All too true, Julian, especially the last bit –

< Above all it could better inform the national debate about the pathways to a stronger, brighter and more sustainable future… >

Our future is being very seriously compromised by the business sector and pro-growth lobby having the ear of government far and away more so than those who see great danger in continuous growth and pandering to the short-term wishes of the powerful vested-interest sectors.

There are hundreds of scientists and academics around the country who are greatly concerned about the direction our government is taking us, but who feel that they can’t speak out, largely because they and their institutions are government-funded.

There is an enormous bias here, there is a huge corruption of free speech and there is a very strong antidemocratic element to it all.

We DESPERATELY need something like a National Research Council, or some mechanism whereby scientists can speak out in the interests of healthy debate about our national future, without feeling as though they might lose their jobs or suffer declining finding for their institute as a result .

Good article.

Science may be objective but the funding of it, and the purposes for which it is used, can never be objective or scientific, because they intrinsically require value judgments based on human interests. Thus it is a complete fallacy to argue that government-funded science represents, or can ever represent, some kind of objective independent voice or knowledge base for the greater good, as if scientists had no personal interests, or social bias, or political agenda of their own.

As the author shows, virtually the entire industry of science is government-funded. And he assumes that, without government funding, most of it would not be funded.

So it is complete nonsense to say science is a “victim” or that it’s being “strangled”. That’s like saying a baker is the “victim” of his customers who are “strangling” him if they don’t give him the money to supply goods which they don’t want to buy, but that he nevertheless wants to supply!

Far from being victims, government-funded scientists, like government-funded artists, are overwhelmingly the beneficiaries of a privilege to live at others’ expense on incomes *above* what they would be able to earn if constrained to voluntary funding arrangements.

Furthermore, far from providing an interest bloc that provides helpful and disinterested knowledge, an industry of government-funded science bureaucrats will become one of the worst vectors of waste, privilege and *superstition*. This is because they will have an entrenched interest in calling for the never-ending expansion of the technocratic central planning of society, even though it has repeatedly been *scientifically* disproved and never refuted.

Freed from the need to obtain its funding by voluntary means, science can only hitch its wagon to the star of political favouritism, which intrinsically involves the never-ending predations of the political class on the productive class. We should expect, and we will get, from government funding of science the rise of the new dark ages of anti-production, anti-consumption, anti-human sentiments that are rife in the government-funded communites of ecologists and climatologists, with their credo of irrational *unscientific* state-worship.

Far from being entrenched, the state funding of science should be abolished.

Oh Dear. Could you imagine if someone had to change there life-stiles and get their hands dirty in order to help the planet to recover....Oh my! I can see them choking over there caviar right now:) and whats that O2 stuff? I heard from the idiot-box, we will be fine on all fronts, without changing a thing.

Oh Dear:)

LEAP

The plain English movement arose when Scientists realised they needed to speak clearly with the bulk of the population. Publications are the determinants of one’s career, the majority of papers published are lucky to be read by more than half a dozen people. Time and again the content of papers can be halved with reader comprehension improved.

What is also notable about many scientists is the narrow focus they hold and the degree of arrogance in terms of what they know. Nothing works in isolation and wisdom is something more than science produces.

It is time for scientists/academics to communicate clearly with the general population. At the moment they spend their time talking to each other; and more often than not with little respect.

Whilst scientists/academics fail to communicate to the general population Australia is fundamentally a society based on individuals maximising their personal benefit not considering others. In this context appeals to a greater good is no longer relevant.

<< Far from being entrenched, the state funding of science should be abolished. >>

Not sure about that, Peter Hume.

How would you fund science?

There are big problems with it being funded by private enterprise.

And there are problems with science having to generate its own funding by way of commercial enterprise.

So how could it be done with true independence from government, or from the vest interests of its funders in general?

<< We should expect, and we will get, from government funding of science the rise of the new dark ages of anti-production, anti-consumption, anti-human sentiments that are rife in the government-funded communites of ecologists and climatologists, with their credo of irrational *unscientific* state-worship. >>

What? Just the opposite would be true, wouldn’t it? With the current government, and big business, funding of science, we’d (continue to) get maximised production, with minimised regard for ecological limitations, until we produce and consume ourselves into oblivion!

What we desperately need is a scientific fraternity that has a whole lot more power to express concerns about our grossly unsustainable momentum, and to work out how we can get off of the future-destroying continuous growth spiral of ever-more production and consumption by ever-more people until we are forced to stop doing it in some drastic way by ecological limits.

I am genuinely sorry to have to declare that I can’t agree with Julian, or Ludwig, in the proposed answer to what is an undeniable deterioration of Science’s status in public affairs.

Starting with the Regan years in the USA, there has built up an amorphous well-funded, and unfortunately well-connected, movement dedicated to deny, delay, and obfuscate. A movement determined to direct scientists, whose work has produced data contrary to preferred outcomes, to “go back and re-do it until you get it right according to our beliefs”.

Further to Julian’s examples, the push to denigrate the status of science is evidenced in the December 2010 (its final issue) of People and Place: in the editorial, and also in the article by Barney Foran.
Whether it comes from Universities, CSIRO, Academies of Science, - wherever it is, the science will be declared defective, wrong, or doctored, if the data published from that source does not accord with outcomes pre-determined by those within the fold of deny-delay-obfuscate.

It will take a supremely well-organised and well-funded bureaucracy running an Independent Research Council, as well as rights to publish, to enable the science community to engage competitively with those fogging the issues.

Ludwig
>So how could it be done with true independence from government, or from the vest interests of its funders in general?

I can't ever be done independently of the vested interests who fund it.

The best that we can hope for is that it is funded voluntarily, and that in making things better for those who fund it, it makes things better for society in general. But that cannot be done by government funding.

You are only exemplifying the view I described: the idea that human beings are a form of noxious pest, a plague, a cancer, and that science should be an instrument of government to implement all restrictions on people's freedoms that such a world-view aspires to, as if people were bacteria in a laboratory flask controlled by "scientists". It's a grotesque vision which hopes for total control of society by government, to be planned by the presumptive selflessness and wisdom of technicians - all for the greater good of course. It is an anti-human view, that human use of natural resources is morally bad, and so therefore is human freedom and families and enjoyment, all of which require the use of natural resources.

Yet even its own advocates decry the incompetence and corruption of governments. It is an unfalsifiable view that's *not* based in science, it's based on fifth-hand Malthusian and Marxian nonsense that just keeps popping up, despite of all rational disproof, in the halls of *government-funded* academe which is absolutely drenched in the *unscientific* superstition that we would all be better off if government centrally directed the lands, the waters, the seas, the sky, the clouds, all primary industry, all secondary industry, all tertiary industry, and families, and childcare, and education, and transport, and housing, and interst rates, and communications, and problem gamblers, and personal relationships, and sexuality, and you name it.

It is a credulous, ascetic, irrational, freedom-hating, tyrannical orthodoxy; to appeal to it in the name of science is truly perverse.

Dear Julian, the western world is currently experiencing a period of unprecedented criticism of scientists and academia, I doubt Australia immune from this.

What is being presented to the public is a great deal of division, contentious issues and partiality. It would be reasonable to suggest that research and academic commentary are influenced in some way by industry funding, political influence (funding) and ideology.

Some might also suggest that these influences are necessary and acceptable in order to sustain financial viability, which means that dreaded word, compromise.

There are no doubt other sections of Australian science that are heading for the “Dark Ages of political neglect and disfavor”. Presumably these sections have little influence from industrial, political or ideological sources and therefore have less funding?

In the end it is often public perception that influences politicians and public perception is not good currently. Science and academia have recently and continue to inflict much self harm. A good starting point for the “reformation” might be to start repairing the public credibility issues.

Perhaps it would be more correct for you to say that our governments, industries and partisan academia, through the directing of their funding, are indeed strangling some areas of science. Could it be a case of he who pays the Piper, calls the tune? Providing of course, that academia continues to be willing to compromise

Who funded Newton, Hooke and their ilk?

These days we see funding from various eco groups, who all amazingly get exactly the doom laden reports and papers they want. These same organization then turn on any contrary research in the most vile manner.

So it's not just government funding that produces biased results and a fraternity of like minded followers, all obediently following the familiar line to the trough.

There's no easy answer, but there seems to be resentment from the scientific community that their work and reputations are not what they used to be.

Scientists will produce pretty well what is expected of them to win further funding, no surprise there since they have mortgages as well.

Perhaps we need to go back to the model that without a private sponser, or self funding, you can't be an objective scientist.

That's the reality isn't it, that the world is waking up to the fact that all scientific endeavor is by it's very funding, biased.

So be suspicious, or indeed skeptical of all science now, since the motivation and rewards are not the noble values we would like them to be.

Peter Hume is correct, or at least much closer to the mark than Julian. This business about government funding of science has been kicked around internationally for some time.

One radical position is that there should be no government funding of research at all, which is too extreme for my taste, but if government is to fund science it has every right to inquire as to its purpose.

For example, is CSIRO meant to act as an over-arching research body for industry and agriculture? If so, why isn't industry paying for it? What are the cost-benefit ratios? If its purpose is theoretical research why not give more research money to universities and be done with the additional organisational costs?

The very last people to ask these questions, let alone answer them, is scientists. To argue that they are completely disinterested, independent advice-givers is complete nonsense. They will simply fight their own corner.

We need a bit of history in all of this. There was virtually no funding of science by government (save for the CSIRO) until after the second world war, and not until 1965 were there any research grants for academics. The money flow into these endeavours has gone up and it has gone down. The NHMRC did very well when Prime Minister Fraser acquired legionnaire's disease. The ARC did well when John Dawkins put all the funding schemes together. Research into 'climate change' has done well more recently.

But anyone who has been part of 'science and government' knows that there is no 'ideal' or natural level of funding for research. The direction, both proportionately and absolutely, is either up or down.

Those who think it ought to be need to ask themselves why it is that governments have lost confidence in the science establishment (if that is the cause).

And if science funding is to keep going up, what is to be jettisoned from the budget?

Oh dear. In the second last paragraph I meant to write 'Those who think it should be up need...'

Curmudgeon
Thank you.

"For example, is CSIRO meant to act as an over-arching research body for industry and agriculture? If so, why isn't industry paying for it?"

Exactly. If it’s supposed to be for the benefit of farmers’ productivity, why shouldn't farmers be free to choose whether to pay for it or not? The costs and benefits cannot be determined in the abstract, at the collective level. If particular farmers don't want to pay for particular technical assistance, it's because they judge that it would not be the best employment of their scarce capital. That being so, why should there be any compulsion to pay for technical knowledge they don't want, any more than for any other capital goods more than what they want, such as fencing or sheds or shearing?

Without the signals of profit and loss, how are producers going to know which consumers’ wants are more urgent and important? Politicians pandering to marginal votes? Rules and regulations? Coerced funding can only be the occasion of misdirecting resources.

For example, I&I (formerly DPI) in NSW publishes a guide to buying bulls. But no-one consuming this product is ever confronted with the choice whether the costs were worth it. Obviously anything might be beneficial if we don't count the costs of producing it. But this is irrational, because there is always a need to economise scarce resources to their most highly valued ends.

Similarly I&I provide certain veterinary services. Yet either the services of a vet are commercially worthwhile, or they’re not. If they are, the farmer should pay. And if they’re not, why should poorer people be forced into subsidising wealthier landowners specifically to engage in uneconomic, i.e. wasteful activity? It’s not scientific, it’s irrational.

And that’s only for services that are *intended* to benefit producers. But much, or most, state-fund “science” is actively hostile to productive activity. Since the only thing government produces is restrictions on liberty or forced redistributions, state-funded science inflicts untold cost on human welfare. These are ignored, because unknown and *assumed away* by the very assumptions of governmental benevolence and omniscience motivating it.

Peter Hume, great example.

In the Defence area, the DSTO, Government Research body and scientific advisers are so useless at actual timely advice, that the RPDE has been set up. Rapid Prototyping and Development Establishment, to give Defence a quick and timely response to real world problems - usually DTSO took 2 years (about the time to write a white paper, which contributed to their pay rises and promotion, no thought of the warfighter at all need be considered)

RPDE is funded by Defence, i.e. the taxpayer, as is DSTO. It is manned mainly by industry, with one or two scientists there, for form's sake. RPDE gets things done, DSTO are just a rest home for scientists, with only the occasional work being done that is of any value at all .. apart form getting more funding, or a Phd, or other "valuables" that are part of the inner circle.

Yes, there is a need for some fundamental research and ongoing research, but much of the work DSTO does is merely make work and completely self indulgent. It is of bugger all use to the warfighter, but over 3,000 scientists are thus kept in employment, and local universities churn out yet more of the parasites.

That's pretty well the picture of most government research in Australia.

if you go to CSIRO and say, what have you done, do you have a register of all the research done, perhaps I might want to use some of it .. they have no such thing, they do not know what has been done, unless you find someone with historical memory. All their effort is focused n new research and funding .. indeed, they don't even know if they are doing the same work, more than once.

Science in Australia needs a collective kick in the bum, it is so lazy and self absorbed and not in touch with the real world's needs .. but don't get near them at grant writing time, you'll lose an arm, the only time you see any motivation .. the trough

Science may be in the doldrums but, from an engineering perspective, Australia has already become a third world country.

Around 5,000 Australians annually graduate as engineers - this is about the lowest per capita rate in all the OECD countries. It compares with annual rates, calculated by Duke University in 2005, of around 352,000 in China, 112,000 in India and 137,000 in USA. (The Duke figures have been adjusted to fairly represent the number of comparable 4-year trained graduates from each country).

In China it is said that engineers represent 33% of all university graduates. Both President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao are former engineers. In Australia the only person in our current government who seems to have any technological training at all is Climate Change Minister Greg Combet who, according to his website, "studied" Mining Engineering at UNSW before he "graduated" in Economics at Sydney University. (One might be forgiven for thinking that the term "studied" might be being used as a euphemism for “dropped out of”.)

Whereas a country such as Sweden, with about a third of our population, has a wide range of indigenous design & manufacturing companies which includes Volvo (vehicles), Saab (vehicles & aircraft), Ericsson (telecommunications), Electrolux (white goods), etc. Australia’s only claims to fame seem to be the design & production of the Stump Jump Plough in 1870 and the Victa Lawnmower in 1952.

The current ALP/Green mantra, that a tax on “Carbon Pollution” in Australia will somehow produce technological breakthroughs in economical green energy technology that will create thousands of jobs here, is definitely quite bizarre – but, unfortunately, many seem to accept it.

On the question of bias in publicly funded science, I would have to say this is inevitable. With success comes money, and with money comes politics.

As for the suggestions that science should not be government funded, I would have to disagree. The same arguments against government funding of science, such as those who wish to benefit should pay (and vice versa) often fall apart when you discuss basic science of medical research.

While I am against big government, I still believe that basics such as police/defense, health and education needs to be government funded. Why? Well I won't pretend that any of these things are an efficient use of resources, but investing in these areas provide society with long term benefits. The sort of benefits that would not satisfy an individuals or companies requirement for short term returns. Many companies today are making profits from commercializing research previously funded by the government. If medical research is cut by $400 million in this budget, what will be the cost to the taxpayer in decreased health of society resulting in longer hospital stays etc?

mayrog - international comparisons are only of limited use. The number of engineers graduating in China may simple be a reflection of its still developing status.

You also use the example of Sweden. Again those industries are called forth by economic circumstances. Sweden has more of those design firms because it has to have them. For better or worse, Australia has a major minerals industry, so it hasn't grown the manufacturing industry Sweden has.. the exact mechanism is unclear but tne number of engineers is a result of economic cirucmstances.. increasing or decreasing engineers does not change those circumstances.. it just means more or less unemployed engineers..

Why is it whenever i hear orred someone talking about capitalism being the way and trickle down economics being the answer I always think of Golden showers?

The question I have is why does the right hate science so much? sure you can talk about how to fund it but I can't help noting the rage fueled demonic thumping of the keys by some of the posters.

To the Author I think the independent group would prove to be less independent then we would like it to be without some effective way of selecting them. Value is such a subjective thing.

cornaco "The question I have is why does the right hate science so much?"

Yet it's the left against Nuclear .. huh?

So why does the left hate science?

Cronus

"The plain English movement arose when Scientists realised they needed to speak clearly with the bulk of the population."

And its work better than we anticipated:) All in our opinion, ALL have the right to know whats going on, not just the chosen few.

Huamns have made our like a DO AS YOU PLEASE....FREE FOR BANQUETTE and now the time has come to come strait......

Any Questions?

"Publications are the determinants of one’s career".....YES! It still does.

"the majority of papers published are lucky to be read by more than half a dozen people."

Thats how it used to be, however, the people/public can influence/high-light the concerns that was once pretty pointless/or of little concern, since yes! to the conspiracies, that governments tend to think like......."its only a need to know bases:)"or, "you need to break a few eggs to make an omelette" this of course, is no longer relevant.

Time and again the content of papers can be halved with reader comprehension improved."

And that's what its all about:)

LEAP

Is it possible that our government is simply 'hitching a ride' here? The scientific community is an international one. Certainly, there are some nations and some groups that like to keep their findings to themselves, but much of our scientific knowledge transcends borders. While I think it's a bit mean-spirited, I can almost understand why our government wouldn't offer significant funding and support to science when they can invest just a little and still benefit from our international friends' findings.

The trouble with that attitude is that we DO have some brilliant scientists in this country. We have brilliant minds and brilliant work ethics that are never exploited because the facilities and resources are lacking.

<< You are only exemplifying the view I described: the idea that human beings are a form of noxious pest, a plague, a cancer… >>

Peter Hume, I’m doing nothing of the sort. I’m striving for a balance between humanity and the environment and resource base.

You seem to be seeing things in a very polarised manner, as though any attempts to strike this balance are to be completely condemned!

You seem to want science to just forever increase productivity, without any ‘greenie’ encumbrances. And that seems to be about the end of it, as I read it. There’s no sense of balance or moderation in your writings.

Well, don’t you think science IS delivering what you want?

With science being funded by successive manically pro-growth governments and by big business, that’s exactly what you are going to get, far and away ahead of what I want – science based on balance and sustainability.

So I don’t understand why you think that; << the state funding of science should be abolished. >>

The CSIRO has done a lot of research into how to improve productivity on the land, amongst other things. It has greatly assisted us in our efforts to forever increase productivity and economic growth, which of course governments just love to death!

But the CSIRO also put together a comprehensive submission to the 1994 Australian population carrying capacity inquiry, arguing strongly for limits to growth based on a population in the order of 24 million if I recall correctly.

So, under a government funded regime, it managed to put out a message that very strongly conflicted with the continuous growth doctrine.

Unfortunately the government took no notice. But at least the freedom of speech and independence was there, at that time, at least for that particular scientific institution.

Is it really significantly different today?

It would be interesting to know the sources, amounts and area's of funding for say the CSIRO?

There is no information from the current Senate Committee Hearings and all I can find is total funding of $1.2Bn.

Anyone know where we might find a funding breakdown as this would add to the debate?

Ludwig

"I’m striving for a balance between humanity and the environment and resource base."

What has that got to do with government funding of science? Government doesn’t presumptively stand for balance, or humanity, or the environment, or the resource base. It claims a legal monopoly of the use of aggressive force, that is all. It has no more competence, wisdom or selflessness than the rest of the population, in fact less.

All the money to fund science comes from society. Government doesn't supply any funding that is not already available.

No-one arguing for government of science has justified their assumptions
1. that people wouldn't still fund science in the absence of government funding
2. that science wouldn’t produce as good results, or better, without government funding
3. if people were free to choose and chose not to fund science as much, that the alternative uses to which they put their money would be less beneficial for society.

So we get this assumption that, in science, government presumptively puts money to its more important uses than its own owners would. But we get this assumption *everywhere* government intervenes: roads, and health, and education, and you name it.

There’s only one problem. It’s a completely false and irrational belief. If it were true, total government control would produce a more productive economy, a better environment, and less divisiveness.

The opposite is true.

A government power to stand for "the environment" is totally false. Government does not presumptively stand for better environmental management. It's own stewardship is the classic locus of the tragedy of the commons.

A power over “the environment” must be a total power. It is not possible to limit it in theory, let alone in practice. It must spell the end of the possibility of constitutional government, which we are indeed seeing now, with government intruding into every possible corner of our lives without limit on pretext of saving "the environment".

Talk of striking a balance assumes that you have made a sensible distinction between humanity and the environment in the first place. You haven’t.

“The environment” is not a value in its own right, over and above human interests. You don’t speak for super-human values, you speak for *your* values.

Environmental problems are not a conflict between humans and “the environment”, but between humans with different interests. Environmental problems stem almost entirely from the tragedy of the commons, i.e. the inability of government to manage the environmental resources that it claims it is so indispensable at managing.

Your argument assumes that government is some kind of magic lamp that we can rub to get economic and environmental benefits otherwise unavailable. You assume
a) that government has nothing to do with causing the environmental issues in the first place, and
b) that environmental problems will get better the more we hold things in common.

These assumptions are completely false, irrational, and unscientific.

> You seem to want science to just forever increase productivity, without any ‘greenie’ encumbrances.

Not at all. I have no particular agenda for science, other than it should be voluntarily funded. I think if it was, we would get much more satisfactory results, in everyone’s terms, except for the current priviligentsia. Much would go to increasing productivity, and since productivity means the same output for lesser inputs, or more output for the same, that’s *better* for the environment. Much would go to medicine and areas of pure interest such as astronomy. Much would go to natural history, biology, ecology, and 'green' purposes like energy efficiency.

> Well, don’t you think science IS delivering what you want?

The very fact of unnecessary conflict over what should be funded proves that government funding of science produces bads not goods.

You just want to force others to fund your own pet favourite purposes, so you have no right to complain when others want to do the same for themselves.

You don't even approve of the major uses of government-funded science. So perhaps you should re-think your support of the orthodoxy?

"The nationalization of intellectual life, which must be attempted under Socialism, must make all intellectual progress impossible."
Ludwig von Mises

There is considerable economics literature on the high economic returns from basic research, although there are considerable difficulties in measurement. See for example

http://www.vwl.uni-mannheim.de/stahl/!/van/fss07/Literature/05_Universities/SM_ecobpf.pdf

on medical research:

http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/kevin.murphy/research/murphy&topel.pdf

The problem is that returns are fluctuating, intermittent, and involve considerable luck, so funding basic research requires patience, deep pockets, and an acceptance that there will be a lot of false leads.

http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/arxpapers/cond-mat_2f9809366.htm

Private research is very valuable, especially on the development end, but there are big problems in relying on it for all basic research. One problem is a short-term focus and often a lack of means to engage in risky research. Businesses have obligations to their shareholders.

Another issue is the free-rider problem. People who haven't paid often can't be excluded from the benefits of research. Our family was recently able to save money based on (public) research that involved proper trials on herbal remedies to distinguish the ones that are effective from the ones that aren't. How would Peter Hume stop this information from getting out to the people who haven't paid?

A third issue is lack of effective demand, where the people who stand to benefit or benefit most from the research cannot afford to pay for it. The Gardasil vaccine, developed in Australia, that will protect against most cervical cancer and some other rare cancers in both men and women could save millions of lives in the Third World where there is no access to Pap smears.

With private philanthropy, there are issues about whether there will be enough of it directed in the best ways to be socially optimal. Greater wealth does not necessarily imply superior wisdom about everything.

Thanks for your carefully considered response Peter.

I wrote;

< I’m striving for a balance between humanity and the environment and resource base. >

You asked;

<< What has that got to do with government funding of science? >>

I find it incredible that you would ask such a question! Don’t we want science to contribute first and foremost to a healthy vibrant future? Isn’t a sense of balance in relation to population, resource use and environment all-important in this regard? Therefore, isn’t it an essential bottom line that a significant part of our scientific fraternity be working on this, especially given our massively unbalanced continuous growth paradigm?

Crikey, do you we really want science to only or predominantly be geared towards increased productivity and improved per-capita efficiencies? This in isolation would just feed antisustainability!

We DESPERATELY need a major effort on the other side of the equation. That is; how to limit the demand and pressure on resources and environment, instead of having our scientific fraternity almost entirely geared towards how we provide resources for an ever-growing mass of humanity! (Of course, there is also a lot of science that is more marginal to our economic/social wellbeing and geared predominantly to improving our understanding of nature, but with positive spinoffs for our future wellbeing, such as my field of ecological and taxonomic botany)

<< Government doesn’t presumptively stand for balance, or humanity, or the environment … >>

No, of course it doesn’t……unfortunately. Government really is failing here in one of its most fundamental duties; to look after the best interests and wellbeing of the constituency. This fundamental short-coming is exactly why we desperately need a strong scientific fraternity, which is free of government or business bias.

<< I have no particular agenda for science, other than it should be voluntarily funded. >>

I’m staggered Peter! How can you have no desired agenda? If you have no agenda, then why is it important to you as to what it does or how it is funded?

<< Talk of striking a balance assumes that you have made a sensible distinction between….

….humanity and the environment in the first place. >>

Not at all. The desire for balance is simply the desire for us humans to stop continuously increasing pressure on our environment, resource base and future wellbeing, which I think most people can see as a major concern.

As to the details of the best balance and how best to achieve it, well that is exactly what a large part of our scientific fraternity should be working on!

<< Your argument assumes that government is some kind of magic lamp that we can rub to get economic and environmental benefits >>

!!??!! Where did you get this assertion from?? It is just the opposite to how I see it, which is exactly why we need science, as well as academia, to be much freer in their expression and choice of fields of study.

If governments can commission studies like the national population carrying capacity inquiry, as former Prime Minister Keating did in 1994 or Premier Bligh’s population growth summit in Queensland in 2010, then they might just be able to break the stranglehold of big-business / economic-rationalist pressure for never-ending rapid growth and start to steer us towards a paradigm of sustainability.

Government at all levels in Australia is far too close to the big business sector and far too removed from the general community’s long-term wellbeing. Now, while a lot of people in government don’t mind that at all, there is an increasing number of people (incumbents, opposition, minor party and independent members) who can see that this is very bad news for out future.

But getting out of the vested-interest growth-forever trap is very hard to do. One way of assisting it is to fund unbiased environment/social/ecomomic science (sustainability science), that can provide oomph for the development of a political sustainability paradigm. We ABSOLUTELY need this, as some political / post-political identities such as Bob Carr, Kelvin Thomson, and even Bob Hawke, keep expressing.

Yes, you could call this my << pet favourite purpose >> for science. But hey, is it not really the most important thing of all?

Ludwig
Obviously what concerns you is that government funding of science is being used to fund research, and to further purposes that you don’t agree with. That is an argument *against* government funding of science, not in favour of it.

“One way of assisting it is to fund unbiased environment/social/ecomomic science (sustainability science),”

The end for which science is used can never be “unbiased”, and certainly not just because it's premised on your opinion!

You would like funds to go into research intended to reduce consumption and conserve resources; and you consider this the most important thing.

But other people don’t agree with you and they think other values are the most important. So since you agree that government should fund science, and since the rationale behind democratic government is to represent the majority, even if it means forcing the minority to pay for what they disagree with, your opinion only goes to produce results that you yourself are opposed to.

How do you know, if government funding of science were abolished, that more people wouldn’t voluntarily fund conservation than economic growth?

Divergence
The articles you cite do not prove net benefits for society as a whole considering all the downside, and in any event that perspective is flawed, for why should one person, perhaps poorer, be forced to pay for a benefit for someone else, perhaps richer?

Private businesses are constrained precisely by the fact that consumers won’t voluntary pay for things that they don’t want. So it is no argument to say that private businesses won’t fund “basic research” because it only disproves the *assumption* that it's worth funding in the first place.

“Greater wealth does not necessarily imply superior wisdom about everything.”

Neither does greater power, so you haven’t go to square one in establishing a justification for state funding of science.

The fallacies of the free-rider problem are refuted in detail in this interesting article https://mises.org/journals/jls/7_1/7_1_1.pdf ; but in any event the free-rider problem is greater, not less with government funding , as you yourself have just demonstrated.

spindoc, perhaps the CSIRO's annual report is what you are looking for?

http://www.csiro.au/org/Annual-Report.html

Peter Hume, who funded research, eg. agricultural research before the government funded it?

<< Ludwig, obviously what concerns you is that government funding of science is being used to fund research, and to further purposes that you don’t agree with. That is an argument *against* government funding of science, not in favour of it. >>

Oh dear Peter, you misunderstand me. I’ve made no reference at all about anything that I think government should not be funding within the enormously broad interpretation of science. But I am complaining vehemently about what’s not being funded, and hence about the overall VERY unbalanced funding regime….which is just so strongly skewed towards the supply side of the economic equation.

The rapidly-increasing-with-no-end-in-sight demand side of the equation gets scant little attention.

<< The end for which science is used can never be “unbiased” >>

Agreed. But it certainly could be a whole lot less biased.

continued…

<< You would like funds to go into research intended to reduce consumption and conserve resources; and you consider this the most important thing. >>

No, you really are misunderstanding me terribly. There is a lot of funding going into this sort of thing, along with various other aspects of the supply side of the equation – RRR&E, as I call it: reduce, reuse, recycle and improve efficiency... and all the technological advances that we need to do these things. But this is all geared towards providing resources and a decent quality of life to ever-more people. That is; for an ever-bigger demand base.

It’s getting us nowhere, for as long as this demand base just continues to rapidly expand.

It is a very simple concept. I’m not understanding why you have apparently missed it. I thought I had expressed it very clearly in above posts.

In short; we need our scientific fraternity, and the government funding (and other funding) thereof, to be MUCH more geared towards BALANCING supply and demand, instead of concentrating almost entirely on forever increasing and refining the supply side, while leaving the demand side to rum amok!

Again, isn’t this of critical importance? If we can’t achieve a sustainable society and things are just going to get further and further out of whack, then our quality of life and quality of scientific endeavour along with it is going to crash and burn.

Still doesn't give any reason why any of it should be government-funded. So you can force people into paying for what they don't want?

"So you can force people into paying for what they don't want?"

Yes, but you can also persuade them. For example, I could say, your tax dollars are not going into research, they are going into whatever you think the government should fund.

Whereas my tax dollars are making up what I perceive is a shortfall in research dollars and and too much spent on whatever it is you would like your dollars spent on.

So there, sorted.

Rather a little too much insistence on what "the people" want.

They want what pastor or advertising tells them.

"they" are anybody offended by the above sentence. Almost certainly not people to direct any irreplaceable institution, let alone a nation.

For example what (blokes on minesites) want is women and whiskey, whereas what they need is homelife.

Similarly, supposed adults want more credit, more upgraded consumer goods, clear stratification between themselves and those with lower incomes and greater enforcement of (merely) perceived social norms upon those otherwise unable to vigourously defend their right to differ. As opposed to what they need: enough responsibility for staying alive to engage their minds and to have no energy left over to worry about the Joneses.

simple eh?

Rusty