[sQL_inject]

I think if you're against these cuts you also have to be open to finding out which of these historical investments have a good rate of return. I.e. which is more important, tax dollars spent finding out the composition of Mars rocks or spent on fusion energy?

In the spirit of good science and as a happy taxpayer for the cause of these organizations, we should still be open to their scrutiny. A simple question we should ask, after all we're good scientists, is whether these groups are at their appropriate funding-to-success level or not, particularly in an era of a spiraling debt crisis.

[rsfern]

This is already what the funding agencies do! The merit review process solicits outside expert assessment of the importance, feasibility, and potential impact (including economic development and societal impact) of the research, and the funding agencies do their best to maintain a balanced portfolio of research that is promising for advancing national priorities

By all means we should discuss the transparency of this process, what those national priorities are, and exactly what we (collectively as taxpayers) the risk-reward tradeoff should be. But let’s not pretend that the funding agencies don’t already view science as a public investment, or be too hasty about dismissing the potential medium term economic value of research into for example geology and geochemistry on mars

[JohnFen]

If we predicate what things are worth studying based on expected monetary returns, then we've put a stake through the heart of scientific inquiry.

[tacitusarc]

I don’t find this compelling, especially given the enormity of the replication crisis and misconduct in academia. If scientific institutions want less budgetary scrutiny and more freedom, they need to be fundamentally trustworthy, but the past decade has made it amply clear that is not the case.

More rigor around funding isn’t putting a stake through the heart of scientific inquiry; fabricating data is.

[bell-cot]

> I think if you're against these cuts you also have to be open to ...

Philosophically, that assertion can be made.

Real-world, there are vastly more humans who are against these cuts for mundane reasons than there are devout philosophers.

And our current scientific research establishment is a bloated & self-serving bureaucracy. Which demands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_of_clergy while treating its actual production workers like crap.

And, given human nature, reforming a crappy "X-ology Research Establishment" is far more difficult that deciding on the in-theory relative merits of researching X-ology vs. Y-ology vs. Z-ology.

[bumby]

How do you define “success”? Is “return” just in pure economic terms or are we also measuring other benefits to society?

[tanaros]

> In the spirit of good science and as a happy taxpayer for the cause of these organizations, we should still be open to their scrutiny. A simple question we should ask, after all we're good scientists, is whether these groups are at their appropriate funding-to-success level or not, particularly in an era of a spiraling debt crisis.

I agree, in principle. However, this is a trap.

Here’s a playbook:

1. Declare, loudly, that a problem exists. The problem doesn’t have to be real, but it’s better if it is.

2. Announce, even more loudly, that you are going to address the problem in a way that’s suspiciously self serving.

3. Implement your preferred solution as rapidly as possible. The “solution” can be as flawed as you like. It may or may not actually fix the original problem; that part is unimportant.

4. When people react to your implementation, they sort themselves into three buckets: supporters (partisan or otherwise), detractors (partisan or otherwise), and “reasonable people” who “see both sides.”

5. While the “reasonable people” are still debating whether it was a good idea to cure the patient’s brain tumor by decapitation, move on to the next “problem” that needs to be “fixed.”

[dragonwriter]

A well-known (at the time; awareness has probably faded somewhat since) different articulation of this playbook, from an (anonymous) implementor of it in the Bush Administration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community