Defund Science
Biochemist Terence Kealey is former Vice Chancellor of the University of Buckingham in the UK. He is also a libertarian who argues for getting the government out of funding science in any capacity. The heavy hand of government is more likely to strangle creativity and throttle practicality than to solve actual real-world problems, he says. Government has no limits on excessive spending. And because it fundamentally involves politics, government-funded science is more likely to impose answers on research questions than to strive to find actual answers in a search for truth.
Kealey makes the case that academic science had been the exclusive purview of private business and industry until the post-war years in America, when the enthusiastic support for government intervention led to its cooption—and, as Kealey sees it—corruption by the state. As it happens, the corruption of science by government is one of the two main factors that President Eisenhower spoke of in his famous farewell address from January 17, 1961, best known for his warning about the “military-industrial complex.” Overlooked by comparison was this section:
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.
(The whole speech is available as text and audio here.)
Kealey argues that government funding for science was a novel idea advocated for by government itself with arguments bolstered by academic economists who willfully distorted their own academic field in order to furnish the support their government paymasters demanded. If science were ever needed for a government project, the funding should presumably be limited and focused rather than in the form of a blank check that could be drawn upon in perpetuity and without clear objectives. Kealey, leaning on Eisenhower, mentions that government employment itself would come to dominate the thoughts of academic researchers.
Historically, it was the result of a Cold War scare that the Soviets were gaining ground in science thanks to government. While President Truman had once vetoed the expansion of federal science funding, he later approved it as fear of Soviet military advantage swelled. The idea was initially politically convenient, but it later found tailored academic support from the Rand Corporation (which derives its name from “r[esearch] and d[evelopment]”).
The video version of this particular talk is suitably long and detailed, but the audio suffices entirely on its own.
The podcast version and the episode’s transcript are here.
Why the interest in this topic? Because of the recurring sense that we’re going to need to find ways of cutting government spending eventually, for one. As interest rates rise, and as every bill that Congress manages to pass expands government spending, this particular point that Eisenhower made over 60 years ago is as pertinent as ever:
As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.
When it comes to government spending and authority, it’s as if we’d heard the admonition and promptly set sail in the opposite direction ever since. I fear we’re eventually going to run out of sea, ending up shipwrecked and destitute.
Re Defund Science: On the other hand: The Research Triangle (Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill) takes its name from Research Triangle Park, founded in the late 1950s - early 1960s. The park was founded as a public-private project to capitalize on the synergy created by the intellectual resources at the world class universities in those cities (NC State, Duke and University of NC).
https://www.rtp.org/history/
There are many, many companies in this area created by university researchers based on products derived from their research. When I was in college, there was a discussion about how best to deal with the intertwining of public and private money that gave birth to these companies. How to compensate the universities for their contributions in resources and personnel? How to handle intellectual property rights?
Now we have Centennial Campus, which is home to the engineering school as well as a number of businesses working with university researchers.
This hybrid approach introduces market forces that can temper political biases. Government money spent to fund research has created significant returns on investment in terms of taxable profits (state and Federal), job creation, and growth of the local economy (a mixed blessing).
No doubt there is waste, but, like with everything else these days, rooting it out is complicated.
Off today’s topic but good. Please let me know if this is available to non-subscribers: https://open.substack.com/pub/bariweiss/p/the-day-the-delusions-died?r=50b9j&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post