For Jardine K. J., 'true value' is what we wonder could come from an invention that has yet to be developed, let alone commercialised.

How would we know? The old Industrial Research and Development Board (another of the bodies on which I once sat) used to provide funds to develop a few such inventions so that we could see whether there was likely to real fruit at the end.

The filtering system? Boards, committees and councils, that are given the task of sort out the wheat from the chaff. At the end of their work they put up recommendations to the Minister.

In that period I had the good fortune to spend some time with the National Science Foundation in Washington, and met a man who did what we later did in the IR&DB. He told me that many inventions, while brilliant, just didn't make good commercial sense — too much would already be invested in inventories, or processes, or networks. Yes, the invention was clever, and better — but not that much better or cleverer. It was a salutary lesson, and it came earlier in my period in this business.

"It's really hard to resile from position that have been taken up with enthusiasm, and that applies to governments no less than individuals."

It is actually quite easy Don, you just have to recognise when faced with the evidence that you might be wrong. Most scientists do that frequently.

Agronomist,

"It is actually quite easy Agronomist, you just have to recognise when faced with the evidence that you might be wrong. Most rational, appropriately skeptical people do that frequently.

Unfortunately, those who are inclined to follow cults tend to be gullible. No matter what the evidence, they cannot accept they may be wrong. I've seen no sign in your comments that you challenge your beliefs, or that you read widely information that does not support your beliefs,

Actually Peter Lang, any scientist that has applied for funding would be quite familiar with Dons recollection of how science is funded. The only people who would find it 'interesting' and 'informative' are those that would have no experience of it, i.e. those ignorant of the process.

Which of course, speaks more about yourself than those that you say this information has "gone over their heads". Quite the opposite I'm afraid.

Unfortunately, those that are within cults (like the climate change denial cult) often cannot see where they are in the greater scheme of things.

Bugsy.

"Actually Peter Lang, any scientist that has applied for funding would be quite familiar with Dons recollection of how science is funded. The only people who would find it 'interesting' and 'informative' are those that would have no experience of it, i.e. those ignorant of the process.

Which of course, speaks more about yourself "

This comment about yourself. It demonstrates you make totally assumptions and build a belief on it. You have not a clue what my experience is in the are Don's article is about. Instead of making baseless assumptions, you'd be better off to ask questions. The fact you make up assumptions and strawman arguments like this demonstrates you cannot be trusted - i.e you have demonstrated you are intellectually dishonest.

Can you fill us in a bit on how much experience you've had in evaluating research proposals, selections for funding, recommendations to ministers, evaluations of the research both during and after completion? I presume you would realise you need to provide sufficient detail to make it clear what level your involvement was at.

Don
"'true value' is what we wonder could come from an invention that has yet to be developed, let alone commercialised"

1. why is that 'true value'?
2. what if others don't agree with your concept of true value as concerns their own forced contribution?
3. who's "we"?
4. why should that particular collective be the decision-making entity? Why not some other?

There's no use telling me that the government creates bureaucracies, variously titled, to decide what is going to be state-funded, and what is not. We know that.

The point, they don't have any rational way of achieving the end they've set themselves.

They aren't capable of knowing what the subjective values of the ultimately consumers of their services are, any better than those people themselves. And they have no way of ensuring that the means they employ, are *rationally* employed to the ends they want to achieve.

Yes, the government can take funds from its subject population and spend them on science. Yes we can say that the scientific end was useful and beneficial.

What they can't do is establish any rational basis for asserting that the means sacrificed for that end, have necessarily produced more satisfactory results from the standpoint of the ultimate consumers and the ultimate human welfare criterion, however defined, than would have obtained in the absence of state funding of any given project. They can’t establish that it’s a rational use of resources.

All they do is pretend that the original economic problem – the need to rationalise scarce resources to their most valued ends - doesn't exist just because government is doing the funding.

But then the approach is irrational. The means for funding science were already scarce before we enter into any question of government funding. So the advocates of state-funded science are assuming that means are scarce and must be rationally economised if science is privately funded, otherwise losses will be greater than profit and they’ll go broke, which is the original reason why the private sector can't be trusted to fund the science the statists want the state to fund.