A Stitch in Haste

"Since man's basic tool of survival is his mind, the most important human activity is the discovery of knowledge (i.e., the occupation of scientist)."
--Ayn Rand

There's a classic episode of "ER" where Benton and Romano are interviewing medical school applicants, with a rapid-fire succession of each one saying, "I want to help people..." "I want to help people..." "I want to help people..." -- only to meet empty stares of cynical apathy from the two surgeons.

In a similar vein, scientists (and academics generally) are often presumed to be motivated only by social concerns -- "to make the world a better place," "to improve the human condition" or some such gobbledygook. (As if Microsoft and Wal-Mart haven't made the world a better place.) Researchers and scholars are obviously smart, and if they wanted to, they could certainly work in the private sector and become rich.

So we can all agree, can't we, that scientists are never concerned with such petty trivialities as money...

...can't we?

Last week the [National Institutes of Health] announced drastic new rules restricting employees, and their spouses and dependents, from stock holdings in drug, biotech and other companies with significant medical divisions. Consulting, lecturing and other outside income is also severely restricted. Even most prizes and awards with money are now forbidden (the Nobel is an exception). NIH employees are furious.

Word on the street is that universities...are receiving a flood of applications from talented scientists. (Perhaps the NIH should have consulted with some economists who might have explained the concepts of opportunity costs and compensating differentials).

And if the universities can't absorb all the excess supply, expect the private sector to.

Not everything that puts a dollar in your pocket is a sin. For politicians and bureaucrats to suffocate scholars with oppressive ethics rules is about as pot-kettle-black as you can get.

Hat tip to Marginal Revolution.

(NOT-SO-)FUN FACT: The post mentions that the Nobel Prize is exempt from the new NIH rules. It is not exempt, however, from being subject to federal income tax. The IRS makes no distinction between academic "prizes" and lottery "prizes" -- except that the IRS is gracious enough to allow Nobel winners to pre-emptively donate the money to charity and thereby have it excluded from their gross income a priori. Lottery winners, or Oprah-car-recipients, can't even do that. Be careful what you wish for -- you might win it.

A quick follow-up to this old post about the problems created by revised conflict-of-interest rules at the National Institutes of Health:

Nearly 40 percent of the scientists conducting hands-on research at the National Institutes of Health say they are looking for other jobs or are considering doing so to escape new ethics rules that have curtailed their opportunity to earn outside income.

Most scientists say the ethics crackdown is too severe, and nearly three-quarters of them believe it will hinder the government's ability to attract and keep medical researchers, according to a survey commissioned by the government's premier medical research agency.

Of course, we could open up a nice little libertarian debate about whether there should even be a National Institutes of Health, whether "public science" passes an objective cost-benefit analysis or is simply a manifestation of the Politics of the Warm Fuzzy Feeling, whether the government crowds out the for-profit and not-for-profit private market for scientists, and whether the arguments supporting government funding of hard science carry over to, say, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts or PBS. Feel free to initiate such a debate in the comments.

My point now, as was my point then, is simply that most scientists are not altruists, do not think of themselves as "public servants" and should not be expected to work for free or for less than their objective, market-based worth. The "best and the brightest" should be rewarded as such, which ought to mean something more than a pat on the back from a bureaucrat or a politician. And if that means letting them earn a little bit on the side, then so be it. If you believe in the NIH (a big "if"), then better "a little bit on the side" than "their entire livelihood in the private sector," no?