Incomuicardo, oh I see now, you're just not very bright...

Don,
Obviously the government has a role in deciding how much of the taxpayers money to spend on research, but should it have any role in deciding where and how (by which I mean which research topics, groups etc.) this money is spent? Would a Department of Science, with a degree of independence (like the Treasury) by a good mechanism to distribute these funds? The peer review system is not perfect, but it's the best system I can think of.

Stezza,

On the whole government leaves the recommendations to experts, and for most academic research that's done by ARC and NHMRC. But if government decides that something is important, then it can devote money to research in that area (it did it in marine science, education, primary industry and energy, and so on), and its sense of what is important can affect what the experts do. So that AGW is now assumed, in climate science, so that the expert panels in that area seem to consist of those who likewise assume it — which affects what is being researched.

Stezza,
In a prior life, I often worked closely with many scientists, and attended many conferences.

I did notice most conference papers always said there was more research to be done. All this means was that their research was not thorough enough, and now they want more money.

I also noticed a considerable amount of stuff ups during research, but these were always hidden, and a research paper published that portrayed the research as being of flawless quality.

We now reach the situation where the world is heavily polluted, with CO2 filling the atmosphere and plastics filling the oceans, and resource consumption rates are well above the earth’s ability to renew or replenish resources.

But remarkably, I have not noticed any scientists going on strike and demanding governments do something about it.

They are too aware of their own pay packets for that, and instead, they seem to expect others demand that governments do something about it.

So as you may imagine, I am not overawed by scientists, and do not put them up on a pedestal and swoon at their feet.

I think the title is misleading then Don.

What it should read is:

"How do THEY make value judgments on the funding of scientific research proposals?".

The system you have described of course has always wanted to 'pick winners', especially with the 'track record' criteria and so success breeds success (if you got one before, you are more likely to get one again), which means that young researchers have a very difficult time in getting established. The ARC grants have also a significance and economic benefit section where you are supposed to describe the benefit to the country. This of course skews the types of research being done as well.

One of my pet peeves though, is that while you say that 'on the whole' the decisions are left to the experts, I have noticed that whenever the government of the day wants to change the system, they tend to take a few of the funded projects (recommended by the experts of course) that sound silly and ridicule them in parliament. They don't understand the project or its significance of course, they just sound silly to them. Then they go on about how the academics have 'lost touch' with reality.

As a political tactic, I find it incredibly ignorant and conservative governments tend to have a greater tendency to do this, but they certainly don't have exclusive rights on that.

But I guess that's what we get when we have people who have over-inflated sense of competency making our funding decisions.

As to the articles advertising about making useful judgments about 'science', well it's not about that at all. It's only about "How do we make decisions on funding science?". The answer is of course: through a politicised process.
The actual judging of science quality is best left to others who know what they are doing.

Incomuicardo, If you just dropped the 'scientists' word and replaced it with 'people', you would be much more accurate.

You are describing 'scientists' as if they are a uniform group of people, which makes me think that whatever impression you got about the scientists you served at conferences was wildly inaccurate. The crack about 'not being thorough enough', is very telling.

Bugsy,

I am sympathetic to a lot of your last post. The ridicule you refer to was usually vented by the Opposition of the day against the Government of the day, and occurred to my knowledge both during the Fraser period and the Hawke period. It occurred again in the Howard period.

Part of the problem flowed from our having turned the titles into understandable English, at the request of our Minister in 1981, from memory. That in turn made it easier for the critics. But we stuck to simple titles, rather than return to academic jargon.