As one who actively participates in this parlor game, I disagree with the premise. Prior to writing proposals, I would have thought writing proposals was a huge waste of time and effort. However, we have a saying that no good idea goes to waste. When writing, you have to be clear and concise and your idea has to be good to get funding. If you don't get funded, you usually get good, useful feedback. You get better, your ideas get better, and the person reviewing them has learned what many scientist in the field are proposing as the best new directions for research. These are all valuable uses of time that might otherwise be spent learning how to make your ideas better, how to communicate them better, and how better understand what is going on in the field. In other words, things that you would be doing anyway.<p>I think the biggest problem facing science right now is the scale at which it is occurring. My field does not have this problem, but I can't imagine what it's like trying to stay on top of the literature in e.g. medical sciences. Paper writing and peer review work at much smaller scales - there are order hundreds scientist in my field and I think it's functioning just fine. For fields with thousands and 10s of thousands of active researchers, I think there needs to be a different way to vet and organize information. I don't know what that is exactly but it might look something like twitter (can't believe I'm writing this!). On second thought, maybe it looks more like HN!<p>The misalignment of incentives can be problematic as well, but arguably, not the biggest problem.
Sounds a lot like the effect of venture capital in the present day.<p>> First of all, the best scientists would be removed from their laboratories and kept busy on committees passing on applications for funds<p>Convince talented technical innovators that the best way they can apply themselves is to become a 'business person'"; then, talk to VCs and feel important by spending a lot of money instead of building something<p>> Secondly, the scientific workers in need of funds would concentrate on problems which were considered promising and were pretty certain to lead to publishable results<p>Do whatever VCs think is hot<p>> For a few years there might be a great increase in scientific output<p>The last 15 years?<p>> There would be fashions. Those who followed the fashion would get grants. Those who wouldn’t would not, and pretty soon they would learn to follow the fashion, too.<p>Yep.
Lots of conflicting views held by the scientific community:<p>* Science is progressing too fast
* Science is progressing too slow with not enough breakthroughs
* The barrier to publish is too high and is wrought with politics
* There's too many papers published and we need a higher bar as not everyone is a genius
* My research is important and deserves funding
* Others research is trivial and they don't deserve funding
* Committees suck, they do nothing, just gate-keep who gets money and there's politics involved
* X research is trivial, shouldn't receive funding, someone has to stop this
* The public should understand what we're doing research on
* A lot of the research being published is being exaggerated in quality, difficulty and correctness<p>I guess it's no different than the conflicting views of any community. If there's no conflict, things get stale.
Reminds me of this 1944 field manual from the CIA[0] about how to sabotage organizations.<p>[0]: <a href="https://www.hsdl.org/c/view?docid=750070" rel="nofollow">https://www.hsdl.org/c/view?docid=750070</a>
We can see that after the establishment of the National Science Foundation is that many companies have had organizations that have also accelerated scientific research. Also before the national Science Foundation most people that participated in Science already had money to begin with considering the great amount of money required to not be working in a factory. Also the companies are self sustaining.
I read this story in my teens and was fascinated. Those who remember it will be horrified by some of the postulated advances, especially in the field of dentistry.
I don't wish to comment on the truth of various popular ideas, but the selective way in which research is funded on on matters such as global warming, fusion, and Alzheimer's is strikingly similar to those suggested in the story, and, I believe, observed by that author.
It's interesting to note that this sort of thing is quickly internalized - people are not just quick to follow the money, they're quick to believe what they have to in order to get it.
I think this has led to a creeping belief that while science is important, it can properly be done in an atmosphere where the truth has been received before the facts are at all clear.
I hope it's obvious that this isn't true.
> Science would become something like a parlor game. Some things would be considered interesting, others not. There would be fashions. Those who followed the fashion would get grants. Those who wouldn’t would not, and pretty soon they would learn to follow the fashion, too.<p>Have fashions taken over? What was science like before fashions took over?
Recent and related:<p><i>Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34248858" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34248858</a> - Jan 2023 (139 comments)
Its an interesting notion. If you can control the sum of all scientific sponsorships surely you will be able to control the subjects of research. And yes in 1940 30 million would surely go a long way to do this but it is 2023 and there are thousands of bodies offering research grants, usually chaired by senior members of academia that mostly tend to contribute indirectly any way.<p>I think the slowdown in physics we are witnessing today has not much to do with this effect and more to do with pragmatic aspects like capitalism and the next order of magnitude in complexity that we need to master to make headway.<p>EDIT: clarity
For those that accept the author's premise and thought experiment. What's the recommended alternative?<p>Let's take a humanist approach and say the biggest problems humanity need to solve right now that we aren't doing enough on are life extension and energy generation/storage/distribution. Even 5 years ago, "AI" might've been on the list, but that seems to be booming with progress, and between CRISPR/mRNA we also seem to be making incredible progress on disease cure/prevention. Meanwhile, with longer lifespans, and cheap available energy who knows what other advances we might unlock.<p>OK, how do you proceed with maximizing scientific progress?