Corporations are pragmatic with the one and only hunger to produce income, While Universities are idealistic with one and only hunger to produce understanding. If you place corporate goals upon universities you no longer have universities. Once the Idealistic balance to pragmatism is gone in a society that societies ethics will vanish with it. For ethics are not pragmatic, but idealistic. Could this be why business is so tainted with the unethical? Think about it and try to understand ah?
this is all very true, and i think its fantastic you have talked about this but how do we solve this problem. no ones gonna fight our corner apart from us. multi nations have figured this out...
may be a part 2 of this video could be on how we should best lobby the govt
I don't think people should be taxed AT ALL on a recurring basis, and on a project-specific basis (ie,1 time tax to build a hospital) I'd still be cautious. The only reason I'm not against science funding in the US, even though public research institutions spend 10x more to develop something than it would otherwise cost, is because "sf" is like 2% of our budget. Taxes go to wars (mil-ind complex), supporting deadbeats, overpaid useless public sector workers, and unsustainable pensions...
@martydrooo Can you point me to a peer-reviewed reference for your assertion that "public research institutions spend 10x more to develop something than it would otherwise cost"? I'd like to see the piece of research that backs up this figure.
I'm sure that you wouldn't just pluck a figure out of the air in an attempt to back up tired old cliches about the supposed inefficiency of the public sector, would you?
Best wishes,
Philip Moriarty (publicly-funded scientist speaking in video)
@Moriarty2112 "you know you're talking to an academic when"...they ask for all info to be peer reviewed, lol.
Look, I'll put it to you like this: I've worked with composite materials; boeing, BMW, NASA, etc. as clients. Oak Ridge Nat. Lab is US Gov funded developer of a lot of related materials and research. We had a similar project related to Torlon applications running simultaneously (almost). We both had the same findings only we spent <$20M; they spent $100Ms (they wont reveal specifics).
P.S. The *privatised* rail system in the UK is now subsidised from the public purse at a level which is about a factor of five greater than when the UK had a public rail system.
P.P.S. Spend some time doing a little research on the private finance initiative (PFI) in the UK.
P.P. P. S. As a publicly-funded academic my average working week is 60 hrs. As a new lecturer (~ 15 years ago) I regularly worked 80 hour weeks. This is not uncommon in academia. How about you?
@Moriarty2112 Sorry, what does privatized rail have to do with anything? This has nothing to do with politics, left wing or otherwise. Japan's public rail went bankrupt before it was privatized - there's always a counter.
Your long hours are only due to inefficiency. A farmer without a tractor puts in longer hours than one with. Khan Academy make 80% of educators redundant. I wouldn't brag about hours because I worked 90+ for 3 years in banking - OK pay, but making pitchbooks no 1 reads sucks
@martydrooo I sincerely hope that critical thinking is not an attribute required by the companies for which you work.
(i) You trot out tired old right wing cliches - "overpaid useless public sector workers", "supporting deadbeats", and that no-one should be taxed "at all" - and then state that "this has nothing to do with politics".
(ii) You state that public research institutions spend "10x more" on R&D and then fail to give any evidence for this other than personal anecdote.
(iii) You claim that academics' long hours are "only due to inefficiency" when you have zero knowledge of academic workload. Where's your evidence? (And don't give me some simple-minded story about your brother-in-law's best friend being an academic. See (iv) below).
(iv) You assume that personal anecdote (your Torlon applications example) is enough to support an argument.
I can only assume that you've attended the Bill O'Reilly school of reasoned debate...
@Moriarty2112 When you move to personal swipes and allegations of political affiliations, that's when you know you know you have strong basis for you argument, and cannot stand a bruised ego so you offer no compromise. Let's be clear about politics, since you clearly care more about them than the subject at hand: Bill-O and the republicans are as you brits would say, wankers. They are welfare queens like the left, only their deadbeats are military contractors + defense conglomerates contd
@martydrooo "When you move to personal swipes...". Bit of a pot/kettle situtation here! Could I remind you of the comment in your first post where you disparaged "overpaid useless public sector workers" knowing full well that the person speaking in the video is, ermmm, a public sector work.
To quote that wonderful work of fiction, "And why behold you the mote that is in your brother's eye, but consider not the beam that is in your own eye"
@Moriarty2112 If it's any consolation, I wasn't thinking of you at all when I said "useless public sector employees". I do see why you'd take that as an insult, but in the US, most Unis aren't public, so researchers at Unis weren't really in my train of thought when I said that. I think the bottom line is you actually provide something of value to people, regardless of whether you could do it cheaper. B-crats make obscene amounts of money in the US, rendering nothing of value(not even debatable)
@martydrooo Second, we're arguing public vs private sector efficiency. You have made completely unjustified statements about the former. However much you might want to pretend the "subject at hand" isn't political, it is.
I can give you chapter and verse on statistics regarding the efficiency and return on investment from publicly funded research in the UK. Check out the comments below; search for Moriarty2112; find the relevant papers.
@Moriarty2112 ROI in pure math/sciences research is impossible to gauge. It can be fundamentally essential sometimes, but impossible to gauge. You said it's goal isn't to produce things like spin-offs, etc so measuring it's efficiency/ROI is only in pro-forma (theoretical) form. The fundamental problem with public sector spending is it's people spending money they did not earn themselves -- that's a fundamental philosophical problem. Given the choice of current gross inefficiency+,... contd.
Entirely, totally agree - ROI on basic research is practically impossible to quantify. It's such a shame that our research councils here in the UK don't share your insight.
Where I don't agree is on the matter of public sector spending. There are many public goods - in both the "egalitarian" and economics (non-excludable, non-rivalrous) sense of the word - which need to be provided via the state: the free market cannot provide them adequately.
@Moriarty2112 An example of unmeasurable ROI was pure math research regarding very complex algorithms for what at the time had zero applications. This was before supercomputers and AI. Now these sets of algorithms are essential for supercomputers to calculate routes, etc. for self driving cars/pods. In a city like New York with millions of potential automated pods, you need a billion dollar super computer to be able to handle running the algorithms, which previously had no application. 1of?
These include healthcare, education, and, interestingly, fundamental research. I fundamentally disagree that healthcare and education should be driven by profit. For example, there's been significant debate of late here in the UK on private providers of higher education. As part of this debate, Apollo Group and the University of Phoenix cropped up regularly as particularly disturbing examples of how the profit motive can corrupt higher education.
@Moriarty2112 Nowadays its very hard to differentiate between non-profit and for-profit sometimes. I wont say public vs private because in the US we have a history of Private Unis that were non-profit, as well as charity hospitals( like in the UK). Phoenix and Apollo are just unscrupulous parasites, but then again my alma mater's president took home $3M, and its totally non profit (University of Pennsylvania). Tenured professors there make $400K/pa while doctoral student TAs make $16K/pa. 2of?
@Moriarty2112 I do want to make the point that private and for-profit are not the same thing, at least here in the US. The first mandatory and free public schools in the US were founded/funded by the Massachusetts Bay Colony's textile entrepreneurs simply for the public good, and they did it with their personal funds. Mass. is still one of the richest states because of the strong puritan tradition of charity -- the best hospitals and schools are there and they're privately funded. 3of?
@Moriarty2112 Regarding healthcare are "non-profit" or a public good is tricky as well. It's not free in any case, since the govt has no money, it takes from taxpayers to fund healthcare for them. So, no one is getting a free lunch, and in effect paying for themselves. Non profit hospitals are also tricky because they can claim to be non-profit on paper, but between the expensive proprietary meds, ortho implants, doctors salaries, etc., everyone is profiting handsomely. 4of?
@Moriarty2112 inefficiency+some science funding Vs. no taxes, so no inefficiency in non-science spheres, and no science funding, I'd prefer the latter. People will always want to privately fund science; no one wants to pay the sanitation director of a small California county $800K/pa+pension benefits when his private sector counterpart makes $160K/pa. There's plenty of research out there that shows the brain drain from the private sector to the public is a net loss for science innovation.
People will not always want to privately fund science. The idea that public funding crowds out private funding is far from well-established. True innovation - as opposed to market-led incremental improvements - stems from blue skies research, not near-market R&D. The private sector is increasingly not interested in funding basic research (e.g. Bell Labs).
If you can point me to the research which shows the brain drain effect you mention, I'd appreciate it.
@Moriarty2112 I think people will never want to pay for things they think someone else will pick up the tab for. Science funding is probably the favorite philanthropic category of the super-wealthy. Carnegie's science funding was legendary. And while I agree that most companies want to only make small increments to sell the same tech for as long as possible (Iphone 1,2,3,4,5), there are huge financial incentives for whomever jumps the status quo. Apple monetizing xerox tech is a good example.5/?
@Moriarty2112 Next, it's not about public vs private, it's about bureaucracy, cost controls, and incentives. I've seen start-ups do on shoe string budgets what Big Auto Co.s spent billions on. Likewise, I've seen independent researchers do for pennies on the dollar what a big Uni would spend millions on. By useless public employee I mean not so much guys like you, but b-crats in Cali making 6 figures, 2x as they would at private Co.s. Find "The Myth of Science as a Public Good " here on YT.
@martydrooo ..and here is where we agree. Are there inefficient public sector reseachers and academics? Of course. But then there are countless others who work their arses off, as efficiently as they can. This is borne out by, e.g. the research assessment exercise in the UK.
Similarly, are there countless committed, highly motivated and efficient private sector workers? Of course there are. But there are slackers as well.
@Moriarty2112 The problem lies in the system of checks and balances. The reason there are so many white collar employees unemployed nowadays is because of efficiency freak managers (who themselves get fired by efficiency crazed higher-up managers). It's a common paradigm with researchers/academics(at public and private Unis) for them to care more about their financial lifestyle than research after they get over their youthful enthusiasm (which it seems like you still have);status quo mentality.
@martydrooo I agree entirely with you on this point. UK universites are now riven with a focus on commercial exploitation of results.
As regards the "status quo" mentality, I'm of the opinion that this is actually worse in academia - which traditionally had the role of speaking "truth to power" - than in other sectors. I'm fed up to the hind teeth of being told by (some) colleagues that it's pointless challenging the status quo - one just has to "play the game"...
@Moriarty2112 I will find some brain drain research. I do think it sucks though that the graphene nobel prize winners and their Unis get nothing really, while private industry will get Billions, if not trillions, monetizing this tech. One book I recommend with all my heart is "Colossus: How the Corporation Changed America". Get it used for cheap on Amazon. It's purely anthropological with no ideology. It has brain drain research in it. Academia is def the worst when it comes to...contd 6/7
@Moriarty2112 the status quote mentality, because what options do academics have? I detested the fact that my old employer sold decades old technology and wouldn't accept my offer to help them modernize, so some colleagues and I left and started our own firm. At Unis, most strive for tenure. I don't blame them, who doesnt want stability? But in our start-up culture they strive for stock options, so they have the option to leave and start their own thing if they don't like how things are going.
@Moriarty2112 All the best to you and your family as well. For the record, I think I'd support a technocracy. My problem with academia is how hierarchical it is, and if you don't like it, what do you do, start your own university? Because that same hierarchy exists everywhere. I think maybe some pure researchers and applied sciences researchers should start a company that makes profits on the applied sciences, and funds the pure research with them. No more councils to beg for money.
@martydrooo You're clearly smart enough to realise that blanket statements such as "overpaid useless public sector workers" is a sweeping and entirely unhelpful generalisation. This is what got my goat in your original comment.
But you're entirely correct about O'Reilly. He is, indeed, a total wanker. We have a greater foe to fight - let's not bicker amongst ourselves!
@Moriarty2112 Also just to give you an idea of my family background, both parents and 2 grandparents are pure math Ph.D's. My grandfather on my mother's side has a Ph.D in Physics. Just saying that I come from a really academic family and even though I didn't go as far as they did with education, I've never been an outsider looking in to the academic world.
It doesn't take long to figure out that revolutionary and groundbreaking discoveries are not going to appear that way in advance: to know that something would change everything, we'd already have to know what it was, and then it wouldn't change everything.
I studied physics for two years before wimping out a bit and finishing in history, but history offers one key lesson in this regard: all the most important things that ever happened were a surprise to people at the time.
Professor Moriarty, I take my hat off to you. I think there are plenty of scientists out there who feel the same way but can't speak up because it would cost them their job. Thank you for standing up for science.
sad, you accuse me of not reading your comment correctly but i have it here, copy n pasted,-- "Wow it's really tedious deciphering your illiterate provincial small minded drivel. The reason "most of the people in dublin arent even irish" is because they can wash themselves and don't have haircuts from the 1960s. You should stay in the bog it's the best place to keep livestock and you won't be confused by anyone with an education or taste. You fucking lame redneck cunt."
When war happen. Human blame science for pollute our morale but actually politicians misuse and turn science into weapon and make science looks bad. I don't think politicians is qualify enough to judge what budget to be cut for whatever science field. Why not try cut their own politicians salary first?
I have not seen a youtube video with this amount of passion in it for a long time. when Brady asked one of the questions you could almost hear anger or disagreement in his tone.
Scientists want money for doing nothing that can be immediately used. Scientists, if you like science so much why don't you do it for free in your spare time and have an occupation like being a plumber? You demand money for your hobby. There is nothing wrong with liking science but don't expect people who are actually working and being paid based on outcome to accept paying for your hobby!
@mrteemumilto Science has no social responsibility, one of millions of tests might maybe make one or two human lives better technologically and medically. It is enough what has already been achieved.
@zurechtweiser You're really stupid, why don't you go back to your bleepy games and just leave the thinking to those capable of the job. Honestly you burger flippers do inhale the wierdedest fumes. Trot on.
@mastastimpy I am asking myself what the avail of convincing you of the truth might be. Neither are you deciding about who gets money nor are you a scientist who could get money.
@zurechtweiser If you really think of scientists that way, you have absolutely no idea what science is. Model trains is a hobby. Golf is a hobby. Painting is a hobby. Playing with a chemistry kit is a hobby. Science, however, is not a hobby. You're either ill-informed about what science is or you're just trolling here.
If everyone in the past took that attitude took that attitude then we would still be banging rocks together today.
If it wasn't for scientific development you wouldn't be able to type that comment out, no computers, internet, electricity, cars/transport, we wouldn't have gone to the moon, we wouldn't have any manufactured goods (aka. everything).
@Muttyfut I disagree. You can not desire what you don't know. If people stopped developing today you would not miss anything as you didn't know about the opportunities. Today you might miss your mobile phone(I don't have one) if you lost it. But if you didn't know that mobile phones existed, well, the world would still rotate. Just look at some tribes in africa who know nothing about electronics they don't miss it.
@alhobbel I don't and won't have children because I decide against them. I don't care about other people's children. Also you missed my point. I am saying to stop funding right here, not development itself. Also death first and foremost is not the worst thing that can happen, you make it the worst even though you don't know what comes after. Vaccination has already been invented and is being used by doctors, who get paid to heal, a real outcome. You mix up a lot of things my friend.
Sorry, I should have understood that you meant 'please read my mind' instead of the sentence perfectly parseable in English 'You cannot desire what you don't know'.
Anyway, I regard comments like 'I don't care about other people's children' plus the video featured on your account 'Warum Frauen Vasalle sind' (why women are akin to vassals) as decidedly anti-social. You will find not a great many people agree with you on this: go ask your guru Eckhart Tolle.
@alhobbel You mentioned "Warum Frauen Vasalle sind". Sadly you didn't understand that either. It's not entertaining to meet people like you all the time who lack knowledge, compassion and intelligence.
@Muttyfut There is one legitimate use of science ironically: correcting mistakes science made. Correcting limit values for radiation for instance. If people lived only for 20 years that would be normal then. Noone would complain. Maybe death would be treated differently in science if it was happening normally at age 20. Today we cannot reverse desires. As we know that mobile phones exist we cannot destroy all mobile phones and pretend they were never there.
University is not a granted or secure privilege of the academics. Don't take it for granted. There have been times when none of it was even tolerated let alone funded. In our lifetimes, we could be making 'science' in our own basements due to the lack of mutual organizations.
Makes more sense for science to be funded completely privately anyway.
I think there's a statistic somewhere showing that government funding actually causes private research to be invested in less - by a higher amount dollar per dollar than the government pays.
But anyway this gets around the problem you mentioned because private businesses will generally be asking the scientists where the big ideas are and deciding which could become marketable products (i.e. actually useful).
@sharperguy I don't think this does get around the problem, it would only support the short term financially driven research which was one of the issues outlined in the vid.
@livesforcake This is true to some extent but really to make any decent discoveries you need scientists who are in the loop with the latest cutting edge research. Businesses might like their scientists to be working always on only what will make money in the short term but really it doesn't work that well. If it did then why would we need general research anyway?
(for the record, I'm aware that I'm simplifying somewhat and not dealing with all the issues - there's just nowhere near enough room in 500 characters for a thorough response)
I'm with Phil, personally. Letting scientists freely determine their own funding would indeed be subject to the "kids with lots of money" criticism, but letting scientists freely determine each other's funding collaboratively is very hard to beat as a system for resource allocation. To me it makes sense for decisions to be made by people who actually understand them, and history does clearly teach that we can't usually predict what will and won't be important.
brady, if you got to talk to the head of the EPSRC i would love you. i'll write the letter for you! and phil!!! loved it. i compleatly agree with you.
Phil's key insight is that this change turns the universities into subsidised R&D for industry. This of course opens up fantastic money making opportunities for the bureaucrats who make the decisions and the industries who incentivise them.
brady is AMAZING! superb interviewing skills, scintillatingly incisive and smart questions. become a documentary film maker! (if you aren't already)! and please DO interview the head of EPSRC and the prime minister!
The politicians and the economists need to leave science to the scientists. After all, if the politicians and the economists focused on doing their job well, we wouldn't be in this financial crisis in the first place. The Professor has some balls, speaking out like that. Balls of sterling silver. God bless.
The MOST dramatic changes being made by EPSRC are those to the mathematical sciences. A lot (I think almost all, actually) funding is being withdrawn from pure mathematics and being entirely given to applied mathematics and statistics. What they don't understand, as you say, is that so many advances are made by investigating things that we may not have any applications for at the time.
The amount of damage this will do cannot be explained with 500 characters.
If you think the UK is bad for this, just imagine being in the US where the political system makes every effort it can to make your funding directly proportional to how well your research backs up superstition. Case in point: The SSC, the Superconducting Supercollider. Everything seemed to be going well...and then one politician flat-out asked "will you find god?". Obviously not. Suspicious, then, that the funding was immediately cut. Completely. Killing the project.
I have been reading all of Doyle's "Holmes" stories lately, what does the Professor think about being named Moriarty? I think its just brilliant. Prof. Moriarty!!! Holmes' genius arch enemy!! Is he actually a criminal mastermind as well? Just kidding! <3
I have an idea let's make a country full of scientist and people who like science. So the gov't cat get tech anymore and we can and once we outdate the current tech...we invade the entire world with our new tech!
You know what? If the industry and the market are allowed to dictate what scientists should be researching based on the economic means of the research. You can guess how our scientists will react?
NO is simply the answer, we wont do it. Do you believe we are one trick ponies?
No, i do science based on that one simple precedence Phil outlines above, because it is my work! There are not many rewards to a modern scientist, but conducting ones own studies is one of them, dont take that away
@darcynshit I only wish that were the case. The most dispiriting aspect of this "battle" with the research councils is that so many academics, particularly those in senior positions who have the "clout" to at least attempt to drive change, adopt a "Best not to rock the boat, let's keep our heads down and play the game" stance.
I've been told on a number of occasions that criticising the resarch councils is pointless - we've simply got to do as we're told and try to play the system.
Excellent video. I wish more people understood that governments rarely have the insight to make informed decisions on such matters. In general, I believe governments should play a minimal role in daily life. Leave it up to the free market to decide. Those closer to the issues have the knowledge needed to make the best decisions.
@peon17 Let the free market decide? were you listening to the video? This was a video advocating government funding of research, as opposed to private funding, because the market will only fund research that has obvious applications. The criticism being made of government funding was not that government funding exists, more the opposite, it was that the government shouldn't try to influence the research agenda but should allow scientists to go where their curiosity takes them.
@peon17 It isn't as simple as that. Governments have to intervene in the funding of scientific research because the free market would not provide enough due to it's public good characteristics. What that means is once research is undertaken everyone can benefit from it even those that didn't pay for it so there is an incentive not to pay for it. The issue here is that while government needs to ensure funding is provided they are not in a position to decide what research is most valuable.
The West is sliding off the cliff, our institutions dissolving right before our eyes, our countries filling up with foreigners that show no ability nor inclination toward the enlightenment principles we whites embraced through torturous fits and starts over several centuries, even millennia; yet this smart guy is crying as if the civilization underpinning science is a given. Your grandchildren suffering in Englandistan will rightly curse your blind weakness. Speak truth to power my ass.
@bartj777 Hi there. OK, explain to me where he economic arguments are lacking? Are you familiar with the work of Richard R Nelson, Paul David, and/or the Salter and Martin paper to which I refer in the video?
Fundamental scientific research is a public good, in the economist's sense (i.e. non-excludable and non-rivalrous). Eric Maskin, economics Nobel laureate, makes the important point that a competitive market is ill-suited to the provision of public goods.
@bartj777 ..contd. In addition, if you Google "Nottingham Nanoscience Group" and click on "Publications" on our home page, you'll find links to the papers I list in the next post where I critique the economic arguments in detail. One of those papers is a "spat" with Terence Kealey, VC of the University of Buckingham and a free market ideologue. Please let me know where I've got the economic arguments wrong - the more debate there is about this, the better.
@Moriarty2112 On another note, I also don't like political involvement in science because it tends to "pollute" science with political agendas. I don't know about the UK, but in the US if your research can be used militarily in any way your chances of funding increase.
@Moriarty2112 Well basically the problem is one of regulation. Prices, profits and property rights regulate human action and when you disconnect these and substitute regulation by committee you have removed the feedback loop. Without market feedback there's no objective way to determine if scarce resources are being used efficiently and how they should be allocated. I think the assumption that this can be done through central planning without market regulation is not sound.
@bartj777 This assumes that you're deaing with a non-public good. If the good is public - i.e. non-excludable and non-rivalrous (as I say in one of my previous comments) - then property rights, for one, are a moot point. This is why trying to attach IPR to what should essentially be a public good - "knowledge" -is so problematic.
We're not going to make much progress via 500 char. comments. I make more nuanced arguments in the papers cited below. Have a look at those and then PM me.
One of the prime examples of what the Prof. is talking about would be this tool which we all are using at the moment; the Web. I doubt any committee could've foreseen Tim Berners-Lee doodling away in his spare time at CERN and coming up with the most (socio-)economically important invention of our time. Furthermore, science is as much about disproving ideas as it is about proving your hypothesis and you'll know that only after gathering the empirical evidence -> fundamentally different from R&D.
An utterly interesting insight. I did ponder on some of those questions asked in the video and I came so quite similar results (nontheless Prof Moriarty really nailed them).
@Mengsky83 You're quoting a scientific, and the council doesn't seem to care about science so maybe you should quote Ford, Edison or another relatively scientific business man instead! :-P
I felt the two most important points worth taking note of here were:
Science should be pushing the boundry of knowledge, not just R&D.
_Informed_ democracy (peer rewiev and grants) is better than uninformed or partially informed dictation (a counsel of politicians).
There was something else also, but i forgot. If you could summarize three very strong points like this, condense them to one sentence, and then list them at the end (and in video description), it would give it a heavier impact. :)
Phil, PEOPLE LOVE SIXTY SYMBOLS. The videos are an incredible asset to the entire world and Meghan is eye candy to boot!
I would rather pay my monthly cable bill (110 USD$ minus the expense for TeeVee... so 65 USD$ a month) to watch Sixty Symbols. I know you can make this profitable and possible. I don't even have a college degree but I so much appreciate the videos Sixty Symbols shares!
Why not have both systems one part of academic research for "product development" and an other part for scientific objectives. Could be 50/50 or 25/75
The people keep voting for idiots, the idiots in the government keep spending too much money, and the world is going broke. Its the just reality now. Tell the people to stop voting for people who think the government needs to be our nannies and maybe there would be money for research.
If Professor Moriarty is punished for speaking out, Please get the news out. I know I personally would write to whoever was taking such unjustified action. I'm behind you guys all the way. Keep science free, unbiased, and well funded!
its sad the effort of all the great persons who swet for science, destroyed by stupid business person, who only engrave the world as it is with its corruption, and support to war and entertainment stupid stuff.
Love it, love it, love it when you guys tackle the controversial issues. My roommate feels pretty strongly about the wisdom of the free market. I'm still learning about markets, subsidizing, market forces, government spending, you name it. But I love to hear from my roommate about economics, and I'm glad that you have explored the topic, too.
Ahh the UK and all the systems that make so much sense... (not that any other country has it right). Lets spend billions on teachers, doctors, and our badass scientists... Not our athletes playing games, or the gov officials that don't even entertain us.
The absolute last thing we need in science is the free market coming in and destroying long term research scientists do in order to make a quick buck.
Marketing is about skewing results to make sales. Do they think products actually look the same as the do in ads? This kind of nonsense is absolutely incompatible with science. If this happens scientific progress in the UK will be destroyed and replaced with well packaged nice looking garbage. Ugh this makes me furious.
YES! absolutely 100% right! I couldn't agree more. Science funding is just about the very last thing that should be cut. There are countless examples of wasteful spending, foolish subsidies, and hopeless or damaging efforts (war, etc) that eat up orders of magnitude more money than science funding does. Science is probably the main driver that moves society forward, and if we knew what the results of research would be before we did it, it wouldn't be research now would it?
I feel so awesome for being only 14, yet watching through this entire video AND replaying the parts I didn't get until I understood about 99.7% of what he is saying :D
@bb1televator No we ARE not much more than hairless monkeys bumbling about aimlessly, science doesn't change that. The scary thing is that without science, we don't KNOW that we're all hairless monkeys scrambling over a lump of rock, we think that we are special divine creations, or that some monkeys are superior to others, and this can lead to some pretty crazy things, in which a lot of hairless monkeys wind up dead.
Phil: you need to get out in the media and talk about this. You understand the political dynamics behind scientific funding and people really need to hear your point of view on this because as it stands right now, people see us as "biased, self-interested money pits".
IT'S PROFESSOR MORIARTYY :O WHERES SHERLOCK HOLMES?
bobthebuilderonlyhas 6 days ago in playlist Uploaded videos
Corporations are pragmatic with the one and only hunger to produce income, While Universities are idealistic with one and only hunger to produce understanding. If you place corporate goals upon universities you no longer have universities. Once the Idealistic balance to pragmatism is gone in a society that societies ethics will vanish with it. For ethics are not pragmatic, but idealistic. Could this be why business is so tainted with the unethical? Think about it and try to understand ah?
masluxx 6 days ago
Happy Birthday Dobby!!!!!
Spart248 3 weeks ago in playlist More videos from nottinghamscience
this is all very true, and i think its fantastic you have talked about this but how do we solve this problem. no ones gonna fight our corner apart from us. multi nations have figured this out...
may be a part 2 of this video could be on how we should best lobby the govt
gr8stt 3 weeks ago
The problem its not funding, the problem is individual need to be noticed.
hdfailure 4 weeks ago in playlist More videos from nottinghamscience
If we just go to the research council website
*goes through a stack of paper*
:P
andreirocks1992 1 month ago
Politicians don't know their ass from their mouth
Politics should NOT have anything to do with science EVER !
Science must continue to be pure and void of lies, threats, pressure, bullshit and bribes !
labobo 1 month ago
I don't think people should be taxed AT ALL on a recurring basis, and on a project-specific basis (ie,1 time tax to build a hospital) I'd still be cautious. The only reason I'm not against science funding in the US, even though public research institutions spend 10x more to develop something than it would otherwise cost, is because "sf" is like 2% of our budget. Taxes go to wars (mil-ind complex), supporting deadbeats, overpaid useless public sector workers, and unsustainable pensions...
martydrooo 1 month ago
@martydrooo Can you point me to a peer-reviewed reference for your assertion that "public research institutions spend 10x more to develop something than it would otherwise cost"? I'd like to see the piece of research that backs up this figure.
I'm sure that you wouldn't just pluck a figure out of the air in an attempt to back up tired old cliches about the supposed inefficiency of the public sector, would you?
Best wishes,
Philip Moriarty (publicly-funded scientist speaking in video)
Moriarty2112 1 month ago
@Moriarty2112 "you know you're talking to an academic when"...they ask for all info to be peer reviewed, lol.
Look, I'll put it to you like this: I've worked with composite materials; boeing, BMW, NASA, etc. as clients. Oak Ridge Nat. Lab is US Gov funded developer of a lot of related materials and research. We had a similar project related to Torlon applications running simultaneously (almost). We both had the same findings only we spent <$20M; they spent $100Ms (they wont reveal specifics).
martydrooo 1 month ago
@martydrooo
P.S. The *privatised* rail system in the UK is now subsidised from the public purse at a level which is about a factor of five greater than when the UK had a public rail system.
P.P.S. Spend some time doing a little research on the private finance initiative (PFI) in the UK.
P.P. P. S. As a publicly-funded academic my average working week is 60 hrs. As a new lecturer (~ 15 years ago) I regularly worked 80 hour weeks. This is not uncommon in academia. How about you?
Moriarty2112 1 month ago
@Moriarty2112 Sorry, what does privatized rail have to do with anything? This has nothing to do with politics, left wing or otherwise. Japan's public rail went bankrupt before it was privatized - there's always a counter.
Your long hours are only due to inefficiency. A farmer without a tractor puts in longer hours than one with. Khan Academy make 80% of educators redundant. I wouldn't brag about hours because I worked 90+ for 3 years in banking - OK pay, but making pitchbooks no 1 reads sucks
martydrooo 1 month ago
@martydrooo I sincerely hope that critical thinking is not an attribute required by the companies for which you work.
(i) You trot out tired old right wing cliches - "overpaid useless public sector workers", "supporting deadbeats", and that no-one should be taxed "at all" - and then state that "this has nothing to do with politics".
(ii) You state that public research institutions spend "10x more" on R&D and then fail to give any evidence for this other than personal anecdote.
contd..
Moriarty2112 1 month ago
@martydrooo
(iii) You claim that academics' long hours are "only due to inefficiency" when you have zero knowledge of academic workload. Where's your evidence? (And don't give me some simple-minded story about your brother-in-law's best friend being an academic. See (iv) below).
(iv) You assume that personal anecdote (your Torlon applications example) is enough to support an argument.
I can only assume that you've attended the Bill O'Reilly school of reasoned debate...
Philip
Moriarty2112 1 month ago
@Moriarty2112 When you move to personal swipes and allegations of political affiliations, that's when you know you know you have strong basis for you argument, and cannot stand a bruised ego so you offer no compromise. Let's be clear about politics, since you clearly care more about them than the subject at hand: Bill-O and the republicans are as you brits would say, wankers. They are welfare queens like the left, only their deadbeats are military contractors + defense conglomerates contd
martydrooo 1 month ago
@martydrooo "When you move to personal swipes...". Bit of a pot/kettle situtation here! Could I remind you of the comment in your first post where you disparaged "overpaid useless public sector workers" knowing full well that the person speaking in the video is, ermmm, a public sector work.
To quote that wonderful work of fiction, "And why behold you the mote that is in your brother's eye, but consider not the beam that is in your own eye"
!
Philip
Moriarty2112 1 month ago
@Moriarty2112 That, of course, should be "...a public sector worker" in my previous comment.
Moriarty2112 1 month ago
@Moriarty2112 If it's any consolation, I wasn't thinking of you at all when I said "useless public sector employees". I do see why you'd take that as an insult, but in the US, most Unis aren't public, so researchers at Unis weren't really in my train of thought when I said that. I think the bottom line is you actually provide something of value to people, regardless of whether you could do it cheaper. B-crats make obscene amounts of money in the US, rendering nothing of value(not even debatable)
martydrooo 1 month ago
@martydrooo Second, we're arguing public vs private sector efficiency. You have made completely unjustified statements about the former. However much you might want to pretend the "subject at hand" isn't political, it is.
I can give you chapter and verse on statistics regarding the efficiency and return on investment from publicly funded research in the UK. Check out the comments below; search for Moriarty2112; find the relevant papers.
Please return the favour. Where's your evidence?
Moriarty2112 1 month ago
@Moriarty2112 ROI in pure math/sciences research is impossible to gauge. It can be fundamentally essential sometimes, but impossible to gauge. You said it's goal isn't to produce things like spin-offs, etc so measuring it's efficiency/ROI is only in pro-forma (theoretical) form. The fundamental problem with public sector spending is it's people spending money they did not earn themselves -- that's a fundamental philosophical problem. Given the choice of current gross inefficiency+,... contd.
martydrooo 1 month ago
@martydrooo
Post #1 of 3
Entirely, totally agree - ROI on basic research is practically impossible to quantify. It's such a shame that our research councils here in the UK don't share your insight.
Where I don't agree is on the matter of public sector spending. There are many public goods - in both the "egalitarian" and economics (non-excludable, non-rivalrous) sense of the word - which need to be provided via the state: the free market cannot provide them adequately.
...contd
Moriarty2112 1 month ago
@Moriarty2112 An example of unmeasurable ROI was pure math research regarding very complex algorithms for what at the time had zero applications. This was before supercomputers and AI. Now these sets of algorithms are essential for supercomputers to calculate routes, etc. for self driving cars/pods. In a city like New York with millions of potential automated pods, you need a billion dollar super computer to be able to handle running the algorithms, which previously had no application. 1of?
martydrooo 1 month ago
@martydrooo
Post #2 of 3.
These include healthcare, education, and, interestingly, fundamental research. I fundamentally disagree that healthcare and education should be driven by profit. For example, there's been significant debate of late here in the UK on private providers of higher education. As part of this debate, Apollo Group and the University of Phoenix cropped up regularly as particularly disturbing examples of how the profit motive can corrupt higher education.
contd...
Moriarty2112 1 month ago
@Moriarty2112 Nowadays its very hard to differentiate between non-profit and for-profit sometimes. I wont say public vs private because in the US we have a history of Private Unis that were non-profit, as well as charity hospitals( like in the UK). Phoenix and Apollo are just unscrupulous parasites, but then again my alma mater's president took home $3M, and its totally non profit (University of Pennsylvania). Tenured professors there make $400K/pa while doctoral student TAs make $16K/pa. 2of?
martydrooo 1 month ago
@Moriarty2112 I do want to make the point that private and for-profit are not the same thing, at least here in the US. The first mandatory and free public schools in the US were founded/funded by the Massachusetts Bay Colony's textile entrepreneurs simply for the public good, and they did it with their personal funds. Mass. is still one of the richest states because of the strong puritan tradition of charity -- the best hospitals and schools are there and they're privately funded. 3of?
martydrooo 1 month ago
@Moriarty2112 Regarding healthcare are "non-profit" or a public good is tricky as well. It's not free in any case, since the govt has no money, it takes from taxpayers to fund healthcare for them. So, no one is getting a free lunch, and in effect paying for themselves. Non profit hospitals are also tricky because they can claim to be non-profit on paper, but between the expensive proprietary meds, ortho implants, doctors salaries, etc., everyone is profiting handsomely. 4of?
martydrooo 1 month ago
@Moriarty2112 inefficiency+some science funding Vs. no taxes, so no inefficiency in non-science spheres, and no science funding, I'd prefer the latter. People will always want to privately fund science; no one wants to pay the sanitation director of a small California county $800K/pa+pension benefits when his private sector counterpart makes $160K/pa. There's plenty of research out there that shows the brain drain from the private sector to the public is a net loss for science innovation.
martydrooo 1 month ago
@martydrooo
Post #3 of 3.
People will not always want to privately fund science. The idea that public funding crowds out private funding is far from well-established. True innovation - as opposed to market-led incremental improvements - stems from blue skies research, not near-market R&D. The private sector is increasingly not interested in funding basic research (e.g. Bell Labs).
If you can point me to the research which shows the brain drain effect you mention, I'd appreciate it.
Moriarty2112 1 month ago
@Moriarty2112 I think people will never want to pay for things they think someone else will pick up the tab for. Science funding is probably the favorite philanthropic category of the super-wealthy. Carnegie's science funding was legendary. And while I agree that most companies want to only make small increments to sell the same tech for as long as possible (Iphone 1,2,3,4,5), there are huge financial incentives for whomever jumps the status quo. Apple monetizing xerox tech is a good example.5/?
martydrooo 1 month ago
@Moriarty2112 Next, it's not about public vs private, it's about bureaucracy, cost controls, and incentives. I've seen start-ups do on shoe string budgets what Big Auto Co.s spent billions on. Likewise, I've seen independent researchers do for pennies on the dollar what a big Uni would spend millions on. By useless public employee I mean not so much guys like you, but b-crats in Cali making 6 figures, 2x as they would at private Co.s. Find "The Myth of Science as a Public Good " here on YT.
martydrooo 1 month ago
@martydrooo ..and here is where we agree. Are there inefficient public sector reseachers and academics? Of course. But then there are countless others who work their arses off, as efficiently as they can. This is borne out by, e.g. the research assessment exercise in the UK.
Similarly, are there countless committed, highly motivated and efficient private sector workers? Of course there are. But there are slackers as well.
Moriarty2112 1 month ago
@Moriarty2112 The problem lies in the system of checks and balances. The reason there are so many white collar employees unemployed nowadays is because of efficiency freak managers (who themselves get fired by efficiency crazed higher-up managers). It's a common paradigm with researchers/academics(at public and private Unis) for them to care more about their financial lifestyle than research after they get over their youthful enthusiasm (which it seems like you still have);status quo mentality.
martydrooo 1 month ago
@martydrooo I agree entirely with you on this point. UK universites are now riven with a focus on commercial exploitation of results.
As regards the "status quo" mentality, I'm of the opinion that this is actually worse in academia - which traditionally had the role of speaking "truth to power" - than in other sectors. I'm fed up to the hind teeth of being told by (some) colleagues that it's pointless challenging the status quo - one just has to "play the game"...
All the best,
Philip
Moriarty2112 1 month ago
@Moriarty2112 I will find some brain drain research. I do think it sucks though that the graphene nobel prize winners and their Unis get nothing really, while private industry will get Billions, if not trillions, monetizing this tech. One book I recommend with all my heart is "Colossus: How the Corporation Changed America". Get it used for cheap on Amazon. It's purely anthropological with no ideology. It has brain drain research in it. Academia is def the worst when it comes to...contd 6/7
martydrooo 1 month ago
@Moriarty2112 the status quote mentality, because what options do academics have? I detested the fact that my old employer sold decades old technology and wouldn't accept my offer to help them modernize, so some colleagues and I left and started our own firm. At Unis, most strive for tenure. I don't blame them, who doesnt want stability? But in our start-up culture they strive for stock options, so they have the option to leave and start their own thing if they don't like how things are going.
martydrooo 1 month ago
@Moriarty2112 All the best to you and your family as well. For the record, I think I'd support a technocracy. My problem with academia is how hierarchical it is, and if you don't like it, what do you do, start your own university? Because that same hierarchy exists everywhere. I think maybe some pure researchers and applied sciences researchers should start a company that makes profits on the applied sciences, and funds the pure research with them. No more councils to beg for money.
martydrooo 1 month ago
@martydrooo You're clearly smart enough to realise that blanket statements such as "overpaid useless public sector workers" is a sweeping and entirely unhelpful generalisation. This is what got my goat in your original comment.
But you're entirely correct about O'Reilly. He is, indeed, a total wanker. We have a greater foe to fight - let's not bicker amongst ourselves!
All the best,
Philip
Moriarty2112 1 month ago
@Moriarty2112 Also just to give you an idea of my family background, both parents and 2 grandparents are pure math Ph.D's. My grandfather on my mother's side has a Ph.D in Physics. Just saying that I come from a really academic family and even though I didn't go as far as they did with education, I've never been an outsider looking in to the academic world.
martydrooo 1 month ago
7:50 I love how clear his frustration in here.
RasmusLastname 1 month ago
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zurechtweiser 1 month ago
This has been flagged as spam show
It doesn't take long to figure out that revolutionary and groundbreaking discoveries are not going to appear that way in advance: to know that something would change everything, we'd already have to know what it was, and then it wouldn't change everything.
I studied physics for two years before wimping out a bit and finishing in history, but history offers one key lesson in this regard: all the most important things that ever happened were a surprise to people at the time.
aluisious 1 month ago
@aluisious What do you mean by that, on which side of the coin are you?
zurechtweiser 1 month ago
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aluisious 1 month ago
Professor Moriarty, I take my hat off to you. I think there are plenty of scientists out there who feel the same way but can't speak up because it would cost them their job. Thank you for standing up for science.
ashwinnarayanVlog 2 months ago
@ashwinnarayanVlog you did not have a hat in the first place.
zurechtweiser 1 month ago
@zurechtweiser I have an imaginary one. Isn't that sufficient? ;)
ashwinnarayanVlog 1 month ago
sad, you accuse me of not reading your comment correctly but i have it here, copy n pasted,-- "Wow it's really tedious deciphering your illiterate provincial small minded drivel. The reason "most of the people in dublin arent even irish" is because they can wash themselves and don't have haircuts from the 1960s. You should stay in the bog it's the best place to keep livestock and you won't be confused by anyone with an education or taste. You fucking lame redneck cunt."
lazyguitarista1 3 months ago
I didnt suggest you addressed it to me but it does expose you for the bigoted douche-bag you really are.
lazyguitarista1 3 months ago
When war happen. Human blame science for pollute our morale but actually politicians misuse and turn science into weapon and make science looks bad. I don't think politicians is qualify enough to judge what budget to be cut for whatever science field. Why not try cut their own politicians salary first?
kf160k160 3 months ago
such a great guy, fully agree
managarm1349 4 months ago
I have not seen a youtube video with this amount of passion in it for a long time. when Brady asked one of the questions you could almost hear anger or disagreement in his tone.
warrmr 4 months ago
Got about 2 mins in, but couldn't help trying to solve all the equations on the whiteboard.
mick4711 4 months ago
Scientists want money for doing nothing that can be immediately used. Scientists, if you like science so much why don't you do it for free in your spare time and have an occupation like being a plumber? You demand money for your hobby. There is nothing wrong with liking science but don't expect people who are actually working and being paid based on outcome to accept paying for your hobby!
zurechtweiser 4 months ago
@zurechtweiser Krhm... Science has a social responsibility, to make human lives better technologically, medically, philosophically, sociologically.
Market values divide us.
mrteemumilto 4 months ago
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@mrteemumilto Science has no social responsibility, one of millions of tests might maybe make one or two human lives better technologically and medically. It is enough what has already been achieved.
zurechtweiser 4 months ago
@zurechtweiser You're really stupid, why don't you go back to your bleepy games and just leave the thinking to those capable of the job. Honestly you burger flippers do inhale the wierdedest fumes. Trot on.
nilbud 3 months ago
@zurechtweiser
Uhu, so unless it can be used immediatley, it's not worth researching?
If we all thought that way, then i doubt we would have discovered more than throwing rocks.
Gunpowder was discovered/created and didn't have much use. Then someone found a use and made fireworks. From that came explosives.
And in the quest to find better, more powerfull explosives we made a whole bunch of discoveries.
From Rocket fuel to nuclear reactors.
(slightly exagurated, but point is still valid)
mastastimpy 4 months ago
@mastastimpy I am asking myself what the avail of convincing you of the truth might be. Neither are you deciding about who gets money nor are you a scientist who could get money.
zurechtweiser 4 months ago
@zurechtweiser If you really think of scientists that way, you have absolutely no idea what science is. Model trains is a hobby. Golf is a hobby. Painting is a hobby. Playing with a chemistry kit is a hobby. Science, however, is not a hobby. You're either ill-informed about what science is or you're just trolling here.
billyboy4 4 months ago
@billyboy4 you know shit about science, you are just an ordinary troll. That's all.
zurechtweiser 4 months ago
@zurechtweiser
If everyone in the past took that attitude took that attitude then we would still be banging rocks together today.
If it wasn't for scientific development you wouldn't be able to type that comment out, no computers, internet, electricity, cars/transport, we wouldn't have gone to the moon, we wouldn't have any manufactured goods (aka. everything).
Muttyfut 2 months ago
@Muttyfut I disagree. You can not desire what you don't know. If people stopped developing today you would not miss anything as you didn't know about the opportunities. Today you might miss your mobile phone(I don't have one) if you lost it. But if you didn't know that mobile phones existed, well, the world would still rotate. Just look at some tribes in africa who know nothing about electronics they don't miss it.
zurechtweiser 2 months ago
@zurechtweiser
So you cannot desire that your children don't die of disease, when you don't know of vaccination or real working drugs?
If there weren't any birds or insects, you cannot desire to fly?
Without having seen even something like a telephone, you cannot desire to talk with a friend who lives in another country?
Science has provided in this need (and created previously unimaginable avenues of technology), but it's NOT the other way around.
alhobbel 1 month ago
@alhobbel I don't and won't have children because I decide against them. I don't care about other people's children. Also you missed my point. I am saying to stop funding right here, not development itself. Also death first and foremost is not the worst thing that can happen, you make it the worst even though you don't know what comes after. Vaccination has already been invented and is being used by doctors, who get paid to heal, a real outcome. You mix up a lot of things my friend.
zurechtweiser 1 month ago
@zurechtweiser
Sorry, I should have understood that you meant 'please read my mind' instead of the sentence perfectly parseable in English 'You cannot desire what you don't know'.
Anyway, I regard comments like 'I don't care about other people's children' plus the video featured on your account 'Warum Frauen Vasalle sind' (why women are akin to vassals) as decidedly anti-social. You will find not a great many people agree with you on this: go ask your guru Eckhart Tolle.
Bye now.
alhobbel 1 month ago
@alhobbel You have huge issues accepting that you are on the wrong path. I feel sorry for you.
zurechtweiser 1 month ago
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@alhobbel You mentioned "Warum Frauen Vasalle sind". Sadly you didn't understand that either. It's not entertaining to meet people like you all the time who lack knowledge, compassion and intelligence.
zurechtweiser 1 month ago
@alhobbel If being anti-social means not being liked by you I can live very well with that title.
zurechtweiser 1 month ago
@Muttyfut There is one legitimate use of science ironically: correcting mistakes science made. Correcting limit values for radiation for instance. If people lived only for 20 years that would be normal then. Noone would complain. Maybe death would be treated differently in science if it was happening normally at age 20. Today we cannot reverse desires. As we know that mobile phones exist we cannot destroy all mobile phones and pretend they were never there.
zurechtweiser 2 months ago
@Muttyfut But we can avoid creating new things that create desire OR we create new things in our free time.
zurechtweiser 2 months ago
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zurechtweiser 4 months ago
Don't rant on funding. Be happy that the right-wing political forces don't just kick you asses out on the street and turn the campus into a brothel.
mrteemumilto 4 months ago
University is not a granted or secure privilege of the academics. Don't take it for granted. There have been times when none of it was even tolerated let alone funded. In our lifetimes, we could be making 'science' in our own basements due to the lack of mutual organizations.
mrteemumilto 4 months ago
@mrteemumilto Why a brothel?
zurechtweiser 4 months ago
@zurechtweiser Maybe a theme park or a shopping center would more profitable?
mrteemumilto 4 months ago
@mrteemumilto A supermarket would be the best.
zurechtweiser 4 months ago
Last Saturday it was July at 2. It was my Daddy's Birthday.
That's what the whiteboard said. :3
PullarBearBear 4 months ago
Makes more sense for science to be funded completely privately anyway.
I think there's a statistic somewhere showing that government funding actually causes private research to be invested in less - by a higher amount dollar per dollar than the government pays.
But anyway this gets around the problem you mentioned because private businesses will generally be asking the scientists where the big ideas are and deciding which could become marketable products (i.e. actually useful).
sharperguy 4 months ago
@sharperguy I don't think this does get around the problem, it would only support the short term financially driven research which was one of the issues outlined in the vid.
livesforcake 4 months ago
@livesforcake This is true to some extent but really to make any decent discoveries you need scientists who are in the loop with the latest cutting edge research. Businesses might like their scientists to be working always on only what will make money in the short term but really it doesn't work that well. If it did then why would we need general research anyway?
sharperguy 4 months ago
@sharperguy That's just a pack of lies, stop being so gullible FFS.
nilbud 3 months ago
@nilbud Because that disproves my point effectively.
sharperguy 3 months ago
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sharperguy 4 months ago
(for the record, I'm aware that I'm simplifying somewhat and not dealing with all the issues - there's just nowhere near enough room in 500 characters for a thorough response)
soundofgeek 4 months ago
I'm with Phil, personally. Letting scientists freely determine their own funding would indeed be subject to the "kids with lots of money" criticism, but letting scientists freely determine each other's funding collaboratively is very hard to beat as a system for resource allocation. To me it makes sense for decisions to be made by people who actually understand them, and history does clearly teach that we can't usually predict what will and won't be important.
In other words, go Phil!
soundofgeek 4 months ago 2
Some valuable science getting done on that white board....can you get a grant for mindless scribbling.
ARCHERDAVE1 4 months ago
@ARCHERDAVE1 "MIndless scribbling" to you, perhaps. My daughters are rather proud of their "artwork"!
Best wishes,
Philip
Moriarty2112 4 months ago 24
@Moriarty2112 Ahh caught me trolling. No offense, my friend it was only a failed attempt at humor.
ARCHERDAVE1 4 months ago
brady, if you got to talk to the head of the EPSRC i would love you. i'll write the letter for you! and phil!!! loved it. i compleatly agree with you.
redpill1984 4 months ago
4:38
Just like that song from Dead Kennedys
"Pull down your dress here's a kick in the ass."
Give this man a merit of honour.
Draxis32 4 months ago
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Draxis32 4 months ago
Phil's key insight is that this change turns the universities into subsidised R&D for industry. This of course opens up fantastic money making opportunities for the bureaucrats who make the decisions and the industries who incentivise them.
chrisofnottingham 5 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
So how can I donate a dollar to Nottingham in hopes other people will do the same?
TheAdrenalineJunky 5 months ago 3
brady is AMAZING! superb interviewing skills, scintillatingly incisive and smart questions. become a documentary film maker! (if you aren't already)! and please DO interview the head of EPSRC and the prime minister!
neurocrater 5 months ago 27
@neurocrater Every answer he got was no, absolutely not.
mrteemumilto 4 months ago
The politicians and the economists need to leave science to the scientists. After all, if the politicians and the economists focused on doing their job well, we wouldn't be in this financial crisis in the first place. The Professor has some balls, speaking out like that. Balls of sterling silver. God bless.
king0fheart 5 months ago
Thesis (spending funds)....Antithesis (granting funds)..... Synthesis (this wonderful video...)
cloverleaf4all 5 months ago
The MOST dramatic changes being made by EPSRC are those to the mathematical sciences. A lot (I think almost all, actually) funding is being withdrawn from pure mathematics and being entirely given to applied mathematics and statistics. What they don't understand, as you say, is that so many advances are made by investigating things that we may not have any applications for at the time.
The amount of damage this will do cannot be explained with 500 characters.
jamma246 5 months ago
I like the drawings on the board behind him... lol
altoputz 5 months ago
God I love this guy.
brilliantfranz 5 months ago
If you think the UK is bad for this, just imagine being in the US where the political system makes every effort it can to make your funding directly proportional to how well your research backs up superstition. Case in point: The SSC, the Superconducting Supercollider. Everything seemed to be going well...and then one politician flat-out asked "will you find god?". Obviously not. Suspicious, then, that the funding was immediately cut. Completely. Killing the project.
1RadicalOne 5 months ago
Excellent video, keep up the good work!
Stickalas 5 months ago
I have been reading all of Doyle's "Holmes" stories lately, what does the Professor think about being named Moriarty? I think its just brilliant. Prof. Moriarty!!! Holmes' genius arch enemy!! Is he actually a criminal mastermind as well? Just kidding! <3
mccdotedu 5 months ago
I really enjoyed this video...I encourage you to create more videos like this from time to time! Keep up the good work.
FearMonstro 5 months ago 2
think of Einstein being ordered to justify the economics rationale behind SR/GR in the 1910's... "That's GPS sir !"
Bite hard the hand that feeds and don't let bureaucracy eat science ! good luck.
taraz3d 5 months ago 4
I have an idea let's make a country full of scientist and people who like science. So the gov't cat get tech anymore and we can and once we outdate the current tech...we invade the entire world with our new tech!
kitzenmovies 5 months ago
You know what? If the industry and the market are allowed to dictate what scientists should be researching based on the economic means of the research. You can guess how our scientists will react?
NO is simply the answer, we wont do it. Do you believe we are one trick ponies?
No, i do science based on that one simple precedence Phil outlines above, because it is my work! There are not many rewards to a modern scientist, but conducting ones own studies is one of them, dont take that away
darcynshit 5 months ago
@darcynshit I only wish that were the case. The most dispiriting aspect of this "battle" with the research councils is that so many academics, particularly those in senior positions who have the "clout" to at least attempt to drive change, adopt a "Best not to rock the boat, let's keep our heads down and play the game" stance.
I've been told on a number of occasions that criticising the resarch councils is pointless - we've simply got to do as we're told and try to play the system.
Philip
Moriarty2112 5 months ago
Excellent video. I wish more people understood that governments rarely have the insight to make informed decisions on such matters. In general, I believe governments should play a minimal role in daily life. Leave it up to the free market to decide. Those closer to the issues have the knowledge needed to make the best decisions.
peon17 5 months ago
@peon17 Let the free market decide? were you listening to the video? This was a video advocating government funding of research, as opposed to private funding, because the market will only fund research that has obvious applications. The criticism being made of government funding was not that government funding exists, more the opposite, it was that the government shouldn't try to influence the research agenda but should allow scientists to go where their curiosity takes them.
wowsa0 5 months ago
@peon17 It isn't as simple as that. Governments have to intervene in the funding of scientific research because the free market would not provide enough due to it's public good characteristics. What that means is once research is undertaken everyone can benefit from it even those that didn't pay for it so there is an incentive not to pay for it. The issue here is that while government needs to ensure funding is provided they are not in a position to decide what research is most valuable.
UriaHammonRaviel 4 months ago
Who's been drawing stick figures all over you whiteboard?
InterCityKings 5 months ago 2
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The West is sliding off the cliff, our institutions dissolving right before our eyes, our countries filling up with foreigners that show no ability nor inclination toward the enlightenment principles we whites embraced through torturous fits and starts over several centuries, even millennia; yet this smart guy is crying as if the civilization underpinning science is a given. Your grandchildren suffering in Englandistan will rightly curse your blind weakness. Speak truth to power my ass.
TulliusVII 5 months ago
@O1dGreg Athletes are essential to the advance of.. oh, wait, they're not, nevermind!
TixTipx 5 months ago
I'm sure he's a great scientist, but on economics? Not so good.
bartj777 5 months ago
@bartj777 How come?
bogieharmond 5 months ago
@bartj777 Hi there. OK, explain to me where he economic arguments are lacking? Are you familiar with the work of Richard R Nelson, Paul David, and/or the Salter and Martin paper to which I refer in the video?
Fundamental scientific research is a public good, in the economist's sense (i.e. non-excludable and non-rivalrous). Eric Maskin, economics Nobel laureate, makes the important point that a competitive market is ill-suited to the provision of public goods.
Philip (speaking in video)
Moriarty2112 5 months ago
@bartj777 ..contd. In addition, if you Google "Nottingham Nanoscience Group" and click on "Publications" on our home page, you'll find links to the papers I list in the next post where I critique the economic arguments in detail. One of those papers is a "spat" with Terence Kealey, VC of the University of Buckingham and a free market ideologue. Please let me know where I've got the economic arguments wrong - the more debate there is about this, the better.
Philip
Moriarty2112 5 months ago
@Moriarty2112 On another note, I also don't like political involvement in science because it tends to "pollute" science with political agendas. I don't know about the UK, but in the US if your research can be used militarily in any way your chances of funding increase.
bartj777 5 months ago
@bartj777 ..contd. The papers are as follows. All available for free from the Nottingham Nanoscience group's website.
"Public Science - Public Good?", Nanotech. Perceptions 6 75 (2010)
"Reclaiming academia from post-academia", Nature Nanotech. 3 60 (2008)
"Should the direction of researtch be democratised?", Science and Publc Affairs, p.4 (Sept. 2008)
Best wishes,
Philip
Moriarty2112 5 months ago
@Moriarty2112 Well basically the problem is one of regulation. Prices, profits and property rights regulate human action and when you disconnect these and substitute regulation by committee you have removed the feedback loop. Without market feedback there's no objective way to determine if scarce resources are being used efficiently and how they should be allocated. I think the assumption that this can be done through central planning without market regulation is not sound.
bartj777 5 months ago
@bartj777 This assumes that you're deaing with a non-public good. If the good is public - i.e. non-excludable and non-rivalrous (as I say in one of my previous comments) - then property rights, for one, are a moot point. This is why trying to attach IPR to what should essentially be a public good - "knowledge" -is so problematic.
We're not going to make much progress via 500 char. comments. I make more nuanced arguments in the papers cited below. Have a look at those and then PM me.
Moriarty2112 5 months ago
@bartj777 How so?
ThirstyJuicebox2 5 months ago
One of the prime examples of what the Prof. is talking about would be this tool which we all are using at the moment; the Web. I doubt any committee could've foreseen Tim Berners-Lee doodling away in his spare time at CERN and coming up with the most (socio-)economically important invention of our time. Furthermore, science is as much about disproving ideas as it is about proving your hypothesis and you'll know that only after gathering the empirical evidence -> fundamentally different from R&D.
lexagon 5 months ago
Hear hear!
LiiMuRi 5 months ago
Sounds like it's going down an ugly path?!
Wonderful discussion.
ncfatcyclist 5 months ago
I wholeheartedly agree with the good Prof's view on the 'impact statement' thing. Science is exploration, not a business venture.
ifsey 5 months ago
An utterly interesting insight. I did ponder on some of those questions asked in the video and I came so quite similar results (nontheless Prof Moriarty really nailed them).
taktflows 5 months ago
"Professor Philip Moriarty (...) has been awarded a five-year £1.53M ($3M) grant" !!
molecularassembler(dot)com(slash)Nanofactory(slash)Media(slash)PressReleaseAug08(dot)htm
paweloyama 5 months ago
Comment removed
paweloyama 5 months ago
Could Phil run for election for some kind of political office which would allow him to change the funding process back to normal?
TeslaRifle 5 months ago
"... and therefor we should not predetermine what we are trying to do except to find out more about it" - Richard Feynman
Mengsky83 5 months ago
@Mengsky83 You're quoting a scientific, and the council doesn't seem to care about science so maybe you should quote Ford, Edison or another relatively scientific business man instead! :-P
TixTipx 5 months ago
GOOD FOR YOU!!
Scientists aren't meant to roll over and do what they're told.
If they did, we wouldn't have half of the technology and knowledge that we have today.
Even though I'm a biological anthropology student physics blows my mind :)
It explains everything. Literally.
TheErinTaylor 5 months ago 2
Are you allowed to accept private funding? If so, can private individuals or groups make donations? No "strings" attached.
fegolem 5 months ago
I felt the two most important points worth taking note of here were:
Science should be pushing the boundry of knowledge, not just R&D.
_Informed_ democracy (peer rewiev and grants) is better than uninformed or partially informed dictation (a counsel of politicians).
There was something else also, but i forgot. If you could summarize three very strong points like this, condense them to one sentence, and then list them at the end (and in video description), it would give it a heavier impact. :)
gulllars 5 months ago
Socialistic Democracy, IT JUST WORKS!
madjimms 5 months ago
science == pr0n
AntiProtonBoy 5 months ago
Phil, PEOPLE LOVE SIXTY SYMBOLS. The videos are an incredible asset to the entire world and Meghan is eye candy to boot!
I would rather pay my monthly cable bill (110 USD$ minus the expense for TeeVee... so 65 USD$ a month) to watch Sixty Symbols. I know you can make this profitable and possible. I don't even have a college degree but I so much appreciate the videos Sixty Symbols shares!
SabibabyS 5 months ago
Why not have both systems one part of academic research for "product development" and an other part for scientific objectives. Could be 50/50 or 25/75
MaCs1313 5 months ago
everyone please google ron paul and learn about his beliefs
PerfectRunner 5 months ago
The people keep voting for idiots, the idiots in the government keep spending too much money, and the world is going broke. Its the just reality now. Tell the people to stop voting for people who think the government needs to be our nannies and maybe there would be money for research.
Xraller 5 months ago
awesome video. I love how near the end of the video you were able to play the role of your detractors.
AtheistKharm 5 months ago
If Professor Moriarty is punished for speaking out, Please get the news out. I know I personally would write to whoever was taking such unjustified action. I'm behind you guys all the way. Keep science free, unbiased, and well funded!
me835 5 months ago
its sad the effort of all the great persons who swet for science, destroyed by stupid business person, who only engrave the world as it is with its corruption, and support to war and entertainment stupid stuff.
champignones 5 months ago
Love it, love it, love it when you guys tackle the controversial issues. My roommate feels pretty strongly about the wisdom of the free market. I'm still learning about markets, subsidizing, market forces, government spending, you name it. But I love to hear from my roommate about economics, and I'm glad that you have explored the topic, too.
heyandy889 5 months ago
good luck!
STHayden 5 months ago
Ahh the UK and all the systems that make so much sense... (not that any other country has it right). Lets spend billions on teachers, doctors, and our badass scientists... Not our athletes playing games, or the gov officials that don't even entertain us.
O1dGreg 5 months ago 44
@O1dGreg Hear, hear! I couldn't agree more!
acs197 5 months ago
The absolute last thing we need in science is the free market coming in and destroying long term research scientists do in order to make a quick buck.
Marketing is about skewing results to make sales. Do they think products actually look the same as the do in ads? This kind of nonsense is absolutely incompatible with science. If this happens scientific progress in the UK will be destroyed and replaced with well packaged nice looking garbage. Ugh this makes me furious.
sofiarune 5 months ago 5
make science not war!
less invasions, more equations!
LOSTKILLERDRAENEI 5 months ago 4
PPPPPPPPPPPPPPHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!
MurCurieux 5 months ago
I LOVE his face when hes contemplating putting a billion pounds into the lab.
wyvernlord23 5 months ago
YES! absolutely 100% right! I couldn't agree more. Science funding is just about the very last thing that should be cut. There are countless examples of wasteful spending, foolish subsidies, and hopeless or damaging efforts (war, etc) that eat up orders of magnitude more money than science funding does. Science is probably the main driver that moves society forward, and if we knew what the results of research would be before we did it, it wouldn't be research now would it?
PBDPBD 5 months ago 4
@PBDPBD I would mention in the UK you found homeopathy I believe. Please cut that lol.
braedencowbrough 5 months ago
What did I did tell you about those Negative Waves Moriarty!
MadPuppets1 5 months ago
anyone heard of Libbypwns?????
eraf 5 months ago
I think one day you will interview the Prime Minister!
I can't wait!
culwin 5 months ago
I saw many comments related to that subject before, it's great to see the view of scientists explained in more detail in vid.
Daggawaggaboof 5 months ago
I feel so awesome for being only 14, yet watching through this entire video AND replaying the parts I didn't get until I understood about 99.7% of what he is saying :D
ddr9248 5 months ago
Without science, we're not much more than hairless monkeys bumbling about aimlessly in this universe.
bb1televator 5 months ago 2
@bb1televator No we ARE not much more than hairless monkeys bumbling about aimlessly, science doesn't change that. The scary thing is that without science, we don't KNOW that we're all hairless monkeys scrambling over a lump of rock, we think that we are special divine creations, or that some monkeys are superior to others, and this can lead to some pretty crazy things, in which a lot of hairless monkeys wind up dead.
wowsa0 5 months ago 3
Phil: you need to get out in the media and talk about this. You understand the political dynamics behind scientific funding and people really need to hear your point of view on this because as it stands right now, people see us as "biased, self-interested money pits".
leptonsoup337 5 months ago 5
"Last satbay
it was July 9th
It was my
baRby's Birthbay"
biain93 5 months ago