Just curious as to where people think that science should be with regards to funding and stuff, i.e. should the government try and find more money for science? should perhaps more private companies invest in new technologies?

Just been thinking as science seems to be getting more popular, and more accessible, and with projects just as the periodic videos filmed within Nottingham’s chemistry department
http://periodicvideos.com/

[shameless plug]I even wrote a blog post vaguely about it.. http://schrodingerandhiscat.blogspot.com/2011/06/8611.html [/shameless plug]

So opinions?

I guess it’s like apprenticeships.
Industry, as a whole, benefits from new science or trained workers, but there’s always a risk that the company that makes the investment won’t be the one that sees the reward.

Tax religious organisations and put all of the money into science.

Industry does of course fund a lot of science. But they will only do it if there’s a clear paypack opportunity (these days). It needs universities to do the head-in-clouds stuff, then they discover things that might be useful in a practical application. The scientists at big companies then do work derived from the stuff that unis do.

However there’s a half way house, some companies fund a certain amount of head in clouds research AT universities, or at least chip in, for stuff that they think might be of use to them in the future.

To answer the OP – yes, the govt should. Top end science is one of the few things we still do here, let’s hold onto it.

Oh – I like Oggles idea.

should the government try and find more money for science?

Yes but it should also stay well out of science. Look at America; the damage done to science by one creationist nutcase being in power for 8 years.

Might also help if science reporting was left to specialist departments rather than the wider media – only have to look at the MMR scandal to see the damage that one discredited scientist can cause with the right media scare stories.

I do like Oggles idea though. 🙂

Businesses fund research that will make them money or provide them with good PR opportunities. Those with an active R and D department take a long view and will fund things that have no immediate use but may do in the future.

R and D is expensive, for every new idea you see there are loads that fail for various reasons and never get heard of. IIRC for Pharma this is somewhere in the region of 90% of all discovered drugs don’t make it to commercial viability, they do spend billions researching them before they realise this.

There is a good arguement for funding more basic science (like the videos) to get people interested as you need people to study various aspects of science so that businesses continue to fund research in the UK.

Tax religious organisations

I actually think it’s about bloody time this happened. The Church of England is an extremely wealthy organisation that enjoys all kinds of tax breaks for it’s ‘staff’, but is virtually socially redundant. I don’t see why something which is essentially a lifestyle choice should give it’s members an economic advantage over others. Why? I worked for one organisation which is a ‘charity’; they basically provide a very minimal ‘charitable’ service (and even then it’s arguable as to what actual benefit it really does provide), yet it’s employees enjoy all sorts of benefits that people who work for other, actually far more beneficial services, don’t. I don’t know all the complex details of the tax arrangements, I admit, but suffice to say, there are several employees who enjoy pretty decent standards of living, but pay bugger all tax. Get cars, computers and stuff all ‘tax-deductable’. Proper scam if you ask me.

Not to mention totally hypocritical…

I like Oggles idea too.

Tax religious organisations and put all of the money into science.

That.

I think the government cuts to research funding will come and ‘bite us on the arse’ in years to come.

the push we have seen in the last few years towards universities being profitable is a dangerous move imo. Engineering depts of universities are often ok, they can sell expertise to balance the books. It’s the physics depts etc who by the nature of the blue sky work often have no saleable ‘product’.

I think a lot of the general publics understanding can be summed up by a comment i read on the bbc website in response to the LHC being started

“why can’t all these scientists focus on something important like stopping knife crime”

without a better understanding of what scientist do – and how this effects them the general publ;ic think it is boffins and microscopes. i think that attitudes are improving, brian cox has been doing amazing work, to show the interest of science, but how it makes average joe’s life better is a difficult thing to package…

bit of a brain dump 😳

brian cox has been doing amazing work, to promote himself and further his career and increase his bank-balance…

FTFY.

thomthumb, I was on the verge of writing a very similar rant about media treatment of “science” and the wider public attitude but I just had to step away from the computer…

govt needs to do it as the market will only have a go at things where they can see a return. much research has no obvious method of making money from it so business does not care – the space race is a good example what commercial opportunities are there so big business wont invest IMHO
Did you see this link re shrodingers cat
Quantum mechanics rule ‘bent’ in classic experiment

Yes church as a charity my arse

Just been thinking as science seems to be getting more popular, and more accessible, and with projects just as the periodic videos filmed within Nottingham’s chemistry department

Science, remarkably, wasn’t getting more popular according to the last stats I saw about 12 months ago – it showed vast drops in numbers in science and engineering (as a percentage of total intake to unis). I’m not sure what the current stats are.

I think science and eng should be getting notably more funding for the simple reason that they’re a pretty major part of the UK economy. We have, currently, world class teaching and research facilities in the UK. Cuts to funding of such things affect everyone negatively, not just students and uni staff. They’re a foundation for major manufacturing and tech industries that run the world practically these days.

What I find funny is in the UK research in engineering and science has to prove it’s commercial potential worth before it gets funding, one the whole, yet the arts get their funding pretty much without restriction. I realise the need for some way of discriminating between projects to pay for, but bearing in mind that most of the major developments in science and engineering in the last century came from ideas that, at the time, were considered farcical and useless by peers, why are we now preventing that exploration of the unknown? Researchers are, generally by definition and design, not very good at looking at the commercialisation of their work, yet they’re pretty much expected to produce a business plan from the slightest idea they come up with.

yet the arts get their funding pretty much without restriction.

Really? I’d be interested to know some facts on this actually.

More government money for blue sky research? That would be great. The world needs more British science boffins. Especially now as universities might be laying off academics as they struggle to cover their costs.

As for ‘90% of putative drugs fail’ – a big chunk of the cost of a drug pays for the R&D for the ones that didn’t make it. Tufts university in the USA has done sequential research on the subject. Estimates vary somewhat, but I’ve seen suggestions that the cost of a new drug is something like $1,000,000,000 in R&D.

I suggest a tax on ‘spine wizards’, ‘water magicians’ and other ‘alternative therapy’ snake oil salesmen. Folks find solace in religion, but charlatans should be taxed to the limit.

elfinsafety- what was your point? I think we all do our jobs for the money and our careers, it just so happens that Brian Cox is also doing what thomthumb said.

Really? I’d be interested to know some facts on this actually.

Certainly basing that on annecdotal evidence chatting to those in that field, I don’t know the details of the application processes, but there’s no commercial pre-requisite as far as I’m aware (and rightly not).

Hmm, all I can see in those ‘Amazing’ programmes is quite a lot of scientific theory and hypothesis presented as facts, dressed up with some fancy exciting graphics, shot in gorgeous locations with a floppy-haired housewives’ favourite.

Not a great deal of actual ‘science’.

Dumbed down and sexed up. ‘Science’ for couch potatoes.

Especially now as universities might be laying off academics as they struggle to cover their costs.

Might be? You should see the numbers taking voluntary severance here. Whoe research groups decimated, whole departments shed.

Dumbed down and sexed up. ‘Science’ for couch potatoes.

You’d be surprised at the average level of understanding of science and eng in the UK, it’s pretty low, aiming higher would be utterly pointless.

Certainly basing that on annecdotal evidence…

Erm, I asked for facts. Not waffle. 🙄

Erm, I asked for facts. Not waffle.

Not really waffle, I work in a university and speak to some of the arts staff, I just haven’t read the application processes (I have enough of a job keeping up with my own 😆 ) and they’ll be slightly different across the sources.

but thats all it is meant to be, which is why it can be broadcast on BBC1 or 2. I dont think its a bad thing having someone so completely taken by physics like Brian Cox explaining simple things to the masses, as it creates a soft spot for science, in the people who have watched any of his documentaries.

Dumbed down and sexed up.

well he could try reading out a peer reviewed paper but i can’t see it going down quite so well. 🙄

The Church of England is an extremely wealthy organisation that enjoys all kinds of tax breaks for it’s ‘staff’, but is virtually socially redundant. I don’t see why something which is essentially a lifestyle choice should give it’s members an economic advantage over others.

Erm, I asked for facts. Not waffle.

So…. where’s the evidence for C of E being “extremely wealthy” please? Or indeed any other mainstream denomination e.g. RC, Episcopal Church, Muslims, etc? Thanks in advance!

It has it’s place.

On BBC 3, right after ‘Pint of lager..’

is quite a lot of scientific theory and hypothesis presented as facts

what more is there to science ?It removes infinite error it does not find truth. unfortunately the public want it is definitely global warming, the big bang is how it all started we know gravity is true etc.
think he does OK tbh but it is not that high brow IMHO

It has it’s place.

On BBC 3, right after ‘Pint of lager..’

I think you’re overly cynical and unaware (or purposefully under-rating) of the positive impact such shows have on the general population and their interest in science for effect here.

Still, you’re entitled to your opinion.

I was reading an interesting article by Tim Harford commenting that in recent years patents and other innovations have come from much larger teams than in the past. Those teams are made up of more specialised people and those people are so specialised that they are unlikely to contribute to innovations in any other field.

That makes innovation much more expensive than it used to be, (he gives the example that the Spitfire was prototyped for roughly the price of a london house), you couldn’t make similar comparisons now to the cost of developing any kind of vehicle, let alone a game changing one – and maybe as a result the rate of innovation is slowing.

His point was that we need to look at new ways to pay for innovation as the model we need is somewhere between government research programmes (which are might spend a lot of money but isn’t keen on long odds) and the private sector (which doesn’t mind long odds so long as they are comparatively cheap).

Instead we should look at something closer to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute – invest huge sums in highly speculative work, where the failure rate is high, but where success results in ‘block busters’ – massive innovations

And as for taxing the profits of the church – I don’t know about the C of E but the church of Scotland is dying on its arse. Around 120 ministers retire every year and only 4 or 5 are recruited, even by they’re own admission they think they’ll be extinct in the near future.

So…. where’s the evidence for C of E being “extremely wealthy” please?

Have a little Google. Plenty there. CofE is one of the largest landowners in Britain, with a property portfolio valued at several billion pounds. Makes shed loads from investments, property sales, home-made jam at church fetes and that.

So…. where’s the evidence for C of E being “extremely wealthy” please?

http://www.propertycommunity.com/property-in-the-uk/100-the-church-of-england-and-the-property-market-boom.html

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_050331cofe.shtml
http://www.perceptions.couk.com/morals.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/janet-street-porter/editoratlarge-thats-a-bit-rich-ndash-the-church-going-on-about-wealth-1206401.html

Thats more money than I’ve got.

http://boards.fool.co.uk/wealth-of-the-catholic-church-10962908.aspx?sort=postdate

…and the Pope can afford a new bike too.

Hmm.

What does the church do with the money made?

And having lots of land is not the same as being rich – ask a farmer.

Have a little Google. Plenty there. CofE is one of the largest landowners in Britain, with a property portfolio valued at several billion pounds. Makes shed loads from investments, property sales, home-made jam at church fetes and that.

Just spent 10 minutes finding absolutely nothing which tells me the spending power that CofE has. Their wealth is tied up in assets (i.e. church buildings, property) which do not generate capital for day-to-day financing. This relies upon funding from donations, which are in decline as church-going declines. So how on Earth can you tax the CofE on money they don’t have?

They own stuff like this:

And this:

And get involved in things like this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/25/church-loses-40m-in-new-york

Their wealth is tied up in assets

Still wealth though in’t it?

So how on Earth can you tax the CofE on money they don’t have?

They’ve got plenty. When was the last time you saw an Archbishop in LiDLs?

@coffeeking ‘might be’ was perhaps over-subtle.

In the diocese where my Mum goes to church, the priest there has to cover masses in 4 diocese in a day. The RC, at least in the UK, does not have the money to pay the meagre (in terms of hours worked, less than the minimum wage) wages of its clergy due to a drastic decline in church-going numbers.

The church/cathedral buildings which have been cited as assets are also financial liabilities given the required upkeep because of their age, community and historical importance. They are also notoriously expensive to heat and often aren’t!

Ok so the Church of England is poor. Yeah, right. And the rest… 😉

Although, as a regular shopper at LiDLs, I have never seen an Archbishop in there. I did see a priest in Waitrose though, which kind of supports my argument somewhat.