We should hold government investment in science to a higher standard than it just provided some value. We should always bear in mind alternatives uses of the capital and the intellect used up in achieving any result. Nobody would be happy if their fund manager told them they should be happy with a 2% return when the market was giving 10%.
Not sure I agree, since the marginal benefit might be 10%, but with higher risk, with risk free being the treasury rate and growth asymptoting to GDP growth. Also the govt investment should be made in places that have market failures, and core science is one of those areas. Premature measurement of ROI would've killed 90% of the stuff we like.
Premature measurement is the issue. We can't judge ROI on, say, the large hadron collider or the Hubble. We couldn't even do it for mRNA research despite private backing. We use heuristics like how important the solution is likely to be, credibility of researchers etc. Which is nowhere near foolproof but not sure a higher standard or market would solve them. Arguably we should do far less of it to not fall prey to berksons paradox and encourage more experimentation.
It sounds like you want to give scientists anything they want? You remind me of Friedmans. comment on spending other peoples money! There has to be some test of the usefulness of a particular research line surely before committing money. And some limit on how much we fund research as a society. It would be a terrible thing to take money from poor people in taxes and just waste it. The most appropriate way is via some kind of return on investment analysis so we can compare various uses of money including less taxes. Such an ROI calculation could include social welfare benefits of course, but it absolutely needs to be done.
On encouraging more experimentation, are you sure funneling tax payers money to institutions is a good way to achieve this? I think it can absolutely be argued that the way current institutions manage researchers careers is detrimental to innovation, with bright people pushed into citation chasing rent exhaustion rather than exploring new radical ideas.
No, you're taking the strawman extreme of my statement there. I think institutional exploration has been exceedingly beneficial, in everything from medicine to energy to the internet. This holds true despite the fact that several institutions seem ossified today (something I also write about often). Even as we believe the organisations need reform it doesn't mean we have alternatives for basic science. We have ROI style stagegating across almost all agencies who are currently scared to do anything that isn't isgned off in triplicate (hello FDA), and that's why being bolder, reducing our focus on things like ROI, and actual experimentation with spending is so important. This is also why everyone from emergent ventures to new science to arc institute all are trying to do less pre hoc analysis, not more.
We should hold government investment in science to a higher standard than it just provided some value. We should always bear in mind alternatives uses of the capital and the intellect used up in achieving any result. Nobody would be happy if their fund manager told them they should be happy with a 2% return when the market was giving 10%.
Not sure I agree, since the marginal benefit might be 10%, but with higher risk, with risk free being the treasury rate and growth asymptoting to GDP growth. Also the govt investment should be made in places that have market failures, and core science is one of those areas. Premature measurement of ROI would've killed 90% of the stuff we like.
So how would you decide between two different scientific projects if not by ROI?
Premature measurement is the issue. We can't judge ROI on, say, the large hadron collider or the Hubble. We couldn't even do it for mRNA research despite private backing. We use heuristics like how important the solution is likely to be, credibility of researchers etc. Which is nowhere near foolproof but not sure a higher standard or market would solve them. Arguably we should do far less of it to not fall prey to berksons paradox and encourage more experimentation.
It sounds like you want to give scientists anything they want? You remind me of Friedmans. comment on spending other peoples money! There has to be some test of the usefulness of a particular research line surely before committing money. And some limit on how much we fund research as a society. It would be a terrible thing to take money from poor people in taxes and just waste it. The most appropriate way is via some kind of return on investment analysis so we can compare various uses of money including less taxes. Such an ROI calculation could include social welfare benefits of course, but it absolutely needs to be done.
On encouraging more experimentation, are you sure funneling tax payers money to institutions is a good way to achieve this? I think it can absolutely be argued that the way current institutions manage researchers careers is detrimental to innovation, with bright people pushed into citation chasing rent exhaustion rather than exploring new radical ideas.
No, you're taking the strawman extreme of my statement there. I think institutional exploration has been exceedingly beneficial, in everything from medicine to energy to the internet. This holds true despite the fact that several institutions seem ossified today (something I also write about often). Even as we believe the organisations need reform it doesn't mean we have alternatives for basic science. We have ROI style stagegating across almost all agencies who are currently scared to do anything that isn't isgned off in triplicate (hello FDA), and that's why being bolder, reducing our focus on things like ROI, and actual experimentation with spending is so important. This is also why everyone from emergent ventures to new science to arc institute all are trying to do less pre hoc analysis, not more.