So the president made (or is making) a speech before the NAS today in which he proposes to increase spending for “science,” and R&D (I wonder if he understands that these are different things?).
Well, no surprise there. Increasing spending is his first resort to every conceivable problem (except when it comes to defending the nation). But do you not see what I don’t see?
Obama said he plans to double the budget of key science agencies over a decade, including the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy Office of Science and the National Institutes of Standards and Technology.
He also announced the launch of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. It is a new Department of Energy organization modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, that led in development of the Internet, stealth aircraft and other technological breakthroughs.
Look, Ma, no space agency! No mention of NASA at all. This, combined with the continuing absence of an administrator or White House direction, makes me wonder just where space falls in the priorities of this administration.
But actually, what I find much more disturbing is this:
“I believe it is not in our character, American character, to follow — but to lead. And it is time for us to lead once again. I am here today to set this goal: we will devote more than 3 percent of our gross domestic product to research and development,” Obama said in a speech at the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences.
Let’s leave aside the arbitrariness of setting a percentage goal at all (why 3%? Why not 2.5% or 5%?). Let us also ignore the fact that at the rate things are going, there’s not going to be much of a GDP to have a percentage of, and that the $420B number makes some optimistic estimates.
Why set the goal as a percentage of GDP? Why not as a percentage of the federal budget, something over which a president and a government has at least theoretical control? The implication is that he doesn’t just preside over the government and its spending priorities, but that he commands the entire national economy, and can, should and does dictate how others are to spend their own money, which apparently is no longer their own money. It implies a conceit of omniscience on the part of him and his advisors about how much we should be spending on R&D as a function of domestic product, and how we should be spending it, when he has no useful control over what non-governmental entities are spending.
Or does he? Just what does he have in mind?
Oh, and note the latest gratuitous slap at the previous administration, without which, apparently, no Obama speech is complete:
In recent years, he said, “scientific integrity has been undermined and scientific research politicized in an effort to advance predetermined ideological agendas.”
He then drew chuckles, commenting: “I want to be sure that facts are driving scientific decisions, not the other way around,” Obama said.
Yes, there will be no predetermined ideological agendas in an Obama administration.
Right.
Oh, one other thing. I don’t have the time to run the numbers right now, and it obviously depends on how you categorize things, but I’d wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t already spend more than 3% of the GDP on R&D. It’s just not being spent the way The One wants it to be spent.
[Update a few minutes later]
This brings to mind some thoughts that I had last summer on the ability to command and control R&D, with bad Apollo analogies.
[Late afternoon update]
One of Clark Lindsey’s readers makes a good point about the non-mention of NASA:
Perhaps, as the reader suggests, if NASA had not dropped most of its R&D in favor of funding a handful of giant development projects like Ares I, it would get more backing for such activity.
Of course, Ares 1 is R&D, technically speaking. But almost all other, more diverse and certainly more useful R&D has been sacrificed to fund it. But somehow, I actually doubt that this is the reason for the apparent oversight. It think it’s just an oversight.
[Update a few minutes later]
OK, NASA didn’t go entirely unmentioned. He did repeat the flawed Apollo analogy again (it’s one of his favorites), and then said this:
My budget includes $150 billion over ten years to invest in sources of renewable energy as well as energy efficiency; it supports efforts at NASA, recommended as a priority by the National Research Council, to develop new space-based capabilities to help us better understand our changing climate.
That little whirring windy sound you hear is my upright forefinger twirling around and around.
Whoopee.
I was worried that the new title IX women scientists would simply be moving into the jobs formally occupied by the privileged male minions of the patriarchy. Fortunately, Obama has avoided this possible unpleasantness by expanding the number of jobs available.
“There’ s nothing that (other people’s) money can’t fix!” Should be the Democratic motto.
If the word “nuclear” doesn’t appear in a speech on energy policy, then the speaker is not to be taken seriously.
Well, it wasn’t really a speech on energy policy per se. It was a more general speech about R&D.
Jason, the plans for Yucca Mountain tell you everything you need to know on that front. There were a couple proposals for new plants made during the height of the $5/gallon gas era… but without “long-term waste storage”, the applications are inevitably doomed by current law.
Besides which, the 3% of GDP goal is pie-in-the-sky. One of the biggest contributors to R&D is the automotive industry, which is in the crapper and is laying off/buying off employees at a furious clip.
Note that the USA currently spends 2.6% of the GDP to fund Scientific R&D: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8020930.stm
this % is down from previous years (see figure in the link) and please note whom was in control of the White House during the high vs. low spending percentages. Also, compare what we spend to other countries. I think you’ll see why it is important to invest more in scientific research.
I have not seen one good argument for why increasing the R&D budget would be bad.
Note that the USA currently spends 2.6% of the GDP to fund Scientific R&D
That’s a completely meaningless number unless they define what they mean by “Scientific R&D.” And even if one buys the numbers, it’s not like it plummeted during the Bush administration.
And I never fail to be amused by pompous screen names like “Scientist.” Why are you afraid to use a real name?
I have not seen one good argument for why increasing the R&D budget would be bad.
There’s no way to intelligently discuss that without defining what “the R&D budget” is, but the two words I’d have are “opportunity costs.”
define plummeted. The fact is, science R&D expenditure was less under Bush’s tenure.
My screen name was not meant to be pompous, but instead to highlight the perspective from which I approach this. At any rate, I’m glad it amused you 🙂
Can you quantify the opportunity cost of NOT being a world leader in technology? Because, this is certainly what will happen should the science R&D budget and policy stagnate any longer (like it did under Bush).
define plummeted.
A lot more than the graph at the Beeb.
Can you quantify the opportunity cost of NOT being a world leader in technology?
Can you quantify how simply and randomly throwing more money will make us a world leader in technology, even ignoring the fact that the president doesn’t (or at least, if the Constitution is followed, shouldn’t) have any say in how much of the nation’s economy should be devoted to that end?
Because, this is certainly what will happen should the science R&D budget and policy stagnate any longer (like it did under Bush)
There is nothing certain about that statement, despite the fact that it comes from a pompous ass who calls himself “Scientist.”
And you didn’t answer my question about why you’re so afraid to attach an actual name to your comment. Perhaps because it’s not supportable, and in fact laughable? It is certainly (and that is exactly the word) why I wouldn’t do so.
Here’s another graph illustrating the rise-and-fall of science as % of the GDP:
http://forum.darwincentral.org/download/file.php?id=3813&mode=view
For someone that calls themself an engineer, your definition of plummeted and how it relates to the linked figure is suprisingly non-quantitative.
You should realize that resorting to internet name-calling does not support your argument, and only makes you look immature. My name is not important, and should have no bearing on the arguments outlined here. However, if you want credentials, I have a BS, MS, and PhD and am an active member of the bioinformatics and genomics research community.
Who ever said that money will be ‘randomly’ thrown at science? That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. Maybe you don’t understand how public research funding mechanisms work. Proposals undergo peer review, and are very competitive. There is nothing random about it.
If you decide to constructively address any of my points, I will be happy to engage further. Otherwise, have a nice day 🙂
For someone that calls themself an engineer, your definition of plummeted and how it relates to the linked figure is suprisingly non-quantitative.
Most people know what “plummeted” means. It doesn’t meant “reduced by a few percent.”
As for your other anonymous nonsense we’ll let others judge.
just a clarification…
The current US GDP is around $14 trillion.
A 0.1% increase or decrease in science funding (relative to the GDP) is a change of $1.4 billion.
I think any reasonable person would agree that $1.4 billion would enable a lot of important scientific studies.
Anyone notice a correlation with HE’s graph and the end of the Cold War?
There is your peace dividend.
I think any reasonable person would agree that $1.4 billion would enable a lot of important scientific studies.
Only if that money was spent productively. We are talking about the government, after all…
And you continue to exhibit cowardice in posting under your own name. What do you fear, now that The One is in charge?
one more clarification… it’s late which makes me do fuzzy math 🙂
0.1% of $14 trillion is $14 billion (not $1.4 billion as I typed above). This is a lot of money for science- what great news! 🙂
Scientist,
I seriously doubt that some arbitrary increase in government spending on R&D will create anything for the following reasons:
1) A big change in volume of money spent is by its nature unfocused. If Obama had thought there were ideas worth funding that were not being funded, he would have identified them (saying, “energy” I hope you will agree is moronic). Talking about a funding change means a big wad of money is thrown into the mix in a willy-nilly way. Who will manage all this new money? Insufficient management means waste. Now since it is not defense spending, no one in the press will whine about the wasted money but wasted it will be.
2) That was a very entertaining claim about how rigorous the peer-review of grants is and how that should make us all feel that the money will be spent well. Peer review in grants generally favors fads. Grant writers know who is likely to review their proposal and generally write to that – usually – small group. Furthermore, since the output of grants are generally peer-reviewed articles (without any need for technology transition), there’s no reason to think that a big surge in money will do anything but make some academic departments richer, help some professors to tenure and not much else. While you may think that’s a valuable thing, many do not.
3) I’ve been hearing about how important technology transition is for many years now but no one wants to do it. And why would they? Who wants to debug device drivers when you can futz around with the new advance algorithms based on fuzzy, neural, genetic machine learning with Brownian, fractal statistics. More money in R&D won’t go to what needs to be done (the former) but will produce more of the latter which, as an experienced practitioner of genomics, you must know is quite dispensable.
The main point of the post is that there is some arbitrary target without any sense of where it needs to go. That is kindergarten math applied to science funding. If the goal was based on a serious understanding of what should be done, it is a surprising coincidence that it came out to 3% (instead of, say, 2.8%). After all, that 28 billion might be better spent.
Frankly, if you want to make the US a technology leader, you should make it easier for businesses to innovate. You can do that by not imagining that you can stimulate the right kind of innovation with money. All unnecessary money does is prop up bad or immature ideas.
Joe
Chill out, Rand. The 3% number was chosen because it represents a substantial increase over either the total (~2.5%) or non-defense (~1.8%) number. OK, take 5%, if you’d rather. That would be great too. Even greater.
The reason it is keyed to the GNP is because that’s how the metric is conventionally assessed, by the science community and by R&D economists. Common knowledge, by those who pay attention to R&D investment in an international context.
Why NASA isn’t in there more conspicuously? Because the administration hasn’t figured out what the hell NASA should be doing. Check that box.
Obama has made a strong statement about what’s important to this nation. Details will follow, and deserve careful scrutiny. But he’s barking up the right tree.
Oh, I call myself by actual name. I agree that people who don’t use actual name should be flogged. But then, of course, we’d all look like the same person. Hmmm. Oh, I too have degrees up the kazoo, but I don’t want to brag.
Oh, I call myself by actual name. I agree that people who don’t use actual name should be flogged. But then, of course, we’d all look like the same person. Hmmm. Oh, I too have degrees up the kazoo, but I don’t want to brag.
Yes, of course. We should all take yet another anonymous moron’s word for it that you have “degrees up the wazoo” (perhaps we should accord them all the respect that we would to anything else that is “up the wazoo”?)
Sorry, arguments from false authority don’t work very well at this web site….
Also, compare what we spend to other countries. I think you’ll see why it is important to invest more in scientific research.
According to your own link, the US spends 2.6% per year and China less than 1.5%. How is that cause for fear and panic?
I have not seen one good argument for why increasing the R&D budget would be bad.
To make a good argument, you would first need to define what kind of R&D the money will be spent on. You haven’t done that.
You’ve made two fundamental errors. First, you’re conflating “scientific R&D” with engineering. The two really aren’t the same thing. But leave that aside for the moment…
Second, you judge the value of R&D based on its cost rather than its benefits. Or, to put it another way, based on the input rather than the output.
For example, one way to achieve your goal of increased R&D spending would be to spend $100 billion to replace the Space Shuttle with an even more expensive launch system. The result would be fewer science missions, fewer experiments, and less data — but the cost would go up so “R&D” spending would rise. Why would that be a good thing?
As another example, NASA might develop a series of mass-produced, low-cost nanoprobes that can carry out planetary missions for a fraction of what current missions cost. The result would be more data from more parts of the solar system, but because the probes cost less, the total program cost might actually be less. In that case, R&D spending would fall, although scientific research would accelerate. Why would that be a bad thing?
More generally, why should scientific policy be based on the goal of spending an arbitrary amount of money rather than achieving specified goals (which might require more or less money)?
It’s not the Feds’ money (nor the scientists’ for that matter!) if you use GNP as a funding metric though. It all comes back to “spending money which isn’t yours.” My associates all object when I try to raid their wallets for my lunchtime pleasure – and I know firsthand that in research it’s no different. Favors with unused equipment are one thing; raiding each others’ budgets is something else. So how is it remotely excusable to raid everyone in the country for an extra dime, never mind some made-up number such as “3% of what everyone in the US produces per year?” Even research needs to figure out how to do more with less, unless they use their initial products to fund future efforts. In which case, it is their money, to be spent how they please.
This demand for results before further funding is actually a good thing – a large part of what drove me out of research was what I came to call the “ten year disease,” where no matter how much was spent on researching a specific problem, a practical field-ready solution is always going to be ready “sometime in the next ten years.” Sometimes the key is to have something that works mostly right, but have it available right now; and then research how to make it better as you go along. It’s a business model that’s worked for most of the technology that we actually use on a daily basis.
Maybe you don’t understand how public research funding mechanisms work. Proposals undergo peer review, and are very competitive. There is nothing random about it.
I’m afraid you’re the one who doesn’t understand how public funding mechanisms work. Peer review doesn’t decide how much money will go to NASA, how much to USGS, how much to NOAA, etc. Peer reviewers didn’t decided that the US should build the International Space Station or start building (and then cancel) the Superconducting Supercollider. Politicians did.
The development of energy resources and Earth-sensing satellites (two of the things Obama mentioned) are generally determined by competitive bidding, not peer review. (This is one of the differences between science and engineering.) At the top level, these decisions are also controlled by politicians.
I have not seen one good argument for why increasing the R&D budget would be bad.
I agree with Rand that the answer is opportunity costs. And opportunity costs are notorious for being hard to “see”. Science is not such a valuable good that one can dump arbitrary amounts of money into it at the expense of everything else done in the US.
We don’t know how this money will be spent. R&D in renewables, for example, seems likely to just be a big subsidy for the solar and wind power industries who would otherwise do any relevant research themselves. That’s pretty low value return on investment IMHO.
Big projects are another likely sink for public funds. We should keep in mind failures like the International Space Station and the Superconducting Supercollider. Projects of this size can potentially generate a lot of science for the expense, but they aren’t guaranteed to be managed in a way that will allow them to do so.
As I see it, R&D spending is already ample in size. Much more mileage would be gained by reducing the restraints on research, for example, by removing most of the restrictions imposed by the Food and Drug Administration on human research. Or the EPA on nuclear fission power research and construction. We can open Yucca Mountain to temporary and permanent nuclear waste disposal.
There’s also a massive problem converting research into actual economic benefit. While the US isn’t the best place to build everything, it’s worth noting that there are a number of policies and problems in place that reduce the value of US research. First, there’s basic economic problems like regulation, high living and healthcare costs, and tax burden on hiring people that makes hiring US residents more expensive. We also have developing world industries (I look at China in particular since they’re the most successful of the lot at this) that will steal within a few years any usable US research. It’s a huge disadvantage that a US business has to respect intellectual property laws, but a developing world business does not.
Moving on, there are some obstacles to creating and running a new business. I lean now to the view that the Sarbanes-Oxley act is harmful to US competitiveness. There’s plenty of regulation (eg, ITAR for the space industry) that favors the large, established businesses that can afford the legal staff to manage the regulation.
Finally, it’s worth noting that, as in the renewable energy case, many businesses don’t do as much R&D as they could, merely because the US government funds the research for them. So an increase in government R&D spending probably will result in some decline in private R&D spending.
I have a BS, MS, and PhD and am an active member of the bioinformatics and genomics research community.
Er…Sci, if that’s your field, then your basic research money comes from NIH, and as you can read right here, that Evil Bush Administration increased the NIH budget by 50%, from $20 billion in 2001 to $29 billion in 2009. The NSF budget went from $4.4 billion to $6.5 billion, also an increase of roughly 50%. That’s not to say there have been ups and downs in given years, of course.
You can certainly argue that a 50% increase isn’t enough, or what would make all young scientists happy, but it’s hard to see it as some Neanderthal turning of the government’s back on scienitific research.
Besides, the 3% number includes all private R&D, some of which is mostly D (autos, airplanes), some of which is doing just fine without goverment (computers, bioinformatics), plus a huge chunk of military D, which has fairly limited civilian applications, If you really want to know why the number bumped up or down a tiny fraction, you’d need to ask how all of those factors contributed. What was the state of the economy, or of the cost of capital? That has a big effect on private investment. Was the military putting money into developing a weapon system and then switched to procurement, so there was a sudden drop in “R&D” money? Et cetera. I think this magic 3% number by itself is pretty damn meaningless.
Frankly, as a colleague in a quantitative field, your argument kind of embarasses me. You know as well as I do that the only serious debate to have here — to which Rand alludes — is how much dough the Feds are spending through the agencies on basic research. You don’t really care how much Lockheed is spending on avionics work for the Pentagon, or what EBMUD is spending on wastewater treatment experiments up in the Delta. The preliminary data indicate that the Bushies were no great enemy of Federally-funded basic science.
Furthermore, Obama’s suggestions here are towards the worst kind of Federal investment — precisely because it’s not a general increase in money, to be spent slowly and soberly, as peer review and results might suggest. Instead, he wants a crash program flinging giant wads of cash at the Research Fad O’ The Moment, which happens to be “green energy” and other such fantasy nonsense.
We’ve been here before. Remember Sematech? Synfuels? Solar initatives galore? Then there’s California’s madcap $3 billion stem-cell fund, made a few years ago when it seemed like the real-estate taxes would rise forever. In each case, giant blobs of cash were strewn about hastily, and just about zero came out of it. At least, I don’t recall any wonderful chips that came out of Sematech, and nobody’s burning any synfuels, and the (very slow) improvements in solar cells have all come out of major labs funded by industry, et cetera.
These high-profile boondoggles are terrible for science. They’re like a quick snort of crack. Feels great for a short time, and life is sweet(er) for the young struggling post-doc or untenured professor. But then it dries up as something else becomes the Fad O’ The Moment, and meanwhile all the sensible scientific priorities are in disarray, and there’s very painful downsizing to happen (with predictable political unfairness), and people start to wonder if the whole science research thingy isn’t a load of crap, because nothing ever comes out of these big initiatives.
Finally, let’s just take a step back and remember how we got in this damn mess. It was by overvaluing long-term investments — houses, stocks, Internet start-ups, advanced degrees, research — and undervaluing short-term investments — paying off the car loan, reducing credit-card debt, buying stock in a big reliable company, running a company reliably and conservatively, getting a job instead of applying to grad school. Life is about a mix of both. Too much “investment in the future” is sometimes as bad as too little, as we’ve just found out. It’s like the plain fellow who dreams and schemes of snaring the hottest girl for his prom date — and in chasing that futility loses his chance with her plainer sister and ends up home wanking to cable porn.