Scientists – we need more of them? Heaven forbid!

More – for what purpose - to propel us faster towards the inevitable troubles on the near horizon ahead?
Make more efficient, our predation upon the natural resources we have come, at last, to realize are finite?
To streamline operations so that predation rates may be increased?
To perhaps refine processes that lead to consumption, in order to increase human numbers - for that sake alone, rather the wellbeing of numbers already existing?

Just how we are going to use scientists? That might be at least as important as how many.
Are they, in general, going to continue on as “Uncle Toms”, and a “yes boss”; being politically correct, easily bludgeoned into bastardizing their work to suit the politics and ethics of their employer at the expense of society’s needs?

It is a tough ask of them to do otherwise – more than is being asked of society generally. But, unless it is otherwise, they will be no more than facilitators of society’s march along its present unsustainable path.

We do have desperate need for dedicated scientists, such as the taxonomists, to explore the details for putting more rungs on society’s ladder of understanding and knowledge. We need them to enhance our ability to continue for a little longer, in some comfort and cohesion, within our environment.

We do need them, and need to give them a leg-up to do what is necessary. We do not need them as slaves in a lunatic society bound to an infinity of expansion

calm down, colin- there's nothing you can do, so relax and enjoy it.

after you other giant brains agree on what we should do, would you please give more thought to the question of actually getting something done?

all the discussion above seems to me to be empty blather- angel on pinhead counting. never any discussion of how to realize policies, because every one in oz not a member of parliament has nothing whatever to say about managing the nation's policies. a nation of eunuchs, most of whom are sensible enough not to talk about sex. not you lot, though.

why aren't you talking about how to get from here to democracy? the policies you want might be attainable if supported by the public. they aren't attainable under pollie rule. is that too hard for you?

Radical proposals Julian. Such stimulation to discourse will soon have you identified as an enemy of the state.
In this brave new innovative Australia where the Minister for Rivers knows more than any scientist or scientific organisation and where everything that moves is made overseas, is it being proposed that we train more scientists to boost our export figures?
However if there is a branch of science that can address the problem of chronic mendacity in politicians and inherited mediocrity in Australian men then I say go for it.
Bruce Haigh

Markob says: "High technology industry comes from government investment not the mythical operation of market forces."

I guess motor vehicles (Ford, GM, Merceds Benz etc), electricity, electronics, computers (IBM, Apple etc) and computer software (Microsoft etc) washing machines and refrigerators were picked as winners by all-knowing, all-benevolent governments?

Markob, the operation of market forces is not mythical, it happens every day. When you chose which car you would buy (I presume you don't live on a desert island) you were making a free market choice. Likewise for everything else you have ever bought. Because consumers like you choose to buy certain things other people then respond by meeting the demand for the very same things. If people don't want or need products they won't buy them and that's the way it should be. People have the right to own personal property and the right to buy and sell as they choose and that's what drives investment and innovation. What people want or need will create a demand and others will try to satisfy that need through manufacturing, invention, research and innovation. There's nothing mysterious or mythical about that process at all.

On the other hand Julian Cribb asserts that "science" needs more money from government. Why? Because there has been "...a 10 per cent decline in general science investment relative to the economy as a whole during the past decade." Now that's a very lazy argument: "We are getting less money so we need to get more."

Cribb needs to go back to the beginnnig and prove to us that government is good at picking winners.

While in general agreement with Julian Cribb's article, I think it is a pity that discussion of our national commitment to science and knowledge creation is almost always argued in economic terms. Is GDP and run-away consumption the only good to which Australians aspire? I don't believe so.

How about a debate on the importance of resourcing the sciences and other areas of knowledge creation in order to enrich the cultural and intellectual life of our communities, to inform the typically abysmal level of public policy discourse, and provide a some counter-balance to frightening depth of uninformed superstition to which so many people turn in search for meaning in a complex and confusing world.

Without such a commitment I fear for the future of our secular democracy.