Pollie:

Here is the question for the third time:

...My question is; If any industry presented such a huge litany of failures, as does the research "Industry", why would it not be abandoned for the failure it is?

...Well...The overpriced white elephant has been abandoned by the industry to benefit the most from its overly-sparse success rate; the medical industry, and handed to the "TAX PAYER" to pay the tab.

...And the outrage this situation is, becomes more outrageous when considering which segment of the community are press-ganged into paying proportionately the most of it, the poor and sick among us!

....The problem with you and your fellow politician mates in the halls of irrelevance, is your total disconnect from the human race, and the damage that disconnect has on the lives of the "lesser" folk you pretend to serve, by dishing up this particular research "Porky" as truth!

Oh come on! Of course there are failures, that is the nature of research. The point is it is the successes that more than counteract the failures. Risky research has potential huge payoff, but of course also has a great potential for failure. It is the nature of the beast and life. Same thing goes for various investment strategies. There is a lot of incremental research, extremely low risk but also extremely low reward. Hence you need a portfolio with various risk levels. Your solution seems to be no research. If that is the case, then there will be no improvement, and we will have same old same old, with no advance. You might choose to be a Luddite, I prefer a world where there is improvement.

Pollie, Ludwig

You do understand that you're arguing that socialisation of the means of production makes society fairer and more productive?

It's enough to dispose of your arguments that you can't identify by what rational criterion you know whether research in any given case, or in general, is too much, too little, or just the right amount.

Answering as you have done by ignoring the question, and fluffing yourself up with indignation, proves my case, not yours.

Your technique amounts only to alleging the benefits while assuming the costs are worthwhile, or asserting they are without any demonstration in units of a lowest common denominator, which is simply irrational.

Quote Don

“The cuts that have been made are not severe, and to me they suggest a warning from the Government to the research establishments that it is serious about the need for good research, not research that is suitable to a previous government's agenda. Of course I have global warming in mind here, and feel like warning the Government not to want its own supportive research too.”

This smacks of wanting the government to only support science, which happens to support your view of the world. I would suggest that climate science is an extremely useful area of research, for a vast range of activates such as agriculture, shipping and aviation to name but a few. Narrowly focusing your attention on AGW does not alter the fact that research into climate is going to improve both short and long range predictions.

<< … Ludwig you do understand… >>

No, sorry Jardine, I don’t understand what you saying that I am supposed to understand!!

However, it is surely a very silly argument that government should not fund any research because we can’t….

<< …know whether research in any given case, or in general, is too much, too little, or just the right amount. >>

I am not in agreement with Pollie re:

< …the free market is the best driver of progress, provided that that market has integrity. Planned economies have clearly failed… >>

But I do concur with this:

<< Of course there are failures, that is the nature of research. The point is it is the successes that more than counteract the failures. Risky research has potential huge payoff, but of course also has a great potential for failure. It is the nature of the beast and life. >>

i think what your all missing..is the easy stuff/has been found
the 'new stuff/needs rely on other invention/from here ON IN/WE CAN MAKE THINGS SO SMALL..we cant see their uses or dangers

[too/big..to find..TODAY..WE LOST TOO MUCH ALLREADY
THE TRUE SKILL IS IN RETAINING..RE-DICOVERY

polies said..<<>.So diver,..where would you be without wifi? >>

how much should we invest on the next stage>
or wait till its true cost is found..[think cane toads]

<<..How about without semiconductors?>>

yes those lev trains hoW GREAT..of course its too expensive[and energy has doubled]..so these thing[mag lev=dead]..of course there are other apps/but can you rebuild it/like we can eASY REBUILD A CANE TRAIN/RAILWAY TRACK AFTER THE FLOOD?..

<<..How about without lasers?>>..how about dynamite/atomiC BOMBS GMO/CANCER CLUSTERS?..HOW ABOUT THE ONES THAT HAVE NEGATIVE RETURN/FOR SPURILOUS EVEN DESTRUCTIVE INVEntive attention.

<<>How about without GPS, satellite communications, I think you get the picture. So, you still think we should have no research?>>

there is reasonable..reasearch/that invents
then there is the other[think ink jet printer ink scam[or the light bulb conspiricy/or the research that invented 500 child proof lighters that all now have gone[but the onethat was big before[bic]

point is we had vhs/and beta..that came from the phylips tape cassettes'invenmtion'..no sooner had we bought the vhs/than we went dvd..certainly better.but we went foppy disk/hard dick..dicette/to chip[in sound we went from wax cylenders to 78/33/45..to reel to real/from super 8 MM TO 37mil..yes we got storage of data now to a stage..where we need chose what worked best[i dont the research..and the reply is 33..1/3..rpm DISC[IE lp-RECORDS]..for personal use/and govt in hard copy[we know digetal data corrupts.

thing is we have had far too many formats/to much viral inventtion
we found too much knowing[so much so that our kids now must spend the\first half of the ir life in study/we ned ratify the knowing we have[secure what we got/before it all goes bust

to few know to much
if public payed public must have acces]
buisness in confidence =insider traitering