits. Of course the science and humanities bureaucrats (and they are bureaucrats) will find that at least some, and indeed more than enough, proposals are "scientifically meritorious." That's what government spenders of taxpayer money are specifically retained to do — find ways to spend it. The fact that they actually wind up doing so proves nothing whatsoever. Doing what you're hired to do does not prove that what you do was ever worthwhile in the first place; it's an entirely separate and precedent question. How could a leading science blogger engage in such atrociously circular reasoning?
Indeed, Orac totally puts the cart before the bear. The function of grant-dispensing bureaucrats is not to disqualify any research proposal as "unworthy" — only "less worthy" than other "worthy" proposals. Federal research funds (i.e., the taxpayer money the bureaucrats get to dole out as beneficences) are allocated before the peer review process ever begins — appropriation precedes allocation. The bureaucrats are merely prioritizing scarce funds among essentially unlimited proposals. "Here's a billion dollars in grant funding — allocate as you think best, NSF peer reviewers." Think a bureaucrat, even a scientist-bureaucrat, swimming in other people's money is going to run out of things to fund? That's a theory debunked by mountains of empirical data.
It's analogous to scholarship competitions: just because you didn't win doesn't mean the application reviewers expect you to flunk out. You may very well have been "worthy" — just not as worthy as the winner. But what's not analogous is that scholarships tend to be endowed by voluntary money, not tax dollars. When the government steps in, suddenly everyone becomes "worthy" and too much money is never enough — especially other people's money. No matter how much funding politicians are willing to extract from taxpayers, there will always be another "worthy student" — or another "worthy research proposal" — deserving of funding instead of an "ignorant" politician's scorn.
All because the (hardly impartial) money-hungry scientists say so. And because they're so much smarter than you. They are, at the end of the day, no better than the politicians whom they do not hesitate to damn as "demagogues." Go figure.
(And, especially in the case of the biological sciences, please don't pretend that politics never plays a part in it.)
Truly "scientifically meritorious" research proposals would be able to find strictly private funding — either for-profit or not-for-profit. Pure research, outside of military applications, is simply not a public good. Something beyond "scientists would like more" is required before one can assert "market failure."
P.S. Don't forget taxpayer-extracted arts funding.
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Meanwhile:
[Clinton's] insourcing plan would enact the largest expansion of tax benefits for research and job growth; create at least 15 new "Innovation and Research Clusters" across the country, launch a new "Insourcing Markets Tax Credit" to spur business investment communities facing global competition, and catalyze the 21st Century manufacturing sector with several bold new programs, including the "Made Green In America" Fund, which would provide $500 million annually in investments to encourage the creation of high-wage jobs in clean energy manufacturing technologies.Combining "Clinton-speak" with "Orac-speak" -- She has a million "peer-reviewed research proposals" -- the country can't afford them all.
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Posted by Kip on
3 April 2008
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