I've heard of basic science research (and funding) being likened to growing crops (albeit with different timeframes). You have to spend a lot of time and effort sowing seeds and about 20-30 years later you get to harvest the benefits.
Edit: I think other commenters might be missing the irony in the OP. The author mentions LCD monitors, prescription glasses, medicine, clean water, medical technology, the internet, satellites and computers. After all that, he ends with "What have they [scientists] ever done for me?"
All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
This article makes an all too common economic fallacy.
It argues against a proposed marginal cut in spending on science. In order to portray this as a bad idea, he then argues that in total, spending on science is a good thing.
Similarly, I oppose 10% cuts in military spending because if the military were cut 100% 50 years ago, I'd probably have suffered under communism.
This is the logical fallacy of the "excluded middle".
I don't think he's making any policy suggestions so much as he's fighting the mindset a lot of people have: the anti-intellectual stance that scientists are a bunch of ivory tower elites that have no real impact on society. Certainly, there are places where we're unnecessarily spending money in science. But that doesn't justify some anti-science rhetoric you're seeing from some.
If the author had even pretended like he was making a rigorous, logical case for why some particular budget should not be cut then you would have a very good point. Yes, a specific instance of a science budget being cut is mentioned, barely. It's really obvious that the author had a bunch of general opinions he wanted to share and the news about the budget cut was merely an impetus to write.
Actually, 50 years ago is pretty much the time of the "missile gap" hysteria where the US military was wildly overestimating the threat from Soviet strategic systems to justify expenditure on new weapons systems. So a pretty enormous reduction could have been been made, the Soviets would still have been deterred and the consequences of any war would have been an awful lot less terrible.
Speaking of logical fallacies, science sure looks a whole lot better if you only look at the benefits it has brought to society, and not at any of the harms.
When the vast majority of the people who promote science are just as intellectually dishonest as any other variety of religious fundamentalists, I think it rightfully raises a lot of questions about the true value of the endeavor.
That is significantly less than the cost of... several single large initiatives that have passed through Congress recently (no doubt if I picked an actual example then I'd wind up with a political argument on my hands...)
I haven't seen such an attitude, either. Not stated so explicitly, anyway.
What is more common is the attitude that, for example, we should put off manned space exploration "until we solve all of our problems here on Earth." I have personally witnessed this attitude in high school cheerleaders and DC lawyers.
I've seen it, in various strengths/flavors, in the southern United States. My guess is that it's more common among people whose complete life experience is so far removed from any scientific endeavor that they've never needed to understand how science works or how it gets turned into technology.
In the interest of fairness: the opinions of some scientists, whose complete life experience is so far removed from any blue collar work that they've never needed to understand why some people don't know anything about science, are often equally as uninformed. (Note: I'm not suggesting Dr. Plait is in this category.)
Indeed, the whole article comes off as strawman-ish. Nobody [to first approximation * ] ever says something like "I mean, seriously? Scientists?! What have they ever done for me?" because, well, that attitude is quickly discredited by a moment's thought.
Now, what you will find is people with attitudes like
1. Useful sciencey things like MRIs and clean water are important, but a lot of what's going on is just a pointless waste of time and money (seriously, you spent how much to figure out the internal mass distribution of Jupiter?), or
2. Science has done all sorts of bad things to the rainforest and stuff!
3. Yes well, science is very important, but we have major budget problems so it's inevitable that pure research budgets need to be cut, or
4. Why are we spending all this money on [huge science project of little practical utility] when [far more urgent and heartrending problem]
But these are much more difficult arguments than the one which Phil Plait appears to want to have with the imaginary dude in his head.
[+] [-] amirmc|14 years ago|reply
I've heard of basic science research (and funding) being likened to growing crops (albeit with different timeframes). You have to spend a lot of time and effort sowing seeds and about 20-30 years later you get to harvest the benefits.
Edit: I think other commenters might be missing the irony in the OP. The author mentions LCD monitors, prescription glasses, medicine, clean water, medical technology, the internet, satellites and computers. After all that, he ends with "What have they [scientists] ever done for me?"
[+] [-] shabble|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yummyfajitas|14 years ago|reply
It argues against a proposed marginal cut in spending on science. In order to portray this as a bad idea, he then argues that in total, spending on science is a good thing.
Similarly, I oppose 10% cuts in military spending because if the military were cut 100% 50 years ago, I'd probably have suffered under communism.
This is the logical fallacy of the "excluded middle".
[+] [-] j_baker|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Goladus|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arethuza|14 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap
[+] [-] mkr-hn|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leoc|14 years ago|reply
> This is the logical fallacy of the "excluded middle".
- come again? The negation of a proposition is not its opposite (for most possible understandings of what an opposite is).
[+] [-] Alex3917|14 years ago|reply
When the vast majority of the people who promote science are just as intellectually dishonest as any other variety of religious fundamentalists, I think it rightfully raises a lot of questions about the true value of the endeavor.
[+] [-] watchandwait|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hugh3|14 years ago|reply
That is significantly less than the cost of... several single large initiatives that have passed through Congress recently (no doubt if I picked an actual example then I'd wind up with a political argument on my hands...)
[+] [-] ulvund|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] winestock|14 years ago|reply
What is more common is the attitude that, for example, we should put off manned space exploration "until we solve all of our problems here on Earth." I have personally witnessed this attitude in high school cheerleaders and DC lawyers.
[+] [-] amcintyre|14 years ago|reply
In the interest of fairness: the opinions of some scientists, whose complete life experience is so far removed from any blue collar work that they've never needed to understand why some people don't know anything about science, are often equally as uninformed. (Note: I'm not suggesting Dr. Plait is in this category.)
[+] [-] hugh3|14 years ago|reply
Now, what you will find is people with attitudes like
1. Useful sciencey things like MRIs and clean water are important, but a lot of what's going on is just a pointless waste of time and money (seriously, you spent how much to figure out the internal mass distribution of Jupiter?), or
2. Science has done all sorts of bad things to the rainforest and stuff!
3. Yes well, science is very important, but we have major budget problems so it's inevitable that pure research budgets need to be cut, or
4. Why are we spending all this money on [huge science project of little practical utility] when [far more urgent and heartrending problem]
But these are much more difficult arguments than the one which Phil Plait appears to want to have with the imaginary dude in his head.
[+] [-] mkr-hn|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] stopsucking|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mathattack|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] diego_moita|14 years ago|reply