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Huge amounts of money are spent on scientific research, much of it by governments. Government funding is politicized, an unavoidable problem that manifests in various ways depending on the socio-political system. Opportunists of various stripes continuously maneuver for advantage, increasingly by making shrill accusations that their political opponents are doing the same. These pot and kettle contests would be humorous if the issues weren't important.
The previous post Science Politics refuted the somewhat muddled advocacy of Lawrence Lessig's Wired article Stamping Out Good Science which repeats the hollow idea that philosopher kings of some sort should control science funding, regardless of public concern or minority objections, for the good of society. It's the father knows best approach, an idea that some developed societies rejected a few decades ago after taking a close look at father's previous work.
There is one region where science funding has the worst of both approaches, a father-knows-best system that it completely politicized.
Ask a selection of European scientists what they think about the way the European Union funds basic research and you'll get a pretty clear answer. It may be a frustrated snort or a bitter laugh, but you'll get the picture. Now, the European Commission has outlined plans for an overhaul of research funding, but scientists' hopefulness is tinged with skepticism. Many researchers say that the EU's current Framework Programme, which awards funds to researchers, is plagued by baffling mountains of paperwork, political and social agendas, and onerous reporting requirements.Bizarrely, some are advocating that Europe become more like the US."Bureaucracy is the absolute main frustration, but also lack of trust in the scientists, lack of willingness to take risks, and finally, last but not least, a nonrealistic and very centralistic view on the science process,"
Scientists and scientific institutions in the United States have undergone a quiet revolution during the last 15 years: Whereas politics and advocacy were previously shunned, they are now embraced. Particularly in the medical research arena, but increasingly also in other areas of science, a dense interactive network of organizations, individual contacts, and campaigns exerts influence on public life. Key issues include, naturally, the levels of funding for science, but also the moral and ethical questions raised by new research, and education and public awareness.While reactionaries in the US advocate a more European approach to science funding progressives in Europe advocate a more American approach. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, or seems that way, which is a good argument for fences and diverse management approaches. But which of these approaches is best?European scientists appear to be lagging in terms of advocacy. For decades they have been hugely frustrated by the European Union's science funding through the Framework Programme (FP). As reported in Profession | A Change in EU Science?, researchers were powerless to affect either the scientific priorities or the funding mechanisms, and such was the level of bureaucracy that many top European scientists cold-shouldered the FP altogether.
They are both bad. The problem is that so much science funding is subject to political influence. As long as governments are a major source of the science funding stream there will be every incentive to manipulate science. A pile of money, like a pot of honey or a pile of dung, draws pests. Though it is possible for a rational system of government funding to exist for a moment in time the incentive for others to fight their way into a position of control is powerful. The result is continuous change and confusion. The more money governments throw at science the more pests it will attract. As in Europe this plays into the hands of bureaucrats who capture the funding stream and manage it for their own benefit, ignoring both the public's interests and the desires of scientists.
The problems are unsolvable but there are approaches that are less wasteful and ineffective. The US system is rightly noted as being better but the full system should be considered. Two thirds of US science funding comes from private sources rather than the national government. Increasingly, individual states are becoming more active in science funding, notably in the highly charged embryonic stem cell research arena. The US system is highly politicized and has become increasingly so since Gaylord Nelson convinced John Kennedy to pursue a politicized approach to ecological issues in 1962, but the current trend to multiple funding streams reduces the harmful effects of both political and bureaucratic capture. Different states can pursue the desires of their consituencies, private interests can fund efforts they prefer, and allow various managemnt systems to see who grows the greenest grass. On a global level we have even greater diversity as developing nations become significant centers of research.
The problem in the EU is that funding is controlled at a high level. Becoming more like the US, with increased activism by organizations composed of politicians and politicized scientists, won't make things better unless the EU also diversifies the funding stream to include more private money and individual national control of funding. Both the EU and the US could improve by reducing centralization. This achieves two worthy objectives: it increases self-rule by allowing diverse polities to have their say about how their money is spent, and it increases the power of scientists to influence funding decisions at the expense of bureaucrats. This won't curb the politicians - flies, dung etc. - but it reduces the scope of their predations and allows competing interests to each have a dung pile to mine.