Stop spending money on pure science

Originally posted by humy
Those are three areas of research with no obvious prospect or way of giving practical application for the benefit of humanity so I would call that truly pure science.

Pure science, maybe. But I get the feeling that you're seeing "no obvious prospect", and thinking "obviously no prospect". If that were justified, we wouldn't have computers.

Richard

Originally posted by humy
-THIS is the type of science I think we should stop funding ( put on hold ) until we have solved all our non-trivial problems on Earth such as poverty etc.
after we have solved all our non-trivial problems, THEN I have no objection to funding such science.

Politicians love you. Until we solve all problems caused by politicians, and which they will continue causing no matter what solutions we (or, more insidiously, they themselves) devise, we take money away from one of the few fields which has a chance of any positive result.

I say, until we solve world poverty, we give all the money to pure science, and take it away from the people who cause the problems: the politicians.

Richard

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Pure science, maybe. But I get the feeling that you're seeing "no obvious prospect", and thinking "obviously no prospect". If that were justified, we wouldn't have computers.

Richard

Why would we have no computers? When computers were first being developed, there WAS reason to believe they could work -the theory would have said so.
And no, I do NOT equate "no obvious prospect" with "obviously no prospect".

Originally posted by twhitehead
I am convinced that further developments in everything from electronics, superconductors and nuclear power will benefit from a better understanding of the fundamental particles. Studying the Higgs is a part of that.

In mathematics, 'pure maths' would be when you try to take things into the abstract and discover patterns. Applied maths is when you alrea unted a campaign against any science that suggests the existence of climate change.

But there are times when we need to discover something new to do something in the real world. Is the effort to discover that new something 'pure science' or 'applied science' or both?

I already explained that ( well, implied ) in a previous post -it is both. I would call it “semi-pure science” as opposed to “truly pure science” and what I am against is the current funding of truly pure science but NOT semi-pure science.

And I disagree. I don't think stopping scientific research on anything will in any way change the real problems that cause poverty.

not even if it meant diverting funds from truly pure research to eliminating poverty directly? Or diverting funds from truly pure research to applied research for indirectly eliminating poverty?

I am convinced that further developments in everything from electronics, superconductors and nuclear power will benefit from a better understanding of the fundamental particles. Studying the Higgs is a part of that.

but WHAT makes you convinced that studying the Higgs would, somehow, lead to a better understanding of the fundamental particles with that better understanding being, just by pure coincidence (what else could it be but pure coincidence?), such that it would specifically benefit electronics, superconductors and nuclear power?
That may or may not eventually become true but right now we have no reason to believe that this will become true.

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Politicians love you. Until we solve all problems caused by politicians, and which they will continue causing no matter what solutions we (or, more insidiously, they themselves) devise, we take money away from one of the few fields which has a chance of any positive result.

I say, until we solve world poverty, we give all the money to pure science, and take it away from the people who cause the problems: the politicians.

Richard

Is that a joke?
If we took away all funding from applied science then WE would be the cause of the problems.
Why would applied sciences have no "chance of any positive result"?
Applied research has often given a positive result in the past -if it hadn't then we would not have any of the technology we have now.

Originally posted by humy
not even if it meant diverting funds from truly pure research to eliminating poverty directly? Or diverting funds from truly pure research to applied research for indirectly eliminating poverty?

And who is going to do that?
The people in charge of the funding decisions (the governments) are the same people that perpetuate poverty. Telling them to cut funding on science is not going to cause them to fund the fight against poverty.

Originally posted by twhitehead
And who is going to do that?
The people in charge of the funding decisions (the governments) are the same people that perpetuate poverty. Telling them to cut funding on science is not going to cause them to fund the fight against poverty.

Yes, the governments are the cause of poverty and would prevent my proposals being done but there is not much I can do about that now is there.

Telling them to cut funding on science

NO NO I do NOT propose that they cut funding on science but rather I would propose that they should overall INCREASE funding on science AND concentrate all the funding on the most useful applied sciences ( which means cutting the truly pure sciences by implication but that does NOT equate with "cut funding on science” because that “science” includes applied science which I propose should get much more funding ) that have the best chance of giving the maximum benefit to humanity within, lets say just for the sake of argument, the next 50 years. And then continue with that policy until all non-trivial problems of the world have been eliminated with the help of the useful results/applications from that applied science and only THEN fund truly pure science -THAT is what I would propose.

Originally posted by humy
I would propose that they should overall [b]INCREASE funding on science AND concentrate all the funding on the most useful applied sciences.[/b]

And I say that your whole argument is nothing but a distraction from the real causes of poverty. If you really want to make progress in the fight against poverty then forget about the science budget and concentrate on:
1. Education.
2. Corruption.
3. Political will

Originally posted by humy
The study of the Higgs.

The study of black holes.

The study of Saturn's rings.

Those are three areas of research with no obvious prospect or way of giving practical application for the benefit of humanity so I would call that truly pure science.

The thing about pure science is it can lead to entirely different directions applicable to applied science. Look at the transistor. It started out as diode theory 150 years ago but nobody could conceive of a way to do diode activity for a long time, then when they did, they started down the path leading to little cat whisker affairs two whiskers close together and found they had a tiny bit of gain, 1.07 to be exact. Without the earlier efforts in the pure sciences we would still be using tubes today and I can say for sure computers would still be not as powerful as even the commodore 64.

It goes for any science, the unexpected pops up and you have an instant new technology like the development of an efficient Terahertz generator, allowing the exploitation of an entirely unused portion of the RF spectrum.

Without the fundamental science going into such things we would still be stuck with LED's and lasers.

Without pure science we would never have come up with lasers or LED's in the first place and studying the rings of Saturn as one example, you just don't know what you will find. Sure, 90% of all studies lead nowhere but the 10% left over takes you into territory totally unknown before that study.

We might find a source of He3 there, a boon for fusion reactors, the best fuel, very scarce on Earth and found on the moon but it will take a significant mining technology to extract.

Just throwing that out as a way out example of stuff we might find in totally different searches.

You would have stopped Madam Curie from discovering radium, useless research, right?

Originally posted by twhitehead
And I say that your whole argument is nothing but a distraction from the real causes of poverty. If you really want to make progress in the fight against poverty then forget about the science budget and concentrate on:
1. Education.
2. Corruption.
3. Political will

how is it a "distraction"?

Would you say that the argument that the World Bank should not have provided a large loan to the department of National Parks because that money would have been better spent on reducing poverty (an argument I would agree with; of course it would be better spent on reducing poverty! ) is “nothing but a distraction from the real causes of poverty” ?
I am making a very similar argument when I say money spent on truly pure science would be better spent on reducing poverty and I don't see any fundamental difference to the structure/logic of my argument to yours about the National Parks.

Originally posted by sonhouse
The thing about pure science is it can lead to entirely different directions applicable to applied science. Look at the transistor. It started out as diode theory 150 years ago but nobody could conceive of a way to do diode activity for a long time, then when they did, they started down the path leading to little cat whisker affairs two whiskers close toget ches.

You would have stopped Madam Curie from discovering radium, useless research, right?

Without the fundamental science

look, I am not talking here about the “fundamental science” with plausibly useful future applications within, lets say, the next 50 years but what I refer to “truly pure science” with no good reason to believe that it is likely to have plausibly useful future applications within the next ~50 years. I am NOT against the current funding of “fundamental science” with plausibly useful future applications within a politically meaningful time span. I would NOT have been against research into the diode because, unlike research into, say, the Higgs, there WAS good reason to believe that it is likely to have plausibly useful future applications ( in electronics, obviously ) within the next ~50 years and so I would call that “semi-pure science” which is in the grey area between applied science and what I call truly pure science.
We are not talking about the same thing!

You would have stopped Madam Curie from discovering radium,

No I wouldn't! Because, for starters, as far as I am aware, billions of dollars were NOT being spent funding her research PLUS, and far more relevantly here, even if billions of dollars were spent on it, there WAS good reason to believe that it is likely to have plausibly useful future applications within the next ~50 years because it was known that radioactive elements give off a lot of energy and thus, even without the benefit of hindsight that we have now, it would have been reasonable to assume radioactive elements could one day be used as a new source of energy. In other words, I would call that “semi-pure science”.

You keep talking about semi-pure science which I would want MORE funding in and saying I am against that science! I'm not! the exact opposite is my position!

Originally posted by humy
Why would we have no computers? When computers were first being developed, there WAS reason to believe they could work -the theory would have said so.
And no, I do NOT equate "no obvious prospect" with "obviously no prospect".

No, you are mistaken. When the physics that is required to construct computers was developed, people didn't have the slightest clue you would be able to make something like a computer with it.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
No, you are mistaken. When the physics that is required to construct computers was developed, people didn't have the slightest clue you would be able to make something like a computer with it.

When the physics that is required to construct computers was developed,

which physics that was truly pure science are you referring to here that wes funded back then with many millions/billions of dollars/pounds?
Give examples....

If you cannot give just one such example, then I have certainly said absolutely nothing in my posts to indicate that I would be against such science being done in any sense.

remember; I never said nor believe that truly pure science should never be done! A scientists can do pure science even if he gets no special funding ( or maybe very small funding ) for it which is just fine by me. I am just saying we should not fund it with many millions of dollars IF ( and note the “IF” is the operative word here )
and where and when those same millions of dollars can be spent on things ( such as perhaps health or education etc or certain applied sciences excluding military research ) much more likely ( than the pure science ) to give non-trivial benefit to humanity and that is all I am saying!

Originally posted by humy

When the physics that is required to construct computers was developed,

which physics that was truly pure science are you referring to here that wes funded back then with many millions/billions of dollars/pounds?
Give examples....

If you cannot give just one such example, then I have certainly said absolutely nothing in my posts to indica ...[text shortened]... n the pure science ) to give non-trivial benefit to humanity and that is all I am saying!

Particle accelerators are like microscopes. I worked on an industrial ion accelerator for 20 years so I know a bit about what I am talking about.

To see deeper into the heart of matter you need to apply more energy to the beam. We got as far as we have now because pure science dollars were made available to build bigger and more powerful microscopes. Right now the search is on for the Higgs but the thing is, more new physics usually shows up right in the middle of searches for what theoretically should be there, something pops up that leads physics in an entirely different direction.

Some of the directions are possible solutions to energy density in batteries, fundamental research into the materials needed for a working fusion reactor, and the fundamental research into more powerful pulsed lasers for the inertial confinement fusion project. At this time we don't know which of those will pan out, maybe even cold fusion. One thing is certain, if we don't get fusion online in the next 30 years or so we will be running out of fossil fuel and we can see the down side of fission reactors.

The thing is, at our level, we can't arbitrarily say what form of science to cut off and what to support. Grass roots level is fine for politics but not for science. Science is not a democracy you can just vote on.

Some of that research may lead to developments like the space elevator, where we eliminate the need for thousand ton rockets altogether, but some dude 50 years ago shouldn't have the right to squash an entire science because he THINKS nothing will come of it.

Science needs to go where new physics and chemistry leads it, not being led by politicians which is essentially the position you find yourself in right now.

This same theme was played out a hundred years ago against Orville and Wilber Wright, it seems the pundits were wrong, weren't they?

Painful but enlightening, this thread.